Thread by @M_X_F

Next up, I’m listening to @theSENDcast with Dale Pickles (Great name) from @BSquaredLtd
open.spotify.com/episode/2VJlmK… here’s a 🧵THREAD of almost everything they said… #SEND

In this episode, ‘High Quality Teaching for SEND’ Dale interviews Gary Aubin @SENDMattersUK aka ‘the Lone SENDCO.’ Gary is SEND content specialist for EEF.
@EducEndowFoundn and creates/curates Sendmatters.co.uk

First, Dale asks : Is it high quality teaching or is it quality first teaching? Gary: the SEND code of practice uses ‘high quality teaching.’ But the two things mean the same thing.
What about differentiation vs inclusive / adaptive teaching? Can you articulate what these mean?

Gary: many SENDCOs don’t get time to drive improvements in T&L in their schools because they’re so busy. But this is ‘where the magic happens’ so should be a priority. (I agree though I’d say: there are others who can do this, eg T&L leads - with SEN in mind)

Dale: some say teachers have too much on their plate to be focusing on supporting students with SEND too. Both then make the case that focusing on the quality of what you deliver to students in lesson should be every teacher’s priority.

Gary: SENCOs often focus on the things they can control, eg LSA placement, interventions, local authority paperwork. It's harder to control what other teachers do in their classrooms, but working on this can be the highest impact. (this may be true for some SLT too!)

EEF SEND evidence review: shows there are evidence based strategies for students with SEND. 5 main strategies with Dale argues should be woven in to the school approach for T&L across phases/subjects. educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evid…

EEF: What does effective professional development look like? Not: stand up once in September. Not: email teachers with some instructions.
Effective professional development: needs to motivate staff, build up knowledge , not one off.

5 evidence based strategies from EEF:
1. Explicit instruction
2. Cognitive and meta cognitive strategies
3. Scaffolding
4. Flexible grouping
5. Use of technology

NB this doesn’t address every challenge / question, but gives a broad set of approaches which is based on evidence. (Also I’d add- not a tick list!!)

#1 Gary goes into more detail about what good explicit instruction in high quality teaching looks like for SEND and all students:

1. See Rosenshine’s principles. Simple routines like daily review help all students.

2. Introduce new material in small steps . With passion, but brevity!
3. Tailor and target your questions and don’t exclude students with SEND. Mini whiteboards involve all children. Adaptive teaching means you change your teacher based on the answer to questions.

4. Modelling- show how new learning links to what they already know and how to do it.
5. Guided student practice; I do, we do, you do
6. Check student understanding until you have a high success rate
7. Most students are ready for independent practice but some need more practice.

In a well designed curriculum, learning review will be particularly powerful and useful for next learning.

Gary: challenge if a teacher says a student ‘can’t remember anything’ from lesson to lesson. Why not? How are you teaching it? How are they retrieving it?

Dale says engagement is a prerequisite to attention, learning and memory. Dale and Gary seem to have different approaches, with Dale suggesting bringing in Bakeoff into a lesson, while Gary argues the virtues of showing passion for something niche and subject specific.

Remember what hooked you in to your subject. Share with your students.

Explicit instruction is not just delivering a lecture! It begins Teacher led and gradually moves to more student independence. Gary name drops @AdamBoxer’s approach to science practicals which he plans for the end of the unit not the beginning.

If you try for student led / independence too quickly, that’s the worst thing for the students with SEND , as they need more scaffolding and a more secure understanding to start.

Gary and Dale then expound on various examples of how much more powerful it is to ‘front load’ or teach explicitly first, including Shakespeare, and a primary example of learning about the Olympics for several weeks before visiting the Olympic park.

#2 Moving on to cognitive and meta cognitive strategies useful for all students and those with SEND:
1. Retrieval practice
2. Dual coding (not a silly pic/icon but a clear image)
3. Interleaving & spaced learning : help keep knowledge in long term memory

4. Manage cognitive load : chunk info. Focus on core content. Be clear what you want them to know.
5. Worked examples - narrated (or try @mrbartonmaths ‘silent teacher’)
6. Build schemas through curriculum design

7. Metacognition: learning to learn. Supporting students in how they plan, monitor and evaluate their work. Big role for LSAs here; metacognition Qs: Plan: “have you done a similar task before?” “What strategies have you used before?” “What do you need to begin?”...

...Monitor: “are you finding this challenging?” “What can you do if it’s difficult?” Evaluate: “did you succeed?” “How did you do it?” “What can you do next time?

Gary reminds us: don’t stop doing the basics in class for students with SEND!

#3 scaffolding: “no one wants to live with scaffolding on their house forever” - our aim is always to remove it over time
Gary says Scaffolding could be:
1. Verbal: checking understanding of instructions, reteaching content to an individual
2. Visual: diagrams of what to do / how

3. Written: sentence starters, writing frame
Principles: scaffold in the least stigmatising way.
Dale mentions that as the curriculum moves on, you may need to put new scaffolds up for the different/more difficult content.

Gary gives examples of ways of gradually removing a scaffold:
1st time, give sentence starters.
2nd time, co-construct the sentence starters.
3rd time, students construct and teacher checks.

Challenge from Gary: If the teacher says the task, then immediately goes to SEND students to check / re-explain, are we teaching them they don’t need to pay attention? Are we setting the whole class up to succeed? Instead - provide appropriate scaffolds, stay back and watch

#4 Flexible grouping: Don’t make intervention groups permanent. Group in a way that is temporary, flexible, adaptive. Avoid the ‘bottom set kid’ phenomenon.

Adaptive teaching - all students have the potential to achieve lots; I need to adapt my teaching to help them do this.

Dale suggests: does adaptive teaching mean less planning not more as you can’t really plan for it? Gary: Planning comes in anticipating what will be hard, and for whom, and how you will find out, and how you will teach and question with this in mind.

(I agree- sounds lovely to say that adaptive teaching = less planning, but I think it takes careful thought to plan checking for understanding and scaffolding. Still hopefully less extra planning than differentiation).

#5 Using technology.

E.g. 1 .Software which differentiates as you go.
2. Visualiser: model, display and mark student work live.
3. Apps which support with independent practice/review & give teacher feedback on student knowledge
4. Speech to text / text to speech
5. Translation

Gary: Avoid tech red herrings/pitfalls: if accessing a laptop takes time, no charge, hard to login, not saved etc - this is going to disadvantage learning. Is your equipment and are your systems suitable?

Dale: is there any point in hand writing beyond year 6? What do you think?

Gary cycles back to remind us to focus on the high quality teaching aspect and that there is an evidence base for best bets in teaching for SEND.
Dale highlights the benefits of the Assess-Plan-Do-Review cycle & all parts of it, + the idea of 'high quality leadership' in business

Overall, a useful podcast & thank you @SENDMattersUK for foregrounding and elaborating on the @EducEndowFoundn report on #SEND.