High quality, inclusive teaching and learning

Effective strategies to support children with SEND

We know that high-quality teaching and learning is effective for all children. All teachers and practitioners are teachers of children and young people with SEND.

Find support to help you plan to meet the needs of children and young people, from useful websites to handy resources, training, and specialist support.
 

What makes teaching and learning effective?

The Education Endowment Foundation guidance report Special Educational Needs in Mainstream Schools outlines that supporting children and young people with SEND should be part of a proactive approach to supporting all pupils, not an add-on.  It sets out five key strategies aimed at supporting pupils with SEND.

1 Create a positive and supportive environment for all children and young people without exception. 

  • High expectations of all children and young people.
  • Always challenging what you need to do differently.
  • Understand special education needs as a difference or neurodivergence rather than a shortcoming or weakness.
  • Use language and terminology that doesn’t have negative connotations or suggest a deficit.
  • Ensure the child’s wellbeing needs are met.
  • Foster independence and strong, positive relationships.
  • A physical environment taking into account such aspects as sensory needs.
  • Effective, skilled learning environment management.

2. Build an ongoing, holistic understanding of children/young people and their needs. 

  • Know the needs and contexts of children and young people and their characteristics – not stereotyping or applying a label in a way which might have a negative impact on expectations or opportunities.
  • On-going, responsive, diagnostic assessment, observation, monitoring and review that informs and shapes the teaching and learning.
  • Use a wide range of observation, assessment, and feedback tools including self and peer assessment.
  • Skilled pedagogical intervention, using knowledge of how children and young people learn to craft and re-shape learning experiences.

3. Ensure all children and young people have access to high quality teaching and learning.

  • Access to a broad curriculum and to learning which is sequential, cohesive, relevant and contextualised.
  • Skilled, open-ended and hinge questioning; asking the right questions at the right time.
  • Modelling to reveal the thought processes of an expert child/young person to aid understanding and help develop metacognitive skills.
  • Dedicated teaching of metacognitive skills; helping children and young people to understand how they learn and to make decisions about learning.
  • Build on and embed prior and key knowledge, understanding, skills and ideas.
  • Elaborate on learning by using describing and explaining to help embed it in the memory.
  • Planned sequences and cycles of learning which facilitate mastery.
  • Deliver flexible teaching and learning to adjust and personalise.
  • Teach key vocabulary or modelling with intent, to assist in conceptual understanding and building knowledge.
  • Demonstrate use of a range of resources and strategies evident in planning and delivery and explicit teaching in how to use them.
  • Appropriate use of technology to help with problem-solving and open-ended learning.

4. Complement high quality teaching with carefully selected small group and one-to-one interventions. 

 

5. Work effectively with teaching assistants/supporting practitioners 

  • Skilled use of additional adults with appropriate training and clear, focused remits to support learning, independence, metacognition and self-regulation.
  • Understand the impact of any adjustments, personalisation, intervention or support critically evaluated, with these evaluations used to inform subsequent teaching and learning.
  • Pre-teaching which acknowledges the different starting points of children and young people and attempts to enable all children and young people to access the core teaching and learning.

The five a day principle

The five-a-day principle can be integrated into teaching and learning to support learning and improve outcomes for all children and young people, including those with SEND. 

Teachers/practitioners should use these as a starting point for working with all children and young people, including those with SEND: 

For more detail, access the full Ordinarily Available SEND Provision document

Useful information for schools

Useful information for early years providers

1.16 The statutory EYFS (early years foundation stage) framework does not prescribe a particular teaching approach. Play is essential for children’s development, building their confidence as they learn to explore, relate to others, set their own goals, and solve problems. Children learn by leading their own play, and by taking part in play and learning that is guided by adults. Practitioners need to decide what they want children in their setting to learn, and the most effective ways to teach it. Practitioners must stimulate children’s interests, responding to each child’s emerging needs and guiding their development through warm, positive interactions coupled with secure routines for play and learning. 

1.18 In planning and guiding what children learn, practitioners must reflect on the different rates at which children are developing and adjust their practice appropriately. Three characteristics of effective teaching and learning are: 

  • Playing and exploring - children investigate and experience things, and ‘have a go’.
  • Active learning - children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties and enjoy achievements.
  • Creating and thinking critically - children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.

1.19 All children deserve high quality early education and care. This requires a quality workforce. A well-trained, skilled team of practitioners can help every child achieve the best possible educational outcomes. Children need to build an attachment with their key person for their confidence and well-being. The key person also promotes children’s learning by developing a deep understanding of their individual needs and children can particularly benefit from their modelling and support.

Oxfordshire Inclusive Support Series

The Oxfordshire Inclusive Support Series consists of strengths-based tools designed to help identify reasonable adjustments in learning settings for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). These tools facilitate conversations with educators to implement necessary provisions and adjustments to support students effectively. 

Inclusive Support series for school age children 

Inclusive Support series for Early Years children

  • Autism (document under review)
  • Sensory Processing (document under review)

Training

Training for Early Years providers

Training for schools

  • SENDCO essentials: your statutory role: SEN Support - school processes and systems
  • SENDCO Essentials - Ordinarily Available SEND Provision (OASP)
  • SENDCO Essentials The Graduated Approach - making the APDR cycle work for you
  • SENDCO Essentials Preparing for Ofsted
  • Adaptive teaching part 1 and part 2 (including EEF five a day)
  • Meeting the needs of a wide range of learners with SEND in the mainstream classroom
  • Middle leaders as leaders of SEND
  • Effective teaching assistant deployment for teachers
  • Teaching assistant training on developing independent leaners,
  • Teaching assistant training on effective classroom support
  • Supporting newly arrived pupils who are new to English

Book from the upcoming training list at the bottom of this page or contact the team for in school or online training.

Specialist support in setting 

The Early Years SEND Advisory Team 

Alongside working with individual children under 5 who have complex learning, communication and/or social interaction differences, the Early Years SEND Advisory team also provide universal and targeted support to Oxfordshire early years settings and schools in order to promote effective inclusion of children with SEND. Settings and schools can use the SENDCO Helpdesk to ask for ‘no names’ advice and targeted setting support. Targeted SEND support work specifically focuses on supporting early years settings and schools to improve early identification and intervention support for Early Years children with SEND. One tool used to support this work is the Oxfordshire Early Years SEND Inclusion Audit 

Oxfordshire School Inclusion Team (OXSIT)

We support the strategic development of inclusion provision in schools, with a particular focus on early identification and improving provision for pupils at SEN Support by developing an effective graduated response that improves learners' outcomes.

Find out more about OXSIT consultancy support packages.