Best Practice

An inclusive curriculum: Three waves of support

Inclusion Curriculum Vulnerable children
Changes to the structure and delivery of teaching at Uppingham Community College are helping SEND students, including adaptive teaching and three waves of curriculum support. Clare Duffy explains
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We know that high-quality adaptive teaching is crucial for all students in supporting them to achieve their full potential. Yet it can be argued that such effective teaching is even more crucial for our vulnerable learners with SEND.

For these students in particular the process of continually adjusting, adapting, and assessing within the classroom can yield the greatest benefits.

At Uppingham Community College in order to meet the needs of all our learners we have made significant changes to the way we structure and deliver our teaching, shaping our school community in the process.

 

An inclusive culture

We have strived to create an inclusive culture which supports high-quality adaptive teaching in every classroom. Over the past few years we have integrated an Enhanced Resource Provision (ERP) to support students with autism and complex needs, a small cohort of predominately SEND students called Mainstream+, and a significant increase in the number of Education, Health, and Care Plans across our student population.

Our aim has always been to give our SEND students the best learning experience within a mainstream school setting, offering bespoke interventions as required, but with the intention of students attending as much mainstream curriculum as possible.

This has been supported by some modification to the curriculum with the introduction of several new vocational courses and wellbeing support offered through our inclusion hub. We have also trained more staff as SENCOs to manage the growing need, with a whole school SENCO and SENCOs who focus on the ERP or Mainstream+ students. 

Subject provision for SEND learners also features as a criteria in our internal quality assurance, with learning walks and department self-evaluations considering the effectiveness of both curriculum planning and adaptive teaching.

 

Vulnerable Learners Supplement 2024: This article first appeared in SecEd's annual vulnerable learners supplement, which published in March and offers 20 pages of expert advice, insights, and case studies aimed at helping secondary schools to support their most vulnerable young people. Themes this year include persistent absence, poverty, SEND, behaviour, and exclusion. Find a free download via www.sec-ed.co.uk/content/downloads/supplement-ideas-to-support-your-vulnerable-learners 

 

Adaptive teaching

Adaptive teaching is essentially adapting your teaching to suit the needs of the learner, utilising a range of teaching methods. You anticipate barriers to learning and act accordingly. Standard 5 of the Early Career Framework (DfE, 2021) provides a helpful explanation of why adaptive teaching matters:

  • Students are likely to learn at different rates and to require different levels and types of support from teachers to succeed. 
  • Seeking to understand students’ differences, including their different levels of prior knowledge and potential barriers to learning, is an essential part of teaching. 
  • Adapting teaching in a responsive way, including by providing targeted support to students who are struggling, is likely to increase student success. 

The ECF says teachers should provide opportunities for all learners to experience success by:

  • Adapting lessons, while maintaining high expectations for all, so that all students have the opportunity to meet expectations.
  • Balancing input of new content so that students master important concepts. 
  • Making effective use of teaching assistants.

A useful summary of adaptive teaching strategies can be found via the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). It explores how techniques including anticipating barriers and planning to address them, using assessment effectively, and in-the-moment adaptations can all be utilised to support student progress in the classroom (see Eaton, 2022).

 

Implementation

At Uppingham we have built on these suggestions to make adaptive teaching work in our school context. Fundamentally, we had to first establish among staff a shared understanding of what adaptive teaching was and how it can be successfully implemented in different subject areas. This has involved considerable training. We have approached this in two ways.

First, we have implemented an Improving Teaching Programme which seeks to improve the pedagogy of all teachers through a focus on developing teaching techniques centred around modelling, checking for understanding, and retrieval practice. I have written about this approach previously in SecEd (Duffy, 2023).

Second, we have included into our CPD programme staff training specifically focused on the needs of SEND learners. All staff have received training from the Autism Education Trust.

Additionally, all teachers have attended training from our school educational psychologists who are working with us to develop a SEND teaching toolkit of strategies.

