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Case study: putting excellent send support into practice.

Will we ever get it right when it comes to providing a successful and sustainable national framework for our SEND pupils? It doesn’t seem all that long ago that we welcomed the Children and Families Act and the new SEND Code of Practice along with ministerial promises to ensure that our SEND pupils receive timely entitlements and support.

The SEND and alternative provision improvement plan (DfE, 2023) sets out to, and I paraphrase, “fulfil children’s potential and build parents’ trust while providing financial sustainability”.

Whereas the Children and Families Act in 2014 promised more local decision-making and flexibility when it came to the drawing up of Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) – this policy paper is proposing a new set of national standards along with an EHCP template. The national standards, we are promised, will:

• Set out what provision should be available including for those with EHCPs.
• Clarify what good evidence-based provision looks like.
• Establish who is responsible for securing provision.
• Clarify from which budgets support will be provided.

In 2014, we were directed towards bespoke services reflecting the local area. In this policy paper it is recognised that we have ended up with a “postcode lottery” of provision and inconsistent practice – as Headteacher Update has been long writing about (2019).

The improvement plan suggests that evidence-based national standards will restore consistency and confidence in the system.

But however optimistic you might be about the contents of the policy paper, it is clear that things are not going to be changing in SEND practice anytime soon as Headteacher Update ’s coverage of the plan’s publication at the time made clear with the headline: “DfE has not understood gravity of the situation” (2023).

A long and faltering timeline

The SEND review began back in September 2019 and there are still no imminent legislative changes planned. In fact, a “significant proportion” of the proposed national standards will not be published until the end of 2025.

As 2025 is also a general election year, you are forgiven for not feeling convinced that this policy paper will reach legislation at all.

And yet, anecdotal feedback from primary schools suggests to me that the need for an effective SEND framework has never been greater, not least thanks to the impact of Covid.

Of course, schools continue to do their best for their pupils with a great deal of success. In spite of the systems in place they have continued to find ways of providing what pupils with SEND require.

Case study: Malvin’s Close Academy

Malvin’s Close Academy in Blyth is a large primary school with 437 children on roll. The SEND department needs to be a large one to support the 25% of pupils at the school who have SEN and the 27 who have an EHCP. Rachel Quinn has been the SENCO at Malvin’s Close for 11 years.

Following their inspection in January, the SEND department was highly praised. With an outstanding judgement overall, inspectors noted that: “Pupils with SEND, or those who may need extra help, are supported exceptionally well. Pupils with EHCPs receive targeted support that meets their needs.”

Ms Quinn explained: “Inspectors wanted to know about the evolving picture of SEND at our school and how we identify need and apply our graduated response.

“They asked a lot about EHCPs because of the increasing number we have. It was a line of enquiry for inspectors. What’s most important is to know your children and what is in place for them. Inspectors will then need to see this applied in the classroom.”

Working together

Ms Quinn has seen the impact of changes in the SEND framework, but for her what is most crucial for SEND effectiveness is the support that those in the department give each other and their classroom teacher colleagues: “Nobody works in isolation,” Ms Quinn explained, “it’s very much a joined-up approach.”

The ethos of collegiality has helped her develop an in-school pastoral and special needs team. The school’s MAT – WISE Academies Trust – provides a network of advice and resources which has been invaluable in developing SEND provision too.

Ms Quinn also has the support of a SENCO who takes an overview of the three schools: Malvin’s Close Academy, Croftway Primary, and Morpeth Road Primary.

The SENCOs from each school meet regularly either online or in person and St Malvin’s has an SEMH (social, emotional and mental health) focus within the group.

Focusing on SEMH

As with all types of special need, Malvin’s Close has seen an increase in the number of pupils with SEMH. In September 2022 there were 18 on the SEMH register, but this increased to 32 by January 2023.

“We’re seeing more speech and language difficulties and problems with self-regulation,” explained Ms Quinn. “In years 2,3 and 4 the children have missed out during Covid and there’s an increase in childhood anxiety and school avoidance.”

