Will Cannock, MAT SEND Lead at The Charter Schools Educational Trust, highlights three key initiatives to help teachers support inclusion in school.
Inclusion is about enabling every child to take part in the same activities and enjoy the same experiences in school. There may be no two children with exactly the same needs, but with appropriate strategies in place, all will feel included, valued and supported in everything they do.
In my previous role as SENDco at Charles Dickens Primary School in London, we had a higher-than-average number of pupils with SEND for schools in England and so inclusive teaching was a key focus.
Here are three key ways we found helped us to shape effective inclusion strategies in school.
- Support for children’s learning
In curriculum areas such as science, English and geography there are a myriad of subject-specific words and phrases that children need to be familiar with to access the curriculum. Those pupils who may not yet have the breadth of vocabulary or processing ability to fully engage can be at risk of falling behind.
As a school focused on inclusion, we used symbolic imagery widely to support learning and help ensure children with additional needs did not feel singled out.
Symbols are simple visual representations of the spoken and written words and phrases used regularly in most schools and they are as recognisable to our pupils as their class teacher or best friend.
We used symbols to teach subject-specific vocabulary such as ‘circuit’, ‘voltage’ and ‘conductor’, a few weeks before it came up in a lesson to give children the opportunity to build their knowledge and memory of these terms before they encountered them in lessons.
Teachers regularly used word maps for specialist terminology and included appropriate symbols for each so they were immediately more accessible for children with speech, language and communication needs. Importantly, as vocabulary was pre-taught in this way to a whole class, we closed vocabulary gaps as children moved through the school.
- Positive behaviour
As one of the Department for Education’s behaviour hub schools in England, we were able to encourage positive behaviour across the school by creating a more inclusive environment, using symbols in every classroom, every year group and practically every subject area from English and maths to music and French.
Our positive behaviour bingo cards, for example, included words and symbolic images to represent actions such as working hard, listening carefully and being kind in a really visual way.
The children loved being seen doing all the right things in school and getting their game cards marked off as a reward. One of the strengths of this approach is that the cards can be tailored to individual pupils’ needs, to help a child who gets upset about making mistakes to have a go at a task or encourage a quiet pupil to work with others. We saw fewer teachers needing support and guidance on managing behaviour since the cards were introduced.
We also developed resources to help children who feel unsettled by new experiences, such as a school trip. This involved creating a visual social story much like a comic strip to help the child see what’s going to happen and reduce fear of the unknown. The symbolic imagery in the story can be easily adapted to the child or situation, including the use of different skin tones, clothing and even favourite toys. This made it easier for the child to instantly recognise themselves in the story, reducing anxiety levels further.
- Independence
Children are often much happier, more engaged and make better progress when they are supported to navigate the school day without requiring the help of an adult.
Every pupil in our school had access to a visual timetable to support this, which included symbols for all subjects. Maths might be a calculator and history could be depicted by a symbol of a medieval castle, for example, and teachers routinely and regularly indicated what lessons were being taught throughout the day.
Visual timetables are an effective way to help pupils who don’t have the communication skills to process what’s happening now and what’s coming up next. But all our pupils engaged with and used the visual timetables regularly.
The use of the likes of Widgit symbols at Charles Dickens Primary became part of school life and the outcome of an evolving strategy focused on inclusion was far fewer children needing more targeted support in school.