As part of our focus on adaptive teaching we have also trained staff on what high-quality teaching is. The EEF suggests that there are five specific approaches which have a positive impact for SEND students (Davies & Henderson, 2020):

  1. Explicit instruction
  2. Cognitive and metacognitive strategies
  3. Scaffolding
  4. Flexible grouping
  5. Using technology

High-quality teaching encourages greater inclusion of students with SEND. At Uppingham Community College, it incorporates the features we recognise as excellent teaching practice, including: 

  • Clearly designed lesson plans with accessible resources and use of visual cues where appropriate. 
  • Plenty of opportunities to involve and engage with students. 
  • Appropriate use of modelling, explaining, and questioning for students to engage with higher levels of critical thinking skills. 
  • Clear direct instructions and assistance throughout the lesson with specific feedback.
  • Providing students with the chance to talk both individually and in groups. 
  • An expectation that students will accept responsibility for their own learning and work independently. 
  • Regularly using encouragement and (authentic) praise to engage and motivate students. 
  • Using assessment to evaluate learning and plan next steps. 

 

Three waves of intervention

We have raised awareness of what constitutes different waves of intervention for SEND students and what each teacher’s responsibility is towards these students.

Through training from our SEND team, staff are now better able to support the Wave 1 universal SEND offer which aims to keep students in the mainstream classroom as much as possible but with adaptations made to meet their needs. Staff are aware that any interventions put in place should be carefully selected, targeted, time limited and have a specific set of desired outcomes to support the learner as explained in the SEND Code of Practice.

Wave 2 is classed as targeted, additional interventions for students who are not quite meeting age-related expectations. Extra support can be provided during regular lesson time – it doesn’t have to take place outside of whole-class teaching. This is where adapted activities and resources are particularly useful.

Wave 3 is for specialist, personalised interventions. It may require SEND specialists or teaching assistants to provide further support to help learners progress at the expected rate. 

 

Curriculum changes

We have made curriculum changes to help implement the three waves of intervention model. Our Mainstream+ students receive a curriculum which largely reflects that of the rest of their year group and the timetable is flexibly designed so that they can join mainstream classes aligned to their ability.

However, they are in a small nurture form group of just 10 students to support pastoral care and help meet their needs. They also receive Wave 2 intervention direct instruction lessons in English (decoding and comprehension) and maths (functional). This is taught by a very experienced teaching team and it has seen significant impact and progress for the students.

For our ERP students we ensure they follow a mainstream curriculum with specific Wave 3 interventions only as required, e.g. small study groups in our ERP classroom with our specialist teacher, or meeting with one of our educational psychologists.

For our SEND students who are in the main school cohort we have introduced Wave 2 interventions in English and maths with smaller groups and the use of specialist teachers, for example for phonics.

When needed, we also offer Wave 3 support through bespoke curriculum packages for specific students aligned with their areas of strength and interest to support them in their post-16 plans.

Any specific student needs documented in EHCPs are translated into Individual Education Plans for every student on our SEND register. These plans are a summary of strategies for teachers to use in their classroom practice and helps to bridge the gap between everyday practice and the long and often complex EHCPs. 

Using research from the Making best use of teaching assistants guidance report (Sharples et al, 2015) we have also moved to a model where all teaching assistants are based in subject areas, which has helped to integrate them more effectively. With increased subject awareness they are better able to support in the classroom.

All of these adaptations to our school culture, our curriculum and our pedagogy have ensured that meeting the needs of all our learners, and specifically our SEND students, is effectively achieved.

 

Final thoughts

An inclusive school culture takes time to establish and involves working with all stakeholders to raise awareness. 

Train staff well in the required techniques and then expect to see evidence of adaptive teaching informed by students’ IEPs in any learning walks or quality assurance. Consider where curriculum adaptations or Wave 2/3 interventions may be beneficial and plan for these.

Ultimately, be driven by high expectations for all learners.

 

Further information & resources