Understanding and responding to external agency assessment reports
Particularly if you are new to the role of SENCO, and despite professional body guidelines which make it clear that written documentation need to be easily accessible to their intended audience, assessment reports written by professionals such as educational psychologists, speech therapists and specialist teachers can sometimes be a little daunting, especially if they include lots of statistics and jargon.
Similarly, class teachers may not always have the experience or knowledge of SEND to understand the content of a report, so they will look to you as a SENCO to explain what the assessment outcomes mean for that child and to pick out the aspects of the report which may relate to reasonable adjustments which they need to instigate.
Parents and carers can also be somewhat overwhelmed by long, wordy reports from external agencies, so having the skills to extract the key points and being able to explain the next steps to them is also essential.
I would be happy to work with you and delve into the world of standardised scores and percentiles, in order to make you a more informed and confident SENCO! Please get in touch if this is something you would like support with.