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Teacherr, Birmingham (2026)

07/02/2024

Age Related Expected Levels (ARE)

The academic assessment of young people is described in relation to age expected levels of attainment. The government has assigned expected levels of attainment for each Key Stage, EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage), KS1 - 4. Pupils are assigned grades against these expected criteria. A child may be achieving these criteria across a subject and will be described as working at ARE (age expected expectations).
Within the UK there are government guidelines that depict expected levels of attainment for children and young people. Within nursery settings there are Early Learning Goals, within Reception there are the Early Years Foundation Stage targets. Within infant schools there are national curriculum targets, including year 2 phonics test expected levels and SATs tests, junior schools continue with national curriculum expected targets with culminating in Y6 SATs testing. Senior school continue with national curriculum expected targets, culminating in GCSE and subsequent A Level or equivalent qualifications. By noting the expected levels of attainment at the end of each key stage, the route to that achievement was extrapolated down through the year groups, then further delineated through each term and subsequent half term to give very specific expected levels of learning throughout the years of academic education. The grading of each level was initially prescribed through government legislation and therefore this made it easy to compare children of a comparable age between settings as every school setting was using the same system of grading.
A few years ago the system of whole school child attainment grading was loosened slightly – allowing schools to develop their own grading systems. This allowed schools greater flexibly and autonomy in relation to how they undertook this procedure – however for parents it has subsequently made it harder to compare pupils between settings in regards to subtly attainment levels as schools now largely use their different methods to display this information.

It follows then that given a grading and assessment structure, an educational setting at all times is aware of the academic levels of all their children and young people and able to compare these grades both against ARE expectations and moreover the peers in their cohort. Schools therefore have the ability to compare rate of academic progress for their setting population at large, but more interestingly able to track the progress of comparable year group cohorts with each other and delineate specific cohorts within these groups such as boys/girls, pupils receiving pupil premium, children with certain conditions or needs such as speech and language needs, moreover children within specific areas of the graduated approach system. Provision Mapping and subsequent Provision Planning is the mechanism that schools use to both keep tracking of cohort and latter individual pupil attainment – moreover their termly/half termly progress given the interventions that have been prescribed via the Graduated Approach.

https://www.teacherr.uk

06/02/2024

The Graduated Approach

The graduated approach describes how intervention provision prescribed by external professionals beyond Universal Support levels of need are delivered by schools and is graduated into categories – which is dependent upon the needs of the young person. Graduated describes that professional input is accessed in stages - dependent upon need. It follows that the earlier stages need to be completed to then graduate to the higher levels of input.
The graduated approach is classified within the following levels – Universal Support, Targeted Support and Specialist Support. Some schools still use the old ‘Statement’ terminology Wave 1 Support, Wave 2 Support, Wave 3 Support.

The graduated approach is classified within the following levels – Universal Support, Targeted Support and Specialist Support.

https://www.teacherr.uk

06/02/2024

The unavailability of a local authority traded service does not typically negate the duress placed upon a setting to commission required professional advices – if the setting note that a young person has an area of need that requires investigation.

The Special Needs Co-ordinator typically is embedded across all classes and curates the delivery of the interventions necessary to support young people with educational needs - however is sometimes also the role of the SENCo to curate the educational needs of the EAL (English as an additional language) and the gifted & talented children – although this is typically curated within the role of deputy headteacher in most settings.

A SENCo has the requirement to attain the SENCo Award qualification within 3 years of starting in the role. Access to the SENCo course necessitates both a degree and a teaching degree level qualification. In addition a candidate will require a broad range of teaching experience as a foundation to lead in this area. It is interesting to note that most SENCo’s have a mainstream background, however the author had both mainstream and special school teaching/leadership experience.

The role of the SENCo is to know a lot about teaching young people with SEN (Special Educational Needs) however they also need to know that they don’t know; as the “Co” part of the SENCo role is to co-ordinate external professionals to assess and plan (prescribe) provision to be implemented within the setting. External local authority professionals that are expected to be commissioned include SaLT – Speech and Language, Pupil Support – academic teaching and learning, ASD (autistic spectrum disorder) specialists, OT – Occupational Therapist, School Nursing Service, Behaviour Support/ inclusion service.

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The role of a SENCo is to know a lot about teaching young people with SEN however they also need to know that they don’t know; as the “Co” part of the SENCo role is to co-ordinate external professionals to assess and plan (prescribe) provision.

