Guest Post by Lynn How https://positiveyoungmind.com
When SENCOs feel well supported, it can be the best role in the world but sometimes they feel that they are not very well understood in a school, even when the school being a great place to work and wellbeing is at the heart. Therefore I’ve collated a few considerations for headteachers to reflect on, to ensure that their SENCOs are both effective and happy in their work!
Having been a SENCO and having trained a lot of new SENCOs, as well as interacting with many others on my large Facebook group, I’ve noticed some common themes in terms of what we wish that their headteachers understood more explicitly about the role. Like being a head, sometimes SENCOing can be lonely as there is only one of you in your school. Sometimes it’s a challenge to bounce ideas off of others or for colleagues in school to fully understand both the extent of the role and the subtle nuances that SENCoing brings, in comparison to other school roles.
A major barrier for new SENCOs is the lack of training to complete the role. The NASENCO has been notoriously poor at giving SENCOs the practical skills they need to be able to tackle everyday SENCO tasks – let’s hope the new NPQ will be more useful in that respect. This is the reason why I decided to develop new SENCO training and write a book on the subject. New SENCOs are so overwhelmed, under-prepared and have no idea where to start. Luckily, I came into the role after experience as an assistant head and many years teaching, so I already had a good idea where to start as well as the leadership skills needed to support key areas such as: leading a team of LSAs, improving teaching and learning, supporting SEMH and behaviour, as well as the ability to extract paperwork from deadline shirkers! If a new SENCO has come straight from the classroom, sometimes after only 3 years of teaching, they don’t have this experience to draw upon and can be like a rabbit in the headlights!
The following are my top tips for supporting your SENCO. No doubt you are already doing a good at many of these, but just take a moment to reflect upon these 10 areas that SENCOs would like all headteachers to understand more comprehensively.
- Understanding best practice for SEND– Have you consulted the EEF guidelines yourself to have a good understanding of where schools should be aiming? There are 5 core principles which are then broken down further in the document. Also, check that your SENCO has accessed it as some are not aware it exists.
- Bath Spa University research on SENCO workload – Have you accessed this so that you understand best practices for SENCO workload? It has guidelines on release time with a variety of context examples as well as other priorities for improving SENCO work/life balance.
- SENCO pay – Are you paying us correctly? SENCOs should be paid with a TLR. The SEN allowance is not for SENCOs and was designed for teachers who have a high level of pupils with SEND in class. Furthermore, many SENCOs have been told that their UPS is enough. It is not. UPS is for experience, not extra responsibility. Some SENCOs wonder if they should be on the leadership scale, but this is not usual unless they are also a deputy or assistant head as well.
- SLT meetings – SENCO best practice is to be on the senior leadership team. Please ensure they we have a seat at the table. We don’t necessarily need to attend whole meetings if it’s not an effective use of time, but we need to have a part in whole school development and ensure that improving inclusion is on the whole school agenda.
- Give us staff meeting time – Book a slot every half term to enable your SENCO to train staff effectively. Time can be used for individual education plan writing and ‘drop in’ sessions to allow staff to write individual education plans, further embedding quality teaching strategies and adaption/ scaffolding techniques, specific training or action planning. Each year, provide time for your SENCO to outline the code of practice and the assess, plan do review model, so they can reiterate what their role is and what they do day to day, what a class teacher’s role is (as teachers are ultimately responsible for planning, progress and assessment for children in class with SEND but they often forget this!). As well as where there is an overlap. SENCOs are coordinators not ‘doers’ so although we may get involved with modelling good practice and pupil interventions (as we like spending time with our children), our main role is coordination.
- Big up what we do! – SENCOs feel like they are chained to a desk a lot of the time and teachers wonder what we do all day! We are unfortunately not playing online games in our office, we barely have time to eat (please check we eat!). The paperwork mountain is high and never conquered. Remember that paperwork from outside of school (such as paediatrician information requests), takes significant time to complete and an EHCP application can take 10 hours!
- Support when things go wrong - I like to think that we are the backstage crew in a theatre. No one notices when things are going well, but if something is missing or goes wrong then we are the go-to person for a moan from both parent and teacher perspectives, which even for experienced and thick-skinned SENCOs can be quite upsetting, especially when we have done our best and it’s a finance/resource issue getting in the way of excellent provision.
- SENCO CPD – SENCO’s have a severe lack of CPD and they often dip their hand into their own pocket to pay for courses. Consider providing them with a CPD budget to enable them to access training in areas of need. Even £60 would get them several webinars.
- Embed HQT, and your universal provision (sometimes called ordinarily available) – Having these things well embedded often solves problems before they start. These things are the minimum that school and class teachers should be doing to support in class. So even if a pupil has no SEND needs, they can access things like a whole school regulation strategy, a learning mentor, pre-teaching and scaffolding as and when a need arises. Also, ensure that PHSE and wellbeing are interwoven throughout your curriculum and SEMH skills are explicitly taught from the early years onwards. Children who can articulate their feelings as frustrations early on, are far less likely to have regulation issues later on. Prevention is always better than cure so while we’re on the subject, screen all new pupils for language and communication needs as it’s amazing how many SEMH needs stem from undiagnosed SLCN which may have been prevented with a robust screening regime.
- Admin support – To allow maximum SENCo impact, get us admin support. If we are part-time, this member of staff can also mop up any parental SEND issues when we are not in and feedback. If a SENCO is filing or typing up notes, this is not a good use of salary. SENCOs can be much more efficient if there is an LSA to support them in doing these things. Similarly, working from home without interruption can be a great use of our time.
After an extremely challenging half term, school staff are at breaking point. So that headteachers can look after their SENCOs and all of their staff, they need to look after themselves as well and of course Headteacher Chat is on hand to help with this.
Any extra praise is also welcome (but not so much that it’s weird!). I found it interesting when I became freelance that I received more positive feedback in my first year than I had in a decade of working in schools! Not because I was doing anything badly, but simply because everyone is up to their neck in work. This also enabled me to reflect on how much praise I used to give people and for the same reason, not enough is the answer. Find out how your SENCO likes to receive praise for best impact – never in public was my preference!
Lastly, I love providing SENCOs with all my free resources so please point your staff in the direction of my free stuff which can be found at: https://positiveyoungmind.com/senco-resources/ as well as my SENCO wellbeing network: https://www.facebook.com/groups/theswearysenco. Thank you for reading and if any headteachers or their SENCOs want to jump on a Zoom call for some quick SEND troubleshooting or SENCO wellbeing, I’m happy to help!