Special Educational Needs in Mainstream Schools: EEF's guidance

Special Educational Needs in Mainstream Schools | EEF

Introduction

Timely practice was designed for both learners with identified Special Educational Needs and Disability but also those who clearly have undiagnosed learning needs (and often it seems to us, that at least one of the undiagnosed learning needs is having a smaller working memory capacity than their peers).

Pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) have the greatest need for excellent teaching and are entitled to provision that supports achievement at, and enjoyment of, school. The attainment gap between pupils with SEND and their peers is twice as big as the gap between pupils eligible for free school meals and their peers. However, pupils with SEND are also more than twice as likely to be eligible for free school meals.

This is why we’ve developed this guidance report. It offers five evidence-based recommendations to support pupils with SEND, providing a starting point for schools to review their current approach and practical ideas they can implement.

R1: Create a positive and supportive environment for all pupils without exception

Timely practice enables learners to learn better and feel more positive about themselves as learners. We reduce shame and maths anxiety and increase motivation, pace of learning and progress. Each learner is always taught on their firm learning foundations and there is time in each lesson for feedback, meaning each leaner has “the next best thing” to a personal tutor in every lesson.

An inclusive school removes barriers to learning and participation, provides an education that is appropriate to pupils’ needs, and promotes high standards and the fulfilment of potential for all pupils. Schools should:

promote positive relationships, active engagement, and wellbeing for all pupils;
ensure all pupils can access the best possible teaching; and
adopt a positive and proactive approach to behaviour, as described in the EEF’s Improving Behaviour in Schools guidance report.

R2: Build an ongoing, holistic understanding of your pupils and their needs

Timely practice has assessment baked in,

it guides the teacher as to what the next steps of every learner is,
it empowers the teacher to teach so that all learners only ever are taught on firm learning foundations

Schools should aim to understand individual pupil’s learning needs using the graduated approach of the ‘assess, plan, do, review’ approach.

Assessment should be regular and purposeful rather than a one-off event, and should seek input from parents and carers as well as the pupil themselves and specialist professionals.

Teachers need to feel empowered and trusted to use the information they collect to make a decision about the next steps for teaching that child.

R3: Ensure all pupils have access to high quality teaching

Timely practice is a perfect example where good teaching for pupils with SEND is good teaching for all.

To a great extent, good teaching for pupils with SEND is good teaching for all.

Searching for a ‘magic bullet’ can distract teachers from the powerful strategies they often already possess.

The research suggests a group of teaching strategies that teachers should consider emphasising for pupils with SEND. Teachers should develop a repertoire of these strategies they can use flexibly in response to the needs of all pupils.

flexible grouping;
cognitive and metacognitive strategies;
explicit instruction;
using technology to support pupils with SEND; and
scaffolding.

R4: Complement high quality teaching with carefully selected small-group and one-to-one interventions

Timely practice is designed to remove the need for interventions outside of maths lessons, and instead provide “high quality, structured, targeted interventions” each lesson.

Small-group and one-to-one interventions can be a powerful tool but must be used carefully. Ineffective use of interventions can create a barrier to the inclusion of pupils with SEN.

High quality teaching should reduce the need for extra support, but it is likely that some pupils will require high quality, structured, targeted interventions to make progress.

The intensity of intervention (from universal to targeted to specialist) should increase with need.

Interventions should be carefully targeted through identification and assessment of need.

Interventions should be applied using the principles of effective implementation described in the EEF’s guidance report Putting Evidence to Work: A School’s Guide to Implementation.

R5: Work effectively with teaching assistants

Timely practice recommends that teaching assistants work within the classroom with the teacher.

Since the teacher wants to teach small groups, the bite of learning that is their next step in learning each topic, when only one learner - the low attaining learner who has brought the teaching assistant into the classroom - it is tempting to think that the teaching assistant will teach the learner the small bite of learning. This shouldn’t happen all the time. More create ways are for the teaching assistant to supervise the class doing their timely practice, while the teacher teaches the layer and then when the teacher teaches the whole class, allow the learner to stop listening after a “secret signal between the teacher and the learning assistant” and allow the learner to go on to complete the learner's timely practice assignment.

We don’t recommend teaching assistants be attached to learners throughout the lesson, as learners need to be able to work independently and accurately. The teaching assistant needs to have some quotes up their sleeve, to explain why they are not giving as much help as the learner might want in their maths lessons e.g.

“right now, you are answering your timely practice questions, so I can only help you with reading, scribing and spelling”
“research says that getting feedback after one night’s sleep is better for your learning than me assessing your work now”
“I’ll leave you to get on with these questions, and come back soon to see how you have done”