Quality First Teaching for All
Quality First Teaching for ALL
A Top Priority for Schools!
Context and Background
The special educational needs
and disability review
A statement is not enough
Ofsted
Published: September 2010
Reference no: 090221
•
The special educational needs and disability
review – A statement is not enough
• The review was commissioned to evaluate
how well the legislative framework and
arrangements served children and young
people who had special educational needs
and/or disabilities. It considered the early
years, compulsory education, education from
16 to 19, and the contribution of social care
and health services.
The special educational needs and disability
review – A statement is not enough
The aims of the review were to:
• evaluate the accuracy and the equity of identification of special
educational needs across England and within local areas
• evaluate the extent to which the assessment of needs results in
high expectations, swift access to tailored services and so
improves outcomes
• establish, in different provisions and local areas, the strength of
outcomes for disabled children and young people and those
who had special educational needs as well as for children
reaching the lowest levels of attainment
• evaluate, as part of this, the effectiveness of legislation, policy
and the organisation of provision, following identification and
assessment, in focusing on the improvement of outcomes for
these groups of children and young people.
The special educational needs and disability
review – A statement is not enough
• However, we also recognise that as many as
half of all pupils identified for School Action
would not be identified as having special
educational needs if schools focused on
improving teaching and learning for all, with
individual goals for improvement.
Ofsted, September 2010
The special educational needs and disability
review – A statement is not enough
• At School Action level, the additional provision
was often making up for poor whole class
teaching or pastoral support.
The special educational needs and disability
review – A statement is not enough
• Inspectors saw schools that identified pupils as
having special educational needs when, in fact,
their needs were no different from those of most
other pupils. They were underachieving but
this was sometimes simply because the
school’s mainstream teaching provision was
not good enough, and expectations of the
pupils were too low.
The special educational needs and disability
review – A statement is not enough
• . . . some pupils are being wrongly identified as
having special educational needs and that
relatively expensive additional provision is being
used to make up for poor day-to-day teaching
and pastoral support. This can dilute the focus
on overall school improvement and divert
attention from those who do need a range of
specialist support.
The special educational needs and disability
review – A statement is not enough
• The characteristics of the best lessons were:
– Teachers’ thorough and detailed knowledge of the
children and young people
– Teachers’ thorough knowledge and understanding of
teaching strategies and techniques, including
assessment for learning
– Teachers’ thorough knowledge about the subject or
areas of learning being taught
– Teachers’ understanding of how learning difficulties can
affect children and young people’s learning.
• These were the essential tools for good-quality
teaching with any group of children or young people.
The special educational needs and disability
review – A statement is not enough
• . . . further changes to the system should focus
on:
• Improving teaching and pastoral support early on so
that additional provision is not needed later
• Ensuring that schools do not identify pupils as having
special educational needs when they simply need
better teaching.
The Green Paper
Support and aspiration: A new approach to special
educational needs and disability
• . . . our proposals in this Green Paper will mean that:
• teachers and other staff in schools and colleges are
well trained and confident to: identify and overcome a
range of barriers to learning; manage challenging
behaviour; address bullying; and intervene early when
problems emerge;
• teachers feel able to identify effectively what a child
needs to help them to learn and to plan support to
help every child progress well, reflecting the specific
needs of children with SEN and those who may just
be struggling with learning and need school-based
catch-up support which is normally available.
The Green Paper
Support and aspiration: A new approach to special
educational needs and disability
• International evidence shows that
the most important factor in
effective school systems is the
quality of teachers and
teaching.
Fact Sheet –Changes to School
Action and School Action Plus
• It will also, challenge schools to improve the
quality of teaching and learning for all
pupils, rather than inappropriately and
inaccurately labelling some pupils as having
SEN.
• We want to ensure that pupils are identified
as having SEN only where it is appropriate
and action to meet the full range of their
needs goes beyond what can be achieved
by adapting mainstream teaching
Fact Sheet –Changes to School
Action and School Action Plus
• The focus, which will be set out in the
Code of Practice will be on raising
aspirations for pupils, good-quality
teaching, effective early identification,
clear outcomes for the child and
rigorous monitoring against those
outcomes.
Draft Special Educational Needs (SEN)
Code of Practice for 0 to 25 years
October 2013
• High quality teaching, differentiated,
for different pupils, is the first step in
responding to pupils who have or may
have SEN.
• Additional intervention and support
cannot compensate for a lack of good
quality teaching.
Draft Special Educational Needs (SEN)
Code of Practice for 0 to 25 years
October 2013
• The majority of pupils can make
progress through such teaching.
• Schools should regularly and
carefully review the quality of
teaching for pupils at risk of
underachievement.
Draft Special Educational Needs (SEN)
Code of Practice for 0 to 25 years
October 2013
• This includes reviewing teachers’
understanding of strategies to identify
and support vulnerable learners and
their knowledge of the special
educational needs most frequently
encountered.
Draft Special Educational Needs (SEN)
Code of Practice for 0 to 25 years
October 2013
• The quality of teaching for pupils with
SEN, and the progress made by pupils,
should be a core part of the school’s
performance management
arrangements and its approach to
professional development for all
teaching and support staff.
Draft Special Educational Needs (SEN)
Code of Practice for 0 to 25 years
October 2013
• SEN should not be regarded as
sufficient explanation for low
achievement, nor should there be an
assumption that all children will
progress at the same rate or that all
children falling behind their peers have
SEN.
Draft Special Educational Needs (SEN)
Code of Practice for 0 to 25 years
October 2013
• Where children are falling behind or making
inadequate progress given their age and
starting point they should be given extra
support.
• At this early stage teachers may suspect that
a pupil has SEN. While informally gathering
evidence . . . Schools should not delay putting
general teaching support in place where
required.
Draft Special Educational Needs (SEN)
Code of Practice for 0 to 25 years
October 2013
• Where pupils continue to make
inadequate progress, despite highquality teaching targeted at their
areas of weakness, the classteacher,
working with the SENCO, should
assess whether the child has a
significant learning difficulty.
Ofsted Inspection of
Maintained Schools and
Academies from 1st September
2012
Quality of Teaching
• Inspectors should consider the
extent to which the ‘Teachers’
Standards’ are being met.
Teachers’ Standards
September 2012
•
•
•
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Adapt teaching to respond to the strengths and needs of all
pupils
Know when and how to differentiate appropriately, using
approaches which enable pupils to be taught effectively
Have a secure understanding of how a range of factors can
inhibit pupils’ ability to learn, and how best to overcome these
Demonstrate an awareness of the physical , social and
intellectual development of children, and know how to adapt
teaching to support pupils’ education at different stages of
development
Have a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils, including
those with special educational needs; those of high ability; those
with EAL; those with disabilities; and be able to use and
evaluate distinctive teaching approaches to engage and support
them.
The Sutton Trust
Improving the impact of teachers on pupil achievement
in the UK – interim findings (Sept. 2011)
• The effects of high-quality teaching are
especially significant for pupils from
disadvantaged backgrounds: over a school
year, these pupils gain 1.5 years’ worth of
learning with very effective teachers,
compared with 0.5 years with poorly
performing teachers. In other words, for poor
pupils the difference between a good teacher
and a bad teacher is a whole year’s learning.
Unseen Children: access and
achievement 20 years on
Evidence Report
Ofsted, 2013
Unseen children: access and
achievement 20 years on
• This report summarises Ofsted’s review
which aimed to understand the current
pattern of disadvantage and educational
success across England.
• In the report, the term ‘disadvantaged pupils’
refers to those pupils who are eligible for free
school meals.
Unseen children: access and achievement
20 years on
• In 1993, Ofsted identified seven urban areas
which suffered from geographical isolation.
Much of the provision in these areas was
described as inadequate and disturbing by
inspectors.
• According to this report, the quality of
education has improved in some of the areas
Ofsted identified in 1993. In others, however,
the rate of improvement has been slow.
Unseen children: access and achievement
20 years on
• The most successful schools recognise that
raising academic achievement cannot be
tackled in isolation.
• Teachers’ high expectations, consistently
high quality teaching and learning and a
relevant curriculum must be underpinned by
other interventions that increase pupils’
resilience and readiness to learn, as well
as developing strong partnerships with
parents and carers.
Unseen children: access and achievement
20 years on
• High quality teaching is crucial,
especially for disadvantaged
pupils.
• There are big regional variations in
the quality of teaching in schools
serving the most and least deprived
communities.
Unseen children: access and achievement
20 years on
• The characteristics of outstanding teaching
include:
• excellent leadership of behaviour and attitudes to
learning
• lessons that challenge pupils according to their
needs and abilities
• frequent and purposeful opportunities to learn
independently
• teachers’ excellent subject knowledge and use of
questioning
• highly effective feedback to pupils
Reflection Time
• Do all teachers understand the difference between a
pupil who is ‘underachieving’ and a pupil who has
SEN – ‘a pupil who has significantly greater difficulty
in learning than the majority of their peers’?
• How would your teachers match up to Section 5 of
the Teachers’ Standards?
• How will classteachers/subject teachers respond to
having first line responsibility for pupils, who require
targeted support within the classroom?
• What is the quality of teaching and learning for
disadvantaged pupils in your school?
(Outstanding? Good? Requiring Improvement?
Inadequate?)