SEND: What do Ofsted Look for when Inspecting for SEND Provision and Leadership?

This blog is based on Judicium’s SEND ‘Sofa Session’ from the 1st of November, with our resident expert Rik Chilvers. This session focused on what are schools' responsibilities and requirements for meeting children's needs, what do we mean by a whole-school approach to SEND, and how schools can work effectively with their community.

Ofsted doesn't grade SEND separately: inspectors use what they've seen of your SEND provision to inform their judgements in other areas.

SEND plays a part in all areas of Ofsted's framework: the intent, implementation and impact of quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development and leadership and management.

SEND Provision

Legislation and Guidance

Here are a few key pieces of legislation and guidance you should be familiar with:

• The Children and Families Act
  • Part 3 - children and young people with SEND
• The Equality Act
  • Part 2, chapter 1 - protected characteristics
  • Part 6, chapter 1 – schools
• The SEND Code of Practice
  • Chapter 1 (Principles)
  • Chapter 2 (Impartial information, advice and support)
  • Chapter 5, 6 or 7 depending on the type of your setting.
  • Chapter 9 (EHC NA + P)

Acting on Guidance

Key tasks:

1. Do you have a SEND Policy and Information Report on your website that has been ratified by your governors in the past year?
2. Have you checked that the Information Report contains all it must? (There are no requirements for the contents of the policy)

These are great starting points for engaging with SEND in your school. The policy should set out your aims and principles for supporting children with SEND; the information report details the implementation of it, i.e., it reflects practice. Also, think about whether you are making reasonable adjustments for children with SEND under the Equality Act? You must show how you’re meeting the needs of all children with SEND, whether or not they have an EHCP.

Some good questions to ask yourself include:

• Is your site accessible? If not, do you have a plan in place for how to make it accessible?
• Are appropriate safeguarding measures put in place for children with SEND?
• Are exam access arrangements in place for all years?
• Are your admissions procedures non-discriminatory to children with SEND?
• Are children with SEND able to access clubs and trips? Have you audited this?
• Does your behaviour policy allow children with SEMH (e.g., ADHD) to thrive?
• Do all parents/carers of children with SEND know they have SEND and are receiving support?
• Are you compliant in conducting your Annual Reviews?
  • They should take place at least once per year
  • Information should be circulated with relevant parties at least 2 weeks prior to the meeting.
  • Minutes from the meeting should be sent afterwards.
  • Your LA should respond with updated paperwork within 4 weeks.

These questions and engaging with your policies will give you an idea of where you might want to start when reviewing your SEND provision.

Preparing for the call from Ofsted

It’s important to note you don't have to prepare anything. However, you might find it helpful to have:

• Chosen key students from a range of E and K across years.
  • Let other staff know who these children will be in advance so you can be confident their books will be in order.
• Printed copies of provision maps for key students
• A few case studies: examples of your systems working well (e.g., referrals, APDR, transition support)
  • Have key data to hand (attendance, exclusions, progress, etc.)
  • Have examples of staff communications for the child
  • Have a provision map for them
  • Keep examples of their work

Leadership

What do Ofsted say about SEND specifically?

There are two main sources of information for what Ofsted are looking for with regards to SEND: the Education Inspection Framework and the School Inspection Handbook.

The executive summary is:

• Your school has an inclusive culture.
• You are aspirational for learners with SEND and this should be driven by the curriculum you offer - all learners should have access to the whole curriculum.
• Your assessment and planning is thorough and impactful.
• You have a robust and clear strategy for teaching reading.
• Children with SEND receive the cultural capital they need to succeed in life.
• Bullying, child-on-child abuse and discrimination are not tolerated.
• All leaders should be able to explain how SEND has informed their remit.

A whole-school approach to SEND 

Highlighted below are some sections of the School Inspection Handbook to illustrate what Ofsted are looking for. We have also included some tips to help you work towards Outstanding.

1. Ethos

Behaviour and attitudes:

• Pupils behave with consistently high levels of respect for others.
• Pupils have high attendance.
• There is demonstrable improvement in the behaviour and attendance of pupils who have particular needs.
• The school has high expectations for pupils’ behaviour and conduct. These expectations are commonly understood and applied consistently and fairly.

Top Tips:

• Link pastoral, SEND, phase, safeguarding teams together to tackle attendance (and other issues) holistically. These areas are not isolated.
• Review your behaviour policy to ensure it accommodates children with SEND.
• Deliver training using deliberate practice for tricky SEND behaviour issues.

2. Curriculum

Quality of Education

• Pupils consistently achieve highly, particularly the most disadvantaged. Pupils with SEND achieve exceptionally well.
• Leaders adopt or construct a curriculum that is ambitious and designed to give all pupils, particularly disadvantaged pupils (including pupils with SEND), the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life. This is either the national curriculum or a curriculum of comparable breadth and ambition.
• The curriculum is successfully adapted, designed, or developed to be ambitious and meet the needs of pupils with SEND, developing their knowledge, skills and abilities to apply what they know and can do with increasing fluency and independence.

Leadership and management

• Leaders have a clear and ambitious vision for providing high-quality education to all pupils. This is realised through strong, shared values, policies and practice.

Top Tips:

• Align SEND priorities with those of department heads or phase leads (e.g., vocabulary).
• Ask MLs who have effective strategies to present to whole staff.

 

3. Extra-curricular

Personal development

• There is strong take-up by pupils of the opportunities provided by the school. Disadvantaged pupils (including those with SEND), consistently benefit from this excellent work.

Top Tips:

• Have children with SEND on School Council
• Track enrichment

 

4. Working with your governor

Schools are not required to have a SEND governor, but it is good practice.

The benefits to SENDCOs:

• Ultimately, headteachers report to the school's governors which means you need governors on your side.
• They can act as a critical friend.
• They can challenge school leaders in areas you might not feel confident - such as whether the school is compliant with CAFA and EA.

Top Tips:

• Book a regular meeting with your governor.
• Ask to contribute a SEND report to governors every term.

 

5. Working with your SLT and Headteacher

Given that SEND cuts across all areas of the school, it's vital that SLT and the SENDCO are working together.

Top Tips:

• Attend SLT meetings / invite SENDCO to them.
• Attend subject/department/phase meetings.

 

6. Working with wider staff

Leadership and management

• Leaders ensure that teachers receive focused and highly effective professional development. Teachers’ subject, pedagogical and pedagogical content knowledge consistently build and develop over time. This consistently translates into improvements in the teaching of the curriculum.

The visibility of your SENDCO delivering training is very important. Confident training raises SEND to a whole-school issue.

Ofsted will want to see that you are identifying children with SEND as early as possible. This means your staff need to be trained and effective in using referral processes, being curious about a child's barriers to learning and knowledgeable about the broad areas of SEND.

Ofsted will speak to leaders about the curriculum.

Top Tips:

• Do all staff know which children have SEND? Do they know what strategies work for them and what their targets are? Briefings are effective for this.
• Offer a regular slot where staff can visit the SENDCO with concerns.
• Consider making a crib-sheet for staff that they can refer to in an inspection: school context, key questions they should have answers to, summary of your policy, etc.

 

7. Working with your community

Leadership and management

• Leaders engage effectively with pupils and others in their community, including, when relevant, parents, employers, and local services. Engagement opportunities are focused and have purpose.
• NB: Ofsted will speak to your pupils, and it will ask for feedback from your parents/carers.

Top Tips:

• Do all of your children with EHCPs know what is being done to support them?
• Could your SEND K children talk about strategies that support them? Think particularly about your most prevalent needs.
• Coffee mornings (particularly around transitions) – These can be run by your external professionals.
• Caseload for each TA of key children - phone frequently and regularly
• Make SEND team available during parents' evenings, etc.

Top Tips

As leaders, you need to able to talk confidently about:

• Makeup of your SEND cohort and how you have responded
• Progress of children with SEND
• Attendance of children with SEND
• Exclusions of children with SEND
• Wellbeing of children with SEND

Resources
Educational Inspection Framework
School Inspection Handbook

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