SEND Curriculum
We tailor our teaching for pupils who are not yet ready to access the National Curriculum through differentiation and using the Leicestershire Small Steps Tracker to support the planning to meet their needs across the curriculum. Some pupils need to focus on the very small steps that will help them along the way in their learning journey. That’s the idea of the Leicestershire Small Steps Tracker. It is a curriculum for pupils who are not ready to work on the milestones from our School Curriculum.
The small steps tracker has been built by Leicestershire SEND service, to be used alongside the Development Matters Framework, and has been designed to aid professionals (advisors and practitioners) to monitor and celebrate the progress children with SEND make.
For pupils to have full access to the curriculum regardless of any barriers to their learning. To support this, the school have invested in the Leicestershire Small Steps Tracker alongside Earwig Academic, an assessment tool used to record, track and assess pupils with SEND. Some pupils need to focus on the very small steps that will help them along the way in their learning journey. These small steps are designed for pupils who have been identified as needing this highly differentiated pathway in order to secure the essential skills in:
- Reading
- Writing
- Communication and Language
- Mathematics
- Physical Development
Pupils who benefit from it most are those with moderate learning difficulties and who have significant gaps in their knowledge and skills compared to other pupils in the same year group.
Provision
As a small steps programme, it will sometimes need to be delivered separate to the school curriculum and therefore is likely to be delivering outside the classroom or on a small group basis. There is flexibility for making the curriculum completely tailored to the learners needs in that a pupil could be on the Leicestershire Small Steps programme for Writing but not for the other areas of the curriculum. It can be completely personalised to each individual.
Progression and Assessment
Assessment and Reporting: Leicestershire Small Steps are the stepping stones needed to get to Early Learning Goals. The steps are broken down into small age brackets within the different areas of the Development Matters Framework.
Staff begin their assessment by looking at the observation checkpoints descriptors for the curriculum area and if a child is not achieving these, they may move to the age bracket checkpoint until an appropriate ‘best fit’ level for the child is found. Each checkpoint has a clear set of descriptors and small steps. A tracking sheet on Earwig is completed to show whether the level each child is working at in each small step.
Monitoring, Evaluation and Improvement
The SENCo and teacher will have discussions in monitoring pupil’s outcomes using the evidence on Earwig. There is an assessment system within Earwig that allows a comprehensive view against all of the Leicestershire small steps and allows tracking of the pupil’s progress. Earwig tracks pupils’ progress using Entering, Developing and Secure tabs which allow practitioners to view progress within the small steps. The individual end of Year Report shows a pupil’s progress throughout the year, their progress in comparison to the previous year, their achievements to date and their progress against expectation.