One of the strategies which Malvin’s Close has available is its nurture room. They have a dedicated teaching assistant based there who operates a variety of alternatives for pupils. Some of the students can access nurture time according to need whereas others attend the lunch-time group or attend on specific days.

“The nurture group has evolved over time,” Ms Quinn continued. “We vary the curriculum to cover the different issues that children are experiencing. For example, we might have a day when the focus is anger management or developing friendships. They can have lunch in there and take part in specific activities. There is a role play area and we do arts and crafts. It’s a bespoke curriculum with targeted intervention.”

The careful planning of space is an important factor in providing a range of strategies and therapies for addressing the SEMH needs that the pupils are exhibiting.

An additional room enables groups to take part in Lego therapy, drawing and talking. Two rooms have been adapted for children as sensory rooms. One of these used to house the photocopier and Ms Quinn and the pastoral lead helped prepare it specifically to support a girl with complex needs.

Supporting teachers

The school conducts progress meetings every half-term with teachers. Ms Quinn is involved in any discussions such as this and regularly monitors work in the classroom and looks at books.

Malvin’s Close operates a system of “live” marking where work is highlighted in orange or green by the teachers as the students are working. Ms Quinn explained “This provides immediate feedback on misconceptions and allows for same day intervention. Individuals are then either taken out of the classroom for individual support or worked with in the classroom through targeted teaching.”

Ofsted praised the school for this regular and routine checking. The report states: “Teachers have a clear picture of what pupils understand. They check daily in lessons to see how pupils are doing and also use mini-tests to find out what gaps pupils may have in their understanding.”

Targeted intervention is also put into place before new topics are taught with pre-teaching and learning of crucial vocabulary.

A range of additional checks are used to make sure that the correct provision is accurately identified. SNAP (the Special Needs Assessment Profile) from Hodder Education is used to assist in identifying learning and behavioural needs and a research project with Bath University is helping identify who might need nurture provision.

Hopes for improvement

Within the wider community, Malvin’s has had positive experiences of local support. The local authority and health service have been there when required: “We’ve made a lot of referrals and these have been followed up with comprehensive reports that detail what the issue is and what’s needed,” Ms Quinn said.

The school’s teaching assistant for speech and languages has been able to observe the NHS and local authority teams at work and skills are transferred so that in-school staff can continue the provision.

However, Ms Quinn concedes there are gaps, particularly when it comes to specialist alternative provision and this is where she would like to see the SEND improvement plan really taking effect.

“We would benefit from more specialist provision here in Northumberland,” she added. “There simply isn’t enough and the waiting lists are long. We can’t get children into specialist provision even when it’s accepted that that’s what they need.

“We would like to see a flexible shared system by which pupils could perhaps remain within their mainstream class but have additional specialist classes for English and maths. Provision that can address their needs in smaller groups, for example.”

The development of alternative provision is a central part of the SEND improvement plan, but whether it will be in place to benefit any of those currently receiving support at Malvin’s Close is an optimistic aspiration.

• Suzanne O’Connell is a freelance education writer and a former primary school headteacher.

Further information & resources

• DfE: Press release: Transformational reform begins for children and young people with SEND, 2023: http://bit.ly/3mkbJ0f
• DfE: Policy paper: SEND and alternative provision improvement plan, 2023: https://bit.ly/41AgySo
• Headteacher Update: Families seeking SEND support left exhausted by ‘adversarial and bureaucratic’ system, 2019: https://bit.ly/2L2ktlB
• Headteacher Update: SEND Improvement Plan: DfE has not understood ‘gravity of the situation’, 2023: https://bit.ly/3UJIlxE

Related articles

Send reform – what has been achieved, the send improvement plan: three key issues, send improvement plan: the pupils being left behind.