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Many of these services are in the first instance free to a local authority maintained setting at the first point of access, however most local authorities offer a “traded” service where schools are expected to purchase in advance hours of traded time in accordance to the potential needs of the school cohort. Instances where the local authority traded professional is unavailable – a setting has a duress placed upon it to source a private professional to undertake comparable work.

https://www.teacherr.uk

05/02/2024

The Role of the SENCo

A SENCo is a Special Needs Co-ordinator. Sometimes described as a SENDCo, the role is to know a lot about SEN but curate the delivery of the school SEN offer within the setting via staffing and personally, moreover curate the effectiveness these interventions (through provision mapping and commission external advices from appropriate local authority professionals as an integral part of the assess-plan-review cycle within the graduated approach.
It is interesting to note that to become a teacher requires a three year degree and a further year undertaking a teaching qualification and a year post qualification to have the teaching qualification ratified by the school workplace setting - as well as other routes.
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The Special Needs Co-ordinator typically is embedded across all classes and curates the delivery of the interventions necessary to support young people with educational needs.
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Within a classroom setting a teacher will be working collaboratively with class teachers within the same year group and classroom assistants. Depending upon the size of school there may be a head of year and/or deputy head teacher - typically their roles are defined by curating and leading the direction of teaching and learning. The Special Needs Co-ordinator typically is embedded across all classes and curates the delivery of the interventions necessary to support young people with
educational needs - however is sometimes also the role of the SENCo to curate the educational needs of the EAL (English as an additional language) and the gifted & talented children – although this is typically curated within the role of deputy headteacher in most settings.

https://www.teacherr.uk

05/02/2024

Quality First Teaching (QFT) – Whole School Foundations
The concept of QFT is based upon differentiation, inclusion, reasonable adjustments and broad school offer. It is the concept of planning lessons with specific objectives in mind either for the entire group or for specific individual groups within the class cohort. It may be based upon the delivery of a variety of similar themed resources across the class group or specific niche curriculum overlearning depending upon the outcomes expected. QFT relates indeed to the concept of checking in with individuals, small groups and the whole class on regular intervals throughout the lesson to check and share on the ongoing learning journey and to emphasise areas of note and to realign misconceptions about the topic undertaken. QFT relates to pre-teaching subject specific vocabulary and interleaving over-learning, informal and formal assessment from previous lessons embedding and traversing learning to provide deeper meaning and points of reference.

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The concept of QFT is based upon differentiation, inclusion, reasonable adjustments and broad school offer.

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Understanding the levels and needs of the individual pupils in the group to provide prompt feedback and correction enables the teacher to plan the next lesson with the current levels of learning or revisiting similar topics if necessary to affirm knowledge that can then be utilised to support learning within the subsequent concept. The concept ironically negates the assumed consensus that formal corporate testing is a necessary concept in order for schools to be aware of the levels of attainment of their cohorts, and the idiosyncrasies of those young people and their needs within that cohort - as QFT systems provide this live data in bucket loads! It follows that although teachers typically plan and submit their lesson planning weekly to their senior leaders based upon half termly planning schemes, however a given that teachers are constantly monitoring the achievements and needs of their pupils and adapting their lessons given immediate feedback in real time from their pupils.

02/02/2024

The concept of inclusion

Inclusion within a classroom setting depicts the differention described above. Historically if there were small groups within the class who required learning and activities that were very different from the larger group, these small groups of young people were typically extracted from the main group for a period of time for the intervention before returning to the main group. There are still times when this is appropriate if the activity undertaken will require significant direction from the staff member and the delivery of this would significantly disrupt the working of the remining group. The other good reason to undertake this as the young person with need may find a quieter environment less distracting and provide a better opportunity to learn the niche elements that they require to close their educational gap between where they currently are and their peers. The concept of small group learning has its place and is useful on an occasional basis. If however this happens on a regular basis multiple times per day then current thinking is that issues may occur as learning out of the classroom both misses the learning taking place during the classroom at this time, moreover the young person may find it difficult to interleave and apply the learning learned outside the classroom to apply within the classroom. Some children have been found to compartmentalise their learning. The concept of remaining within the classroom undertaking learning that is different to the main group is largely the premise of underpinning ‘inclusion’.
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The concept of remaining within the classroom undertaking learning that is different to the main group is largely the premise of underpinning ‘inclusion’ (3)

