SENCO Bulletin – 3December 2013

December already! How did that happen?

Our autumn term INSET programme has been action packed. We have been delighted to see so many of you on our courses and the evaluations have been overwhelmingly positive so we think we’re hitting most of the right notes. Of course, there is always room for improvement and we always read your comments carefully and use them to inform future course design. The INSET programme is always under review and we aim to provide training on pertinent subjects. There are some massive changes on the horizon and the INSET team have their collective ears to the ground for any further news on the Code of Practice. Several things are already shouting at us … here are a few for you to think about …

  • the shift away from IEPs to provision mapping – ‘provision maps are a powerful way of showing all the provision that the school makes which is additional to and different from that which is offered through the school’s differentiated curriculum. The use of provision maps helps SENCOs to maintain an overview of the collective programmes of individual children and young people and provides a basis for monitoring the levels of intervention and assessing their impact on progress’ (page 77)
  • the emphasis on the quality of classroom teaching – ‘High quality teaching, differentiated for individual pupils, is the first step in responding to pupils who have or may have SEN. Additional intervention and support cannot compensate for a lack of good quality teaching’ (page 71)
  • the P Scales are staying – as far as we can make out!

As always, we want solutions and helpful resources. Here are our suggestions for your December reading …

We are fans of Jean Gross’s book ‘Beating Bureaucracy in Special Educational Needs: 2nd Edition’ (Routledge, 2013). It addresses all aspects of provision mapping and, even better, is very easy to read. There is a fantastic toolkit of resources that you can download from

Sarah Herbert’s book ‘The Inclusion Toolkit’ (Sage Publications, 2011) is another great book with all sorts of ideas for classroom differentiation. (I met her at a meeting at the Institute of Education last week and she is a really nice lady! Vivien).

The Teachers’ Pocketbooks series has a very good little book just called ‘Differentiation’ – it is packed with good ideas.

The P Scales look like they are here to stay for a while.

We are running our ‘Using the P Scales to (im)prove progress’again next term at Chelmsford FC on 29 January 20014/3 March 2014(2 half days). You can book a place via the usual website . This course would also work very well for clusters of SENCOs or even to kick start whole school awareness of good practice and robust assessment methods. E mail to discuss possibilities. We have run this course three times now and have used some moderation paperwork that seems to be well received. Visit Useful Resources on the SENCO Bulletin page to see the moderation forms for Writing P1-3 and P4-8. The intention is to put the whole lot of these on the new SEN/AEN website next term sometime.

The ‘Softly, softly’ course looks at assessment and recording methods for qualitative data. This half day course is running on the morning of Thursday 12 December 2013 at Chelmsford FC. We talk about the idea of lateral progress on our P Scales course and one of the aims of ‘Softly, softly’ is to give you the confidence to present qualitative data in order to give explanations for why a pupil may appear to be ‘stuck’. This is nothing to do with low expectations!

Chris Perkins told us about the Scope website. It looks great. All the P Scales for all the subjects all in one place! The website has an analysis of the P scales in relation to different types of SEN (ie the challenges/possible solutions).

This link takes you to P4, but the menu on the left of the screen (under Stages of Learning) gives the full range

There was obviously nothing much on the TV that evening, so Chris explored a bit more and found some more resources on the Scope website called ‘Learning Together’. They look very user-friendly for schools.

Here is the main link to the complete resource:

The draft code contains a list of useful websites (page 81) and it makes mention of the NASEN website. They have developed an ‘SEN Gateway’ to help teachers and SENCOs access a range of information, training and resources. The NASEN materials are always good. The SEN Gateway will provide a ‘one stop shop’ – so no need to spend hours navigating your way through complicated websites!

Check things out on

NASEN has also produced a really useful little leaflet that sums up all the developments so far.

The SEND Update leaflet can be found under Useful Resources on the SENCO Bulletin page.

INSET News

The INSET programme for the spring term is shaping up well. All the courses are already on the website.

Our round of SENCO up-date meetings is taking place the week before the February half term – we will use these meetings to make sure SENCOs are up to speed with all the forthcoming changes.

We have our usual menu of ‘Include me in’ courses for teachers, SENCOs and TAs who are teaching/supporting pupils with complex needs. This term we are covering:

  • Hearing Impairment
  • Physical and Neurological Impairment
  • Autism, Significant Learning Difficulties
  • Speech & Language
  • Down Syndrome.

The Speech & Language team have really gone to town and are presenting courses on:

  • Language groups
  • Phonological awareness for children with reading difficulties
  • SLCN awareness
  • Let’s get communicating (for TAs new to the role of supporting pupils with Speech & Language difficulties)

We have a suite of courses on various aspects of dyslexia. These cover assessment, maths, literacy and an additional session on spelling. The flyer can be found under Courses on the SENCO Bulletin page.

There is a great deal of excitement about the 10 week course:

‘Developing Advanced Skills in supporting pupils with Autism’

Ofqual have approved this as an OCN Level 3 course. We have been talking to OCN and are hoping to get some more courses written to fulfil the Level 3 criteria. The introductory session is a twilightand runs at Chelmsford FC on 17th December and the course runs for most of the Tuesday afternoons in the spring term. The accreditation is optional and covered in the cost of the course – we would encourage you to have a go at gaining the accreditation though! The flyer can be found under Courses on the SENCO Bulletin page.

Visit for more details on content, costs, venues, etc.

We are hatching more plans for the spring and intend to run a series of conferences for TAs on how to develop their interactions with pupils. This is the ‘practice’ bit identified in Peter Blatchford’s follow up book to the DISS project – ‘Maximising the Impact of Teaching Assistants’. This is worth a read too!

We would not recommend that you put these books on your Christmas list though – much better to have a nice bottle of wine or some expensive perfume!

Best wishes, The INSET Team.