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Ofsted outstanding Case Studies Examples to show impact of teaching and learning

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Age range: 7-11

Resource type: Other

Last updated

7 March 2018

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Case Studies

We understand there are times when relationships between schools and parents become stressed and communication about a child with learning challenges becomes more difficult. we offer advice and practical input in this situation in an objective and pragmatic manner., we recently worked with family whose child attended a school for specific learning difficulties and was not making progress within a specialist learning environment. the relationship between home and schools was fraught with anxiety. we spent time with both the family and the educational professionals working out what the child’s evolving learning needs were, how to address those needs and how to assess progress or its lack. we were able to empower both sides to put the relationship back on track and to re focus on meeting the child’s learning needs., parents approached us with niggling worries. their daughter seemed very bright but was not really making progress at school. the school told them that she was struggling and seemed very frustrated. she was becoming very moody and would have rages that felt like toddler tantrums. we guided them through the process of an educational psychologist assessment and its implications. she was diagnosed with specific learning difficulties and specific issues with short term memory and processing speeds. by understanding what the child had to deal with on a day to day basis in school and acting on the advice given, the parents and school were able to recognise her needs, make provision for them and put in the necessary support. she is now accessing the curriculum at her individual level. her confidence has increased and the toxic fights over homework are no longer., parents were faced with were endless complaints from school about their son’s behaviour, focus and ability to pay attention. he got up and moved around the classroom a lot, and was endlessly fiddling with things. as a result he was not accessing the curriculum and it became a vicious circle. his parents thought he was “just a boy” who needed more exercise and signed him up for more after school sport. he loved computers and tv and he could give them his whole attention and focus. he was a very determined little boy when he wanted something. his school reports became more and more negative and his mother came to us at her wits end. we looked closely at what was going on and what the boy was dealing with. further investigation revealed that he had adhd which explained why he found it very difficult to concentrate for longer than a short period. he had become very difficult at home and was sometimes “off the wall” with his constant energetic movement. in consultation with the school he now has movement breaks to fit his learning style, he has some individual support from a teaching assistant and he has more pastoral support. his parents are consulting a child and adolescent psychiatrist and considering the use of adhd medication for him. we continue to support them and in due course may consider a school move., an only child raised in a bilingual household was not making much progress with his speaking. everyone said it was because he was exposed to two languages all the time and that he would just speak later and fluently. his parents were worried but as he was their first child they didn’t know anything different. once he started nursery he didn’t interact with the other children. he didn’t understand their games and did not want to join in. he seemed happier organising the trains into orderly lines. he spoke very little and would take the adults by the hand and lead them to what he wanted. he became very upset when they were unable to understand what he wanted. his anxious parents were very confused about what to do. we worked together to build a profile of the little boy and supported them through pre and post diagnosis. he was diagnosed with asd just after his 4th birthday. we helped his parents to access support from their local authority. he is now at a mainstream primary school with 1:1 support for his social interaction and communication. he has weekly speech therapy outside school and has recently overcome his fear of water and is learning to swim. we continue to support the family with sen strategy for their son., parents of an adopted child in a mainstream school came to us in despair about the trouble their son was getting in to at school and how little the school were doing to support and understand him. they felt that his early life experiences impacted on his ability to learn and behave at school and that the school were becoming hostile towards their son., we stepped in to support better communication between home and school by helping the parents to explain and explore the issues that their son was dealing with. we attended meetings with the parents and helped to moderate the meeting and oversee its outcome. by clarifying the son’s profile of learning and support needs with the help of an independent professional we were able to encourage a more collaborative approach between school and home. their son is now much more settled and better supported at school and is starting to make progress., we regularly advise on changes of school placement because with the best will in the world there are times when a child with learning differences is not in the right school to meet their needs., in a recent case the child’s needs had changed as his learning difficulties became more apparent. the school felt that they could no longer meet his needs. as the parents did not agree with the school relationships had become very strained. we stepped in to clarify and summarise the boys’ key learning needs and worked with the parents to find him a new school that would support his needs. by identifying and engaging with a new school the boy will have a managed move which is being co-operatively handled by everyone involved., alison pope – empowering parents of children who learn differently.

