SEND Research Recommendations

To better understand how SEND learners interact with RSHE lessons, our team at Life Lessons have carried out research into what works in special schools and mainstream schools for teaching RSHE.

Our team visited 7 contrasting school settings and our methodology included pupil focus groups, teacher focus groups, SENCo interview, PSHE lead interview and class observations.

Our aims with this research were to understand:

• More about the specific challenges schools are facing in teaching RSHE to pupils with SEND
• What pupils with SEND want from RSHE and how they best learn in this subject
• What teachers and teaching assistants need to support them to teach RSHE to pupils with SEND
• What we can do to support schools to engage and support pupils with SEND in RSHE

Our research found that schools were experiencing the following challenges:

• Pupil engagement with the subject matter
• Complexities in terms of the range of needs within the class
• The curriculum and resources were not appropriate for SEND pupils

From these findings we have developed 5 key recommendations for teaching RSHE to SEND Learners. You can download these recommendations by filling in the form to the right.