Communication and Interaction

SEND Graduated Response Toolkit

Meeting needs in Communication and Interaction

The following pathway will help you to plan a graduated response to meet the needs of children and young people with Communication and Interaction difficulties.

High quality teaching and differentiation that meets the needs of all children

Things you might do:

High quality teaching differentiated for individual pupils is the first step in responding to pupils who may have SEN 

SEN Code of Practice 6.37

Share concerns with parents

  • Share your concerns with parents/carers.
  • Check the child/young person’s hearing and vision in order to rule out any issues in these areas.
  • Ensure that staff have a clear understanding of the ages and stages of children’s communication development. The Communication Trust have produced a series of booklets for anyone who works with children and young people. The booklets show where children should be with their communication skills at any given age
  • Universally Speaking - Ages and stages of children's communication development - Communication Trust website

Communication-friendly schools

This video explains how some schools in Oldham have become communication-friendly

Consistent and predictable structure and routine

  • Class visual timetable
  • Auditory signals to prepare for change e.g. music jingle / bell etc

Reduce language demand

  • Simplify language
  • Repeat and model language
  • Extra time to process verbal information
  • Extra time for pupil to organise verbal responses
  • Support verbal language with sign / gestures (use sign a long)
  • Chunk instructions
  • Differentiated questions e.g. BLANK levels (ELKLAN resources )

General use of visuals in class

  • Pictures / symbols/ widgets / Boardmaker
  • Visual timetables
  • Now and next/taskbar/timers
  • Vocabulary mats
  • Labels
  • Story planning sheets / graphic organisers 

Incorporate strategies such as

  • Pre-teaching vocabulary
  • Talking tins and boards
  • Apps on iPads
  • Continuous formative assessment
  • Sabotage strategies (e.g. “ Do you want Juice or Milk” etc
  • Kagan approaches
  • Talking partners
  • Talk for writing
  • Social Stories
  • Use non-verbal methods of sharing ideas e.g. using white board to draw or write answers.
  • Use pupils interests to motivate/ elicit responses (share and tell)

Use specific interventions (as part of universal offer) :

  • Talk Boost (designed for children aged 4-7)
  • Blast (designed for all children in Nursery, aged from 3-4)
  • Blast 2 (designed for all children in Reception aged from 4-5)
  • Word Aware (designed for children aged between 5-11, but can be adapted for secondary age pupils)
  • WellComm Early Years (from 6 months – 6 years)
  • WellComm Primary (from 6-11 years)
  • Talkabout books
  • Blacksheep Press

Further resources

Desired outcomes: 

  • To be able to access the curriculum with greater independence;
  • To extend their communication skills in order to express their wants and needs;
  • To experience a feeling of increased confidence and self-esteem;
  • To participate in a wide range of play and learning experiences;
  • To be able to contribute to small group/whole class learning.

Preventative Services you may request

  • Advisory Teaching Team (QEST) 
  • Educational Psychology Team
  • Health Visitors
  • Speech and Language Therapy

SEN Support

When would you move to SEN support?

Where a pupil is identified has having SEN, schools should take action to remove barriers to learning and put effective special educational provision in place. This SEN support should take the form of a four-part cycle; Assess, Plan, Do, Review

Code of Practice 6.44

Where there is a lack of adequate progress despite identified and targeted differentiation. 

Schools should seek to identify pupils making less than expected progress given their age and individuals circumstances. 

This can be characterised by progress which; 

  • Is significantly slower than that of their peers starting from the same baseline
  • Fails to match or better the child’s previous rate of progress
  • Fails to close the attainment gap between the child and their peers
  • Widens the attainment gap

How might you put in place an SEN support plan?

The teacher and SENCO should agree in consultation with the parent and the pupil, the adjustments, interventions and support to be put in place, as well as the expected impact on progress, development or behaviour, along with a clear date for review

Code of Practice 6.48

  • What has the assessment identified as particular areas of need? 
  • What has the assessment told you about strengths and needs, barriers to and gaps in progress? 
  • What is the child’s view? 
  • What is the parent/carer view? 
  • What outcomes are you looking for? 
  • What are the identified changes and additional interventions? 
  • What are the adaptations needed to achieve the identified outcomes? 
  • How will these will be evaluated? 

What does an SEN support plan look like and how can it be implemented?

The class teacher should remain responsible for working with the child or young person on a daily basis. They should work closely with any teaching assistants or specialist staff involved… the SENCO should support the class teacher in the further assessment of particular strengths and weaknesses, in problem solving and advising on the effective implementation of support.

Code of Practice 6.52

A good SEN Support Plan should include the following; 

  • Outcomes
  • Actions
  • Who is responsible
  • By when 

Examples of SEN Support plans

Examples of One Page Profiles

A good SEN Support plan may include a provision map or personalised timetable for the pupil showing frequency and duration of specific interventions 

Interventions should be well founded and evidenced based. 

Interventions should last a minimum of 6 weeks 

Information on interventions can be found at:- 

Reviewing outcomes using a person-centred approach

Refer to Person Centred Toolkit for further guidance on choosing appropriate person-centred tools to help gather the information needed.)

The impact and quality of the support and interventions should be evaluated, along with the views of the pupil and their parents.

Code of Practice 6.54

The SEND Code of Practice suggests that the progress towards meeting planned outcomes should be tracked and reviewed regularly, at least termly. 

What does good support look like? 

What is ‘reasonable’ in terms of a balance between individual/small group and whole class access? 

Take each outcome:

  • What has specifically been done in relation to the outcome? i.e. smaller hopefully SMARTER outcome 
  • