Case Study: New to the SENCO Role Developing a Provision Map

lti_casestudynewtosencorole.doc

Case study: New to the SENCO role – Developing a provision map

Context

Luckwell Primary is a one-form entry primary school with 210 pupils on roll. The majority of the pupils are White British; 7.3% of pupils are eligible for free school meals, and 18% have special educational needs (SEN). Attainment on entry to the school is below average, particularly in language and communication.

Sue Roberts came to Luckwell 5 years ago as deputy head, and took up the role of SEN coordinator (SENCO)3 years later, in 2004. As SENCO, her first step was to seek out appropriate training – SENCO induction training and short courses on a range of different interventions. Among the courses was one on provision mapping. Sue invited a speaker to provide input to a local SENCO network meeting, and worked with a teacher from the local authority (LA) learning support service to develop a way of planning provision that would meet the needs of the school.

Tracking children’s progress

Sue was able to build on an effective and established system for tracking children’s progress. All class teachers monitor children’s progress in terms of National Curriculum sublevels on a termly basis. This information feeds into twice-yearly learning reviews, held for all children. These take place in December (or January in Reception) and July. The December review involves the class teacher, the deputy headteacher/SENCO and the headteacher. In the July reviews, the child’s next class teacher will also join the meeting. The team discusses the successes and difficulties for the child and complete a summary record. They draw on a wide range of data – the Foundation Stage Profile, end-of-key-stage tests, teacher-assessed levels and a range of standardised tests used in different year groups.

Identifying children in need of intervention and making a year group plan

The learning reviews identify children who would benefit from intervention to increase their rate of progress in learning. In July 2005, Sue used the summary records from the learning reviews to complete a must/should/could chart (a sample is available on this CD-ROM) for each year group, showing the provision that the school wanted to make for each child who required intervention.

This allowed her to identify the interventions that her team of teaching assistants would need to deliver in the 2005–06 school year. For each year group, she put together a detailed map of this provision, recording:

• the area for support
• the people involved in delivering the intervention
• how often it would be offered and for how long
• the children who would be targeted.

This working document guides everyday management of the school’s interventions. Appendix A shows an example, for Year 4.

The provision map

The final step for Sue was pulling together each year group’s detailed map into a summary provision map for all year groups (Appendix B). Sue wanted to use the whole-school map as a communication tool – something she could use with parents/carers and with staff to make clear what provision would be available. To help with this, she added information about the entry and exit criteria for each planned provision. She also used the provision map to help manage the budget for intervention, working out the cost of each provision, as a whole and per pupil, using LA-average hourly costs for teaching assistants (TAs) and teachers. Finally, to make her provision map a tool for evaluation as well as planning, for each intervention she added a space for data about children’s progress and for evaluative comments.

The interventions used

When Sue took up her SENCO post, the school was using Early Literacy Support (ELS), Additional Literacy Support (ALS) and a phonics-based programme called Reading Mastery. The provision map now includes other literacy interventions (Catch Up, Direct Phonics) and a number of interventions aimed at developing children’s oral language and social skills. The school is also exploring how they might use the Primary National Strategy (PNS) mathematics Wave 3 materials Supporting children with gaps in their mathematical understanding, and a locally developed mathematics intervention based on Numicon resources.

Luckwell operates six teaching blocks of 5 weeks over the year. Interventions are planned in 10-week blocks.

TAs are not routinely deployed to classes to provide general in-class support. They work mainly on planned time-limited interventions.

The range of interventions now used has meant considerable investment in training, for class teachers but particularly for TAs. They have welcomed this opportunity to extend their already-high levels of expertise. Once TAs have been trained in a particular intervention, they are later observed and coached on the job by a member of the LA support services.

Adjusting provision over the course of the year

Sue uses the December learning reviews to review the provision map put in place at the start of the year. Some interventions will have achieved their aims after a 10-week block, and come off the map for the rest of the year. Some may be extended; new interventions may be added. In this way the map is responsive to the changing needs of the children, as indexed by the termly data on their progress

Evaluating interventions

All the interventions on the provision map are rigorously evaluated. Sue uses standardised reading, spelling and language tests before an intervention begins, and again at the end. Assessment tools used include the tests of phonological awareness from the PNS Playing with Sounds CD-ROM, the Individual Reading Analysis, the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability, the Vernon spelling test, and the Renfrew speech and language scales.

The benefits of provision mapping

Sue feels that developing her provision map took a lot of time initially, but, now that she has developed a system that works for the school, the process will be relatively straightforward in future. The immediate benefits are an increased focus on evaluating the impact of interventions, and clarity for staff and parents about what additional provision the school is able to offer when tracking and monitoring show that children need help to increase their rate of progress. In the longer term, the benefits will be the impact of carefully tailored interventions on standards in the school.

Next steps

Sue is planning to add a movement programme into the provision map, to meet the needs of children with coordination difficulties. Which of the existing interventions go into the next map will depend on outcomes from this year.Interim evaluation has led Sue to reconsider how best to use pre-tutoring (in which the TA prepares children ahead of time for the work they will do in class the next week). She also wants to reconsider one-to-one speech and language therapy programmes (planned by the speech and language therapist and delivered by a TA) and is wondering whether it might be better to support the large numbers of children with language needs by increased training and support for class teachers – so that language work can increasingly be built into everyday practice. She is keen to see her evaluation of Wave 3 provision feed back into Wave 1 teaching, so that children who might be identified as needing extra help can have their needs met more economically and effectively at Wave 1. Sue would also like to develop her costed provision map so that it includes all the additional provision the school makes for underachieving groups – Wave 2, Booster groups, and provision for more-able pupils as well as for those with identified learning difficulties or disabilities.

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lti_casestudynewtosencorole.doc

Appendix A: Additional support 2004–05

YEAR 4

Appendix B Provision map 2005–06

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