SEND case studies

Changing lives.

Across the Oldham SEND Partnership a lot of work is taking place into improving the lives of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Through co-production and joint way of working, we would like to tell you about how some of the young people and parents who are benefitting.

All case studies are from 2019.

• Aisha's story - Virtual School
• Baily's story - Keeping up with schoolwork
• Ibrahim's story - visually impairment
• Kaleem's story - hearing impairment
• Kareem's story - Central Core Myopathy
• Mason's story - social, emotional and mental health
• SEND Local Offer - Turning disability into ability
• Agnieszka’s story - bilateral sensori-neural hearing loss
• Amin’s story - using British Sign Language (BSL)
• David’s story - work of the new Health SEND Coordinator
• Kyra’s story - how technology is helping young people
• “Zippy and Apple’s Friends” - the learning programme
• Gary’s story – son’s school placement
• Rebekah’s story – Kingfisher School
• Najima Khalid - Chai Project (POINT produced)
• Mandy’s Story - My SEND Journey (POINT produced)
• Grace’s Story - My View of SEND (POINT produced)
• Colleen Rhoden - SEND in Oldham (POINT produced)
• Cathy Williams - Improving SEND in Oldham (POINT produced)
• Sophie’s story – Kingfisher School
• Kingfisher School - supporting children and families with SEND

EAL Made Easy

Advice, resources and pedagogy for everyone!

Practical Case Study Series #1 – SEN or EAL?

Student N: The slow processor?

Normal bilingual learner or special need?

Student N was a casual admission, i.e., mid-year, and came to our secondary school directly into Year 9. She seemed happy, socially confident and willing to learn, but was extremely slow to acquire English. In the group of students who were all new admissions, she was making the slowest progress out of all of them.

This concerned us as, in the UK system, she was immediately forced into exam classes and needed to acquire English at an accelerated rate. Was she SEN? How would we know? What information was needed to evaluate her? How could we document our decision-making process to ensure validity of approach?

Using hypothesis testing

Frederickson and Cline (1991, 2015 ) suggest a comprehensive framework of information gathering when assessing whether an EAL student is experiencing curriculum difficulties due to cognitive deficiency or to a need for linguistic and socio-cultural adjustment. These are a part of a ‘hypothesis-testing approach’ (Frederickson and Cline 1991, Hall 2001) where possible variables contributing to the educational difficulty are considered and eliminated as part of the assessment of possible SEN in an EAL child.

These include:

• Background : gaining a full picture of the child’s previous educational experience;
• Language: conducting a first-language assessment to ascertain whether the child is working at an age-appropriate level in their own language;
• Communication Skills : observations of pupil interaction in classroom and play contexts, as well as gathering observational information from community language or religious schools as part of a multi-cultural approach;
• Differentiation : checking that appropriate classroom provision for EAL language learning need is effectively used;
• Affective Filters : investigating emotional and psychological factors affecting achievement such as past trauma, racist bullying or other environmental stresses; (Frederickson and Cline 1991, Pim 2010)
• Testing : considering raw data on national standardised tests but as a minimal part of the whole picture. See note.

Note: standardised tests usually have no construct validity for EAL pupils, i.e., they do not measure what they are designed to test for in pupils who do not understand the test instructions or questions,  and therefore are not a good source of evidence to confirm or deny a hypothesis of cognitive ability.

Frederickson and Cline (1991) stress that only after these questions are explored in turn should the hypothesis that a learning or language disorder be considered. This integrated four-fold approach had been incorporated in the older 2001 SEND Code of Practice: ‘the child’s learning characteristics, the learning environment that the school is providing for the child, the task and the teaching style’.  (DfES, 2001).

In the current 2014 SEND Code of Practice , the need for a wider approach to assessment is explained thus: ‘Identifying and assessing SEN for children or young people whose first language is not English requires particular care. Schools should look carefully at all aspects of a child or young person’s performance in different areas of learning and development or subjects to establish whether lack of progress is due to limitations in their command of English or if it arises from SEN or a disability. Difficulties related solely to limitations in English as an additional language are not SEN.’ (DfE, Section 6.24)

Let’s look at each of the hypothesised question areas in turn for Student N.