A child with need therefore will receive a differentiated learning experience within a mainstream environment both of the tasks asked of them and also of the level of output required which is both within their ability but also provides opportunities to stretch and advance their learning.

https://teacherr.podia.com/a-30-minute-free-parental-ehcp-advice-clinic

02/02/2024

School Offer

When a child attends school - the educational experience they receive is called a “school offer”. Academy trust schools have greater flexibility than Local Authority Maintained settings due to the way they are governed - however both have great flexibility in the broadness of a school offer to an individual pupil.
It is typical, moreover expected that schools have generic systems and processesses that the vast majority of their school population follows. There are however exceptions and it is not a given that the setting has to deliver rigidly to this. There is autonomous flexibility within settings in regards to uniform, start and end of day times, reduction of timetable subjects, addition of individualised tutoring as required.

Find out about reasonable adjustments for your child via our free clinic
https://teacherr.podia.com/a-30-minute-free-parental-ehcp-advice-clinic

01/02/2024

Differentiation

Differentiation is a term used to describe the varied levels of work given to pupils at different levels of educational attainment. It is typical within a class group to have a breadth of pupil ability that is at least a year and half difference between the highest and lowest academically performing pupils. When every lesson is taught there is typically a theme with some core text to introduce the topic. Lessons are typically split in to 5 or more segments that relate to small group work, collaborative work, individual and discussion elements, with the teacher regularly punctuating these with bringing the whole class back together regularly to emphasise key elements. A young person however in this class situation may be unaware that there may be at least three or four different lessons being taught simultaneously within the same classroom - based on a similar theme. Children with higher ability are stretched, whereas young people requiring greater support and pre-learning/ overlearning can be accommodated.

A young person may be unaware that there may be at least three or four different lessons being taught simultaneously within the same classroom.

https://www.teacherr.uk

01/02/2024

The purpose of an EHCP

It is a misconception that a young person with need will necessarily require an EHCP to have access to a significant amount of additional support, reasonable adjustments moreover access to additional finances within a school setting to fund these additional endeavours.

https://www.teacherr.uk

31/01/2024

The construct of an EHCP

An EHCP is a statutory document that combines reports that have been commissioned relating to a young person in relation to education, health and social care.

An Educational Health Care Plan is a statutory document that combines reports that have been commissioned relating to a young person in relation to education, health and social care. Prior to the creation of EHCP’s, reports from these three separate areas functioned largely autonomously – hence the need to bring them together on one document, hence an underlying principle of the Code of Practice. Although intended to be a collaborative document - which it is, education however is largely the leader in curating information from these three areas. There are however a minority of cases where social care are the leaders as this is the main area of focus, and a marginal number of cases where the need is largely medical - however it is typically the case that education/ education settings co-ordinate the implementation of the advices from these health professionals via NHS outreach services.
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An EHCP is a statutory document that combines reports that have been commissioned relating to a young person in relation to education, health and social care.
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EHCP curation and organisation has largely continued to be largely led by local education authorities and typically curated via the schools as the vehicle of delivery.

https://www.teacherr.uk

31/01/2024

Introduction - What brings us here?
Book - How to Get an EHCP

Thank you for joining me, the greatest gift we can give each other is time to grow, I appreciate in advance your focus and time today reading this extract from my new book. I want to share the tools that will enable your child and your school to flourish, either with the means of enabling an EHCP application or by utilising the broad school offer systems and processes explained.
The book is aimed at both parents of children with special educational needs, leaders of family support groups within the 3rd Sector and teachers/educational professionals alike.
You may be a frustrated parent, newly qualified teacher, SENCo, senior leader, social worker or working to support young people and families in the voluntary sector. This handbook will simply explain the inner systems that schools are expected to deliver, moreover the constructs of the EHCP process that are underpinned by these broad school offer and Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) systems.
This knowledge is based upon personal insight over the last 25 years as a teacher within primary and secondary mainstream and special school settings and as a SENCo and Deputy Headteacher within urban mainstream settings. More poignantly as a leader working at local authority level delivering these systems to communities across the UK.

https://www.teacherr.uk

30/01/2024

The concept of Quality First Teaching is based upon differentiation, inclusion, reasonable adjustments and broad school offer

Teacherr

07/02/2024

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