Last month, Peps Mccrea and Dr Jen Barker published an evidence summary that outlines some common SEN interventions in school, and the strength of the evidence behind them. There are many familiar interventions named that have surprisingly weak evidence behind them, with some even having evidence against the use of them, citing possible harm.
For many teachers who use these interventions, this might feel challenging – teachers do their best with the resources that they have, including what they have in terms of time, energy and money. We also know that it can feel like the best practice in teaching is always changing, with new proposals and ideas being brought up all the time: what was once the ‘accepted truth’ is now found to be not helpful at all, or worse, actively unhelpful.
What Mccrea and Barker do state is that ‘most SEN students gain the most from high-quality, well-structured, clearly-delivered core teaching’, listening some features that are particularly useful:
- explicit instruction
- accessible lesson design
- scaffolding
- frequent checks for understanding
- consistent routines
These tools all have solid evidence behind them – and have been robust for many years – which is why we use them as the key mechanisms in our lessons in every single lesson at Life Lessons, from Year 1 all the way up to Year 13. These inclusive strategies are embedded as default because they benefit every child; they are not presented as something to ‘add in’ if needed. This means higher quality PSHE provision and more young people accessing lesson content, no teacher adaptation required.
However, we also know that there are some young people who do benefit from further adaptation, scaffolding and support. In the Life Lessons curriculum, every lesson has inclusion-specific guidance with tips on how the lesson could be meaningfully adapted to better meet the needs of certain pupils. Across both primary and secondary, sentence starters and visual prompts scaffold learning, with many lessons containing scaffolded activity options.
At Life Lessons, we prioritise inclusion and accessibility without the price tag of teachers’ time, which we know is often scarce. If you’re interested in learning more about what we do, visit our website wwww.lifelessons.co.uk or e-mail us at hello@lifelessons.co.uk.