• Background:

Bilingual Interview – a bilingual interview should get info on:

• previous schooling experience and any gaps in schooling / when school started
• (some school systems start at 7 years old – this does not constitute a ‘gap’ in schooling)
• with who the child is here and some experience of how they came (this is sensitive stuff – don’t dig too deep, and check local legislation about the legality of getting this info – generally your Data Manager should know)
• what languages they speak and with whom they speak them
• preferred subjects or school experiences
• medical needs / allergies / glasses / hearing or eye test ever taken
• religious practices including main holiday and food needs
• ambitions – what do they want to do in the future?

Student N was from an area in Bulgaria that was universally bilingual in Turkish and Bulgarian. She was fully educated as per the Bulgarian system, but had some schooling in Turkish and some in Bulgarian. With her family, she spoke both, although different family members had different linguistic strengths and so the ‘home language’ changed depending on with whom she spoke in her family. She wanted to go to university, study business and open her own. She had been tested for hearing and eyesight through her early school years, had no medical issues and considered herself to be Muslim, although not from a tradition that required a head covering.

Partial Conclusion: N’s slowness might be due to her cognitive working in three languages. When we introduced an academic concept, she literally checked through her mental  Bulgarian dictionary for the equivalent and then through her Turkish one to see when a comprehensible match could be found. She would then map her matched concept onto the English word to understand it. If this hypothesis were true, it would account for her slow processing: not because it was taking her three times as long to process one concept, but because she was doing three times the work in checking through her two equally strong languages for a concept match to the third language, English.

This also worked backwards, because if the English concept, say smelting, was found in her mental Turkish dictionary, she would then need to create an equivalent in Bulgarian for herself while also mapping the Turkish to English. This was to enable her to access all her higher order thinking resources across her three languages with equal strength—quite a feat!

2. Language: conducting a first-language assessment to ascertain whether the child is working at an age-appropriate level in their own language

Your choice of first language assessment is based on two things: a) whether you have a competent first language speaker who can faithfully reflect back to you language features as the EAL child answers, and b) what assessments are available to you or your school.

First language problems: You are looking for abnormalities in pronunciation or speech production (stutters or dysfluency), inability to find words, limited vocabulary, inability to do simple math, i.e., the four basic equations, inability to give past or future tenses, difficulty with sequencing known lists (like the alphabet or numbers) and in giving sequential recounts (first this happened, then that happened).

None of these alone will point to a potential problem. A limited vocabulary might be a lack of education or a sheltered life based on the child’s gender. Lack of future or past tenses may be a language feature, as in Thai or Vietnamese. You may be asking questions like ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ which the child has never been asked to consider; either because the child has never been asked or because, culturally, its future is decided by others.

A number of these language features together, added to other background information, may help to contextualise the results of a first-language assessment to add to your hypothesis testing.

Next: what test is available? You may have personnel in the SEND department who can do a  simple, non-restricted assessment. Non-restricted means a normative test of ability that staff without specialist qualifications are allowed to administer. This might be something like the Test of Abstract Language Comprehension (TALC) or the British Picture Vocabulary Scale Third Edition (BPVS lll) . You may have an educational psychologist (EP) or Speech and Language Therapist (SALT) to do the testing, although, unless you have started the statutory process for getting a child an Education Health Care Plan (UK), access to these outside professionals is quite limited. You may have someone that the school buys in to do exam special access arrangements. These will not be of much use because they are not designed to measure EAL pupils (no construct validity).  Do not use these as first language assessments for EAL pupils.

To begin, it might be as simple as your bilingual interview conducted in the home language. Your assessment might be a series of short language assessment questions which ask for future and past tense information. It might be a series of pictures that ask the child/student to explain what’s going on, what might have happened before or after the picture or infer what people in the picture might be thinking or feeling? Good resources for this can be found at Twinkl or from any company that produces Speech and Language photo cards, like Speechmark .

