Impress Ofsted with your SEND offer and practice
Ofsted have changed the way they inspect SEND practice in schools and now focus much more on the substance of education, for instance the curriculum offer, inclusive teaching and learning, effective targeted interventions and so on; there is much less of an emphasis on data, although they may well ask specific questions about particular groups of your SEND population, and middle leaders in schools are much more likely now to be quizzed on the attainment and progress of pupils with additional needs in their subject areas.
The inspectors will, however, do some number crunching and use your website (e.g. SEND policy and information report) and the school data dashboard to form an initial picture of your SEND cohort. They will then develop lines of enquiry based on statistics relating to (for example) the number of exclusions, attendance figures and pupil outcomes for those with SEND. And they will also use comments from parent questionnaires and staff surveys to shape the aims of their visit.
Having supported several settings in preparation for and during their Ofsted inspections in the last few years, there are many things I can assist school teams with in order to be ready. It may be that you know what you need to do to prepare but you would like support in order to ensure you’ve not missed anything, or it may be that you would appreciate a ‘fresh pair of eyes’ and someone with experience and knowledge of SEND to challenge or ask questions of you, so you’ve had the chance to experience that potentially stressful conversation ahead of the actual inspection. If you would like to discuss what I can offer to your school, please complete the contact form. And in the meantime, have a think about some of the following questions…before you get ‘the call’!
- How effective is the leadership of SEND within your school?
- Is your classroom practice fully inclusive? Would high quality differentiation be observed in all of your classrooms?
- How do you know which children have reading difficulties in your classes?
- What are the attendance patterns for your pupils with SEND? Are there any anomalies that you would need to be able to explain?
- What is the quality and impact of your targeted interventions?
- What are your key SEND priorities? Why?
- What are your arrangements for pupils with SEND at key times of transition?
- Could you describe the process for the identification of SEND in your setting?
- How effective is your use of learning support staff?
- As a SENCO, could you confidently talk about how the graduated approach is applied?
I could go on…
If you would like to have an informal chat about some possible support in preparation for inspection, do get in touch.
In the meantime, why not download my FREE SEND Statistics Calculator, which will help you analyse your cohort by need, year group, etc. (Please note: You'll need the Microsoft Excel app on your device to use this calculator).