all the difference to their experiences. Dr Kay Mathieson explains.
Our Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) keeps asking me to update our 'next steps' form for the children in my key group who have been identified with special educational needs (SEN). But surely that is her job? Does that sound like a familiar complaint to you?
The SEND Code of Practice 2014 clearly supports the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) approach that all staff in a setting are responsible for all the children who attend, but also that the key person retains responsibility even if the child has SEN.
However, this can lead to confusion about roles and responsibilities on a day-to-day basis. The danger is that each member of staff thinks someone else will carry out a task and it gets overlooked, or alternatively there is conflict between practitioners arising from expectations of the responsibilities associated with each role.
Clarifying how these roles work together and complement each other is essential and should be represented in policy and procedure documentation, but also be discussed and reflected on regularly. Supervision discussions are a useful forum for confirming how each person is feeling about their responsibilities and how these link with other specific roles.
The EYFS framework states:
- Each child must be assigned a key person. Their role is to help ensure that every child's care is tailored to meet their individual needs.
- The key person must seek to engage and support parents in guiding their development at home. They should also help families engage with more specialist support if appropriate.
The SEND Code of Practice states the SENCO role involves: ensuring all practitioners in the setting understand their responsibilities to children with SEN and the setting's approach to identifying and meeting SEN.
COLLABORATION
Essentially, the working relationship between the key person and SENCO is one of collaboration for the benefit of the child and the family. The key person will no doubt spend more time with the child, hear directly about family life, and deal with most day-to-day concerns. The key person will also be observing and tracking the progress the child makes in all areas of learning, with particular attention to the prime areas of learning.
The SENCO will, through regular detailed discussions with the key person, support moderation of judgments about progress, problem-solving and reflection on how to refine interventions to improve the likelihood of the child making progress. In addition, the SENCO will be alert to other possible sources of advice and support if necessary.
Early identification is usually the result of effective communication between the key person and SENCO. Perhaps the key person begins to voice concern and surprise that the child is taking longer to gain confidence with an aspect of learning. Alternatively, the SENCO may raise questions triggered by tracking data about rates of progress for a particular child over a period of time. Whatever leads to the concern, the key person and SENCO are then able to gather information, including:
- observations
- tracking data - prime and specific areas of learning
- tracking data - looking at progress across the areas of learning
- recent conversations with parents
- previous patterns of learning and progress
- any available information from agencies beyond the setting already involved.
These will inform the SENCO's overview at different phases of the process from early identification, intervention and ongoing communication with the family.
DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES
The discussion between them will focus on bringing together their different perspectives and exploring the agreed level of concern. This will lead to a hypothesis about the child's learning and clarity about what further information, evidence or advice is needed to confirm or challenge the hypothesis. The outcome of these initial discussions will be one of the following:
1. No current concern; continue monitoring. Knowledge of the child and evidence from patterns of learning indicate this is a temporary difficulty with an obvious likely reason and parents and practitioners have a similar view.
2. Agreed concern; continue monitoring to confirm or challenge hypothesis about why this aspect of learning is causing difficulty. Increasingly engage parents in the problem-solving process.
3. Key person and SENCO have different views about level of concern, continue monitoring to confirm or challenge expressed concern and engage parents in discussion to clarify their opinion/level of concern.
4. Agreed high level of concern requiring SENCO to seek advice or referral beyond the setting, plan for discussions involving key person, SENCO and parents to clarify concerns, and immediate and longer term actions.
EARLY INTERVENTION
Once a concern has been raised we are, of course, duty bound to do something about it. What we do will be based on our knowledge of the child and their patterns of learning, to ensure we give the child 'best possible chance' of making progress.
The design of the intervention will grow from our evidence of what the child can do now, from which we identify the next realistic small step we can support them to take. Ensuring the 'best possible chance' of success is about thinking about the conditions for learning, such as which other children might be involved, specific activities, the adults involved, where and when the activity might take place, as well as how we will signal to the child their progress.
- Any intervention planned needs to be monitored to ensure that it is implemented as intended. This needs the collaboration of adults, ideally the key person and SENCO. It is likely to include observing each other with the child to identify what is working and why.
- Before making decisions about the impact of the intervention, it is essential to reflect on the process, including:
- What more have we learned about this child?
- How consistent was the implementation of the intervention?
- What difference did it make, including unintended consequences?
- Has the impact of the intervention challenged or confirmed our hypothesis?
MODERATION OF JUDGEMENTS
A core part of the SENCO role is to moderate judgments about individual children's progress. Using tracking data, it is possible to build up a picture over time about the rate of progress children attending the setting generally make in all areas of learning. This provides the background for practitioner experience, knowledge and understanding of individual difference to assess each child's development and progress.
Using tracking data in this way enables the SENCO to recognise areas of strength and ability for children with SEN, so avoiding the danger of low expectations and lack of appropriate challenge for every child. The key person will moderate judgments about progress among the key group as well as the larger 'room group' of children.
The SENCO's perspective will include experience of a range of children with SEN who are/have attended the setting. This is not about making direct comparisons between children, expecting a similar child with similar needs to make similar progress. It is a process that deepens practitioner understanding and confidence about their professional assessment, keeping their thinking open to alternative approaches and opportunities that may help the child's learning.
Further, the SENCO has access to colleagues from other agencies and settings through local SENCO networks, problem-solving forums and support groups. For the key person, being able to question and share thinking with the SENCO about a child is a great asset in finding speci- fic interventions to enhance the child's learning and development.
A good source of information about what is available locally that can be accessed by both the SENCO and the key person is the 'local offer.' This is a central information source created by each local authority about the range of SEN provision (0-25) available in the local area. It includes statutory and voluntary sector provision offering advice, support, activities and provision for children with SEN and their families. The local offer also includes details of local authority procedures leading to an education, health and care plan if necessary.
WORKING TOGETHER TO SUPPORT THE CHILD
The roles of key person and SENCO in a setting are interdependent, with each having different perspectives on a child's development and progress. From early discussions raising concerns, the shared problem-solving supports effective early identification of a child's needs but also underpins consistent and coherent communication with parents and carers. A core purpose of this joint thinking is to challenge each other's perceptions using factual information, so ensuring that each child is given 'best possible chance' to make progress.
There are many reasons why this description of the working relationship between SENCO and key person is not always the reality in a setting. Effective EYFS provision is characterised by professional, purposeful working relationships between practitioners with a clear focus on providing appropriate support for every child and their family. By talking, sharing ideas, listening, problem-solving together and reflecting on our own and others' thinking, we are able to continually improve our individual practice as well as the quality of each child's experience of the setting.
MORE INFORMATION
Inclusion in the EYFS by K Mathieson (2015). London Open University Press.