Student N was able to give all language features normally, but took her time to experiment  through Turkish and Bulgarian for the future tense abstracted responses, using would, could and if phrases. Clearly, each language provided her with an area of communicative strength.

3. Communication Skills : observations of pupil interaction in classroom and play contexts, as well as gathering observational information from community language or religious schools as part of a multi-cultural approach;

Students should be observed during structured and unstructured times during the school day. It helps to have a club wherein EAL pupils and buddies can play non-verbal games like Connect Four or Jenga, symbol-based snap or Pelmanism, play with clay, do colouring, make pom-poms with knitting yarn / wool or just hang out and interact. Background music helps as well. Gaming on phones works, too, among EAL and native speakers, on something like Fortnight or Musically, although this is dependent on school policy. Note: the game doesn’t matter – the social push to talk about gaming where many kids are playing it and discussing it is the important part.

The point is to provide a supervised environment where students can interact in non-verbal ways. This allows you to observe eye contact, facial expression and other types of non-verbal communication skills. It shows whether an EAL student is observing others and planning how to create interaction or very shy and avoiding interaction. Children are amazing at inventing ways to communicate and responding creatively in non-verbal situations. If you have ever taken your child/children on a camping holiday and watched them effortlessly organise a football game or play amongst other non-English speaking children in a local playground, you know what I mean.

In terms of your hypothesis-testing: a child may be shy and unable to initiate or may be very observant of others, confident and socially adept at using the few words they know to create an interaction. Inability to effectively interact may be a processing difficulty; the deft ability to interact with few verbal resources, may be a sign of great intelligence. Bring your observations to the rest of your evidence to weight it up.

In structured environments, i.e., in class, watch for signs that the child is observing social cues from others in an academic environment. Does the child look at others and try to imitate what they are doing in response to a teacher’s instruction? Do they attempt to catch the teachers’ eye and brighten up to be noticed? Does the child just sit there and close down, i.e., put their pen down, close their book, become withdrawn? Again, these reactions need to be contextualised with information on the child’s natural personality, educational experience and level of trauma upon entry to the country.

Student N was very social, very outgoing and constantly trying to find ways to interact. We didn’t know that her mother had owned a beauty salon in Bulgaria and had trained her in threading. Student N was found with a long line of students waiting to have their eyebrows threaded in the cafeteria one day! Word had spread quickly about her skills!

4. Differentiation : checking that appropriate classroom provision for EAL language learning need is effectively used;

Student N sought the teachers’ attention where she could and always had our EAL team to reinforce her needs to staff. However, we found that staff were taking it upon themselves to ask her linguistic preference for translation. So, for example, her Design teacher found that instructions for Photoshop in Bulgarian worked best while her Science teachers concluded she was strongest in Turkish for complex abstract topics.

We, the EAL team, used our time with her to over-teach vocabulary and help her build a trilingual glossary of cross-curricular terms. Teachers who are willing to experiment are superlatively helpful in your hypothesis testing. With the best bilingual efforts, if a child is not making progress, that is important and key info to bring back to your hypothesis.

5. Affective Filters : investigating emotional and psychological factors affecting achievement such as past trauma, racist bullying or other environmental stresses;

Culture shock is not to be underestimated. Being separated from certain family members while jobs and housing are being set up by one parent, can be devastating. Many children are sent to live with uncles, aunts and cousins, while parents go to the new country to set up a new house and living conditions. Parents and siblings can be separated with months or years while the founding family member works to set up a new economic and household base. I have experienced children as young as 5 being left by parents with family members and not reunited until secondary school age. It takes its toll and children are often traumatised in unknown ways. Sometimes this is acknowledged by the family; sometimes it is not—‘we had to work, it had to be done, they just have to understand’.

Of course, children may develop the necessary resilience, but may not. This situation is common in immigrant families. Occasionally a special need does not become apparent until the child has been put in another context. Often, autistic children, used to a routine, suddenly become more noticeably OCD or non-interactive, whereas, in familiar surroundings, that was ‘just their personality’.

Sometimes, trauma brings its own difficulties, especially where there has been a difficult crossing into the new country: threat of separation, deportation of one parent or family member, detaining by authorities, long and difficult journeys requiring getting across disputed borders to reach transport in more neutral countries.

Children from war-torn regions may not know if remaining family are alive or safe. Unaccompanied minors are the most at-risk. I have known children from Afghanistan whose villages were saving the money to get out one male child at a time (in that culture, yes, males are the priority). Boys were given a copy of the Koran and a dictionary (a hugely prized family or village possession) and told to go to the nearest police they saw at Heathrow to turn themselves in and get taken into social care. Heart-breaking but true. I have seen it.

Those children then may not have the language to tell of their anxieties for those left behind. In these cases, art therapy will be really useful, as it helps the children express some anxieties without the stress of language. Anxiety as an affective filter can block learning in a normally cognitive child as effectively as a learning disorder.

Contextualised background is very important. Art therapists are worth their weight in gold, if you can find one. Otherwise, talk to the art department and see if you can get the child used to a friendly art teacher. It can work wonders in a short time to be given a non-verbal expressive outlet that does not have an exhausting amount of new language involved.

Children will not learn or make any progress until some of that anxiety is relieved. Note: Once the child starts expressing past experiences in drawing, you may need to take the pictures to the Child Protection officer or school senior leadership for further advice or action, if very concerning. Steel yourself and do what is needed according to your school policy.

Student N missed family but had enough cousins in London to help her through. She also went back regularly (something not all students could do) and spoke to her parents regularly. She was nominally homesick, but not enough to affect her processing.

6. Testing : considering raw data on national standardised tests but as a minimal part of the whole picture.

This is a sore spot because schools are expected to be data-driven but have few sources of decent data that apply to EAL children. You may need to fight for the EAL child to be contextualised as opposed to judged by numbers.

CATS: in the UK, the quantitative and non-verbal portions of the CATS are seen as appropriate judges of cognitive ability. They are not. I have sat with a gifted and talented Russian pupil while she started the non-verbal and noted the instructions are still in English. Nor are the examples particularly easy to follow for a student who is not used to on-line standardised tests.

These results with not be worth the 3 hours it takes to do the test UNTIL the child has developed some English. Lesser known is the fact that CATS have a test per year group. It is possible NOT to test in the year the child enters school and to test a year later using the year-appropriate version of the CATS. School management and the data team need to be primed for this. 

Most reading comprehension and ability tests will not show anything other than the child has little English.

If you decided to take an MA at the University of Sweden in Stockholm and took a Swedish IQ test, chances are you would come out as severely learning disabled. This is because you would not have the basic 5,000-word vocabulary of a 5-year-old Swedish child. National standardised tests of ability are useless on EAL children when they first enter the country and for the first year, at least, of their acquisition.

We fought for Student N not to be tested on CATS. Instead we cobbled together a general cognitive profile based on our teaching of her and the background. Using that and feedback from her teachers, we surmised that she was of normal cognitive ability.

Summary: As it turned out, we decided Student N did not have a cognitive processing difficulty. She was simply processing so much language between Turkish, Bulgarian and English that she was slower than the other students. Eventually, she got faster. Currently, Student N is at a university in this country studying business and happy as a clam! Had we labelled her as SEN she may have been limited by our low expectations.

Hypothesis-testing is a necessary and powerful method, but takes time and coordination. Remember to work through the 6 basic variables and contextualise all your data. When in doubt, contact me for help.

Next Case Study: Student E and the mystery of semi-lingualism.

Frederickson, N. and Cline, T. (1991) Bilingual Pupils and the National Curriculum: Overcoming Difficulties in Teaching and Learning . London: University College

Frederickson, N. and Cline, T. (1995) Assessing the Learning Environments of Children with Special Educational Needs: Report of a Workshop . London: Pedagogy Publishing

Frederickson, N. and Cline, T. (2015) Special Educational Needs, Inclusion and Diversity . Third Edition. New York/Open University Press McGraw-Hill

Hall, D. (2001) Assessing the Needs of Bilingual Pupils: Living in Two Languages . London: David Fulton

Pim, Chris (2010) How to Support Children Learning English as an Additional Language . Hyde/LDA-Findel Publishing

DfES (2001) Special Educational Needs Code of Practice . London: DfES

DfE (2014) SEND Code of Practice 0-25 . London: DfE

EY SENCO Case Studies

Action for Children has compiled a set of five case studies which represent some of the work going on across the country to support children with SEND. These case studies give examples of good practice in relation to the role of the setting SENCO.

Developing a confident workforce

A strategic approach to developing a Birmingham early years workforce confident and competent to deliver an inclusive Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) meeting the requirements of current SEND legislation.

Developing inclusive practice in a newly opened setting

The private day nursery opened to provide funded early education to 2, 3 and 4 year olds on non-domestic premises. An Area SENCO was allocated to the setting who visited soon after opening to explain the support available to the proprietor manager around developing inclusive practice.

Improving whole setting inclusive practice and transition support

The setting was established 30 years ago and aims “to provide a happy, homely and stimulating environment in which children can thrive emotionally and educationally through planned and spontaneous activities”. OFSTED reported that “Children’s independence is well-promoted as they enjoy a range of carefully planned activities. This provides them with good preparation for their move into full time school. Staff encourage children to become gradually accustomed to their new environment and this ensures children feel safe and secure”. There are 2 trained setting SENCO’S with a wide range of experience particularly in relation to speech, communication and language needs. They have successfully liaised with parents, speech and language therapists and health visiting teams.

Collaborative approach to support for transition

The early years setting has had involvement from the Educational Psychology and  and Early Years Service over a number of years based around individual children with SEND who have attended the setting at different times and so they know how to access support as required as well as having excellent relationships with the team. They have a very inclusive ethos within the setting and are prepared to ‘bend over backwards’ to get it right for children and families.

Improving transitions for children with Education Health and Care Plans

The setting is a small charitable trust run term time only for children and families with additional needs. The setting is in a large semi-rural village and takes children from the surrounding villages and nearest town. All children are referred to the setting via health care, early years and family support professionals. The setting has a setting SENCO and a wide range of experienced staff supporting children with SEND.

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How Ofsted gathers evidence about pupil experience

Understand how ofsted will learn about and evaluate pupil experiences of your school, including which pupil groups and topics they're likely to focus on., don't prepare written case studies , inspectors will collect first-hand evidence.

• Individuals and groups that inspectors are likely to evaluate 
• You must provide opportunities for inspectors to speak to pupils
• Preventing inspectors from speaking to pupils about RSE

Ofsted doesn't collect written pupil case studies as evidence. Instead, inspectors will gather first-hand evidence during an inspection by talking to and observing pupils.  Ofsted  told us this.

Familiarise yourself with what these observations will involve and which groups of pupils inspectors are likely to focus on, so you can prepare your staff. 

As part of their evaluation, inspectors will:

• Have formal and informal conversations with a wide range of pupils and in a range of situations, including outside of lessons
• Ask pupils about their experiences of teaching, learning and behaviour in the school
• Consider evidence from pupils alongside other evidence they collect

This is set out in paragraphs 260 to 263 of the  School Inspection Handbook (2023) .

Understand what pupils have learnt and how their teachers help them to learn new curriculum content (260) Talk to and observe pupils (261):  At the start and finish of the school day  During lunchtime,

• How Ofsted inspects safeguarding
• How Ofsted inspects 'behaviour and attitudes'
• How Ofsted inspects 'personal development'
• Your step-by-step guide to a graded Ofsted inspection

Also in " Evidence and documents for inspection "

• How to present safeguarding referrals to Ofsted

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