Special Educational Needs Blog

Hot on the heels of the 2 reports mentioned last month to do with behaviour and exclusions, (Improving Alternative Provision, Charlie Taylor, The Government’s Expert Adviser on Behaviour, and“They never give up on you”, Office of the Children’s Commissioner, School Exclusions Inquiry), came 2 more related documents, published in April by the DfE: a second report by Charlie Taylor, this time on Improving attendance at school  and Behaviour and discipline in schools – A guide for head teachers and school staff.

Improving attendance at school

In his letter to Charlie Taylor (16.04.12) accepting his report, Michael Gove agrees that the focus should shift to instilling good habits in primary aged pupils.  The secretary of state adds that he is seeking to amend the Pupil Registration Regulations, so that the rules about granting leave of absence are strengthened. Charlie’s recommendations include Ministers paying more attention to improving the attendance of vulnerable groups in primary schools as well. 

Behaviour and discipline in schools

At much the same time as Charlie’s 2nd report appeared, Behaviour and discipline in schools – A guide for head teachers and school staff was published. This is not to be confused with a document of the same name dated January 2012, which mentioned there would be a further update shortly. Happily, the latest Guide says there will not be a further review until March 2013. Apart from this change of date, the only other difference seems to be in Section 30: Confiscation of inappropriate items, which has been updated to take account of new regulations issued this year.

In addition, the DfE has published Ensuring good behaviour in schools, which is described as ‘A summary for head teachers, governing bodies, teachers, parents and pupils’. It covers much the same ground, but is less legalistic and more reader-friendly.

 Current consultations

 Pupil Referral Units (PRUs) and other forms of Alternative Provision (AP) continue to be in the news. In addition to the consultation mentioned last time, Proposed changes to allow initial teacher training (ITT) in Pupil Referral Units (PRUs) from September 2012, which ends on 25th May, Reform of Alternative Provision, (3rd April to 15th May) follows on from the recommendations in the first of Charlie Taylor’s  reports. The consultation includes PRUs and AP becoming academies and removed from LA control; relaxing restrictions over the length of time pupils should be placed in these provisions; and giving PRUs delegated budgets and control over staffing by Sept 2013.

Visit to Ofsted

During April, a small group of us from the Special Education Consortium (SEC) met with Janet Thompson and Charlie Henry, at which Ofsted confirmed that all inspectors were being given additional training in SEND. In discussion, it came to light that, despite the mass of information Ofsted holds, inspectors don’t always know whether a mainstream school has specialist provision and therefore may fail to include an appropriate inspector on the team. This has arisen partly because of the disappearance of the SEF.  

Both Janet and Charlie were adamant that inspectors use a combination of data, lesson observations and work scrutiny when making judgements about progress. Charlie said he would be very interested in receiving any examples of good practice in explaining how progress is measured to parents of children working below national expectations. For students with SEND, the new Destination Measures being introduced this year, should include how students are being prepared for life beyond school, (eg independent travel, handling money and coping with canteen meals etc), as well as providing information on the courses taken, whether they were completed, and any employment they have had.

We raised the issue of unannounced visits in the Revised Framework for September 2012, (which is just ending its consultation period), making it impossible to prepare pupils who are upset by change. There is considerable pressure, not least from our Association, to give some warning, rather than turning up when the head may be elsewhere, some pupils (as well as staff) go into panic mode and the school is marked down – a very serious outcome in the light of the proposal that ‘satisfactory’ schools should be described instead as ‘requires notice to improve’, even if they are already improving, but not enough to reach the ever higher bar of ‘good’.  

NASUWT publication

NASUWT has published the results of a research project, Reflection, Renewal and Reality: Teachers’ Experience of Special Educational Needs and Inclusion. In it, the following points are sunmmarised:

• A huge variation in identifying SEN, but no evidence that this is due to over-identification.
• The need for the SEN label, when schools have systems for monitoring all pupils, is questioned
• Concern about the conflict between different rates of progress and the expectation that all pupils should be measured in the same way
• Concern re insufficient training
• The variability of LA support and its decreasing ability to support schools

Book launch at Annual Conference

This week, many of us will be wending our way to Harrogate, for the Association’s Annual Conference, at which Paul Williams and I will be launching our book, ‘How successful schools work: the impact of innovative school leadership’. We would like to thank all of you who talked to us, or allowed us to visit your schools and settings  throughout England, Norther Ireland, Scotland and Wales. As advance copies are being flown in from India and Jude Bowen, publisher at SAGE publications (with whom NAHT has a special relationship), will be in attendance,  Paul and I are keeping our fingers crossed that we will be joined by a queue of people during the Saturday lunch break.

And finally……

From a comment made by during the visit to Ofsted, it would seem that the long anticipated Next Steps document to the SEND Green Paper is no longer as imminent as it was……..!