The strategies listed below highlight the ordinarily available inclusive provision that should be in place to support children and young people with cognition and learning needs on a daily basis, across all areas of the curriculum. These ordinarily available whole class strategies should be embedded as part of everyday inclusive practice, and their impact on an individual evaluated, before considering a more targeted approach.
- Children and young people are given work that matches their current level of attainment, as well as being supported to take part in age-related learning.
- Teachers use grouping flexibly, bringing together temporary groups of children and young people, based on current needs.
- All children and young people have time with their teacher, as well as opportunities to work independently.
- Children and young people are supported to pay undivided attention: classrooms are set up to minimise distractions – use our SEND environmental audit – primary or SEND environmental audit – secondary tools to help with this. There are consistent strategies for gaining children and young people’s attention, and age-appropriate movement breaks and ‘brain breaks’ are built into the school day.
- Learning is made accessible to all by:
- breaking material into appropriate steps
- using clear and concise language
- helping children and young people to focus on key information
- modelling tasks
- using worked examples and scaffolds.
- Teachers use scaffolding in a way that supports independence, with a lessening of scaffolds over time. Scaffolds may be:
- Concrete, such as structured mathematical apparatus
- Visual, such as task planners, lists, and images that support vocabulary learning
- Verbal, for example, using questioning to elicit misconceptions, or providing a verbal prompt like ‘What have you done before that will help you with this task?’
- Written, such as word banks, writing frames, or sentence starters.
- Teachers help children and young people to link new learning with previous learning, using visuals such as mind maps and photographs where possible.
- Contexts and narratives are used to help children and young people make sense of content, make connections, and remember what they have learnt.
- Teachers provide children and young people with regular opportunities, through recapping and practising, on a ‘little and often’ basis.
- Skills and knowledge are taught to fluency.
- Teachers explicitly teach children and young people to plan, monitor and evaluate their own learning, and model this through ‘thinking aloud’.
- There are agreed strategies for asking for help, with visual reminders.
- Vocabulary, key concepts and background knowledge are pre-taught, with visual support.
- A range of high-interest and low reading-age books are available. All children and young people can choose a book that interests them, as well as a book for decoding practice (where this is still needed).
- Text is made accessible, this includes classroom displays and interactive whiteboards) and on printed material is carefully considered, with clear guidance provided for all staff (see the British Dyslexia Association’s style guide).
- Technology is available to support curriculum access and recording. For example, children and young people are provided with access to audiobooks, and to laptops with accessibility functions (such as ‘Immersive Reader’). Children and young people are taught the skills they need to use ICT to support their learning (for example, they learn to type).
- Children and young people are supported to use a range of methods for recording their learning: for example, mind maps, visual story boards, diagrams, and use of ICT.
- Children and young people are provided with resources that support spelling, for example, word lists, spelling books, ACE dictionaries, and spellcheck functions.
- Children and young people are provided with resources to support handwriting, including a variety of writing tools and pen(cil) grips, books with appropriately sized lines, and handwriting paper.
- Children and young people are explicitly taught study skills that will help them to revise for their exams (secondary)
- Hearing and vision are checked, and language needs considered, when there are concerns about a child or young person’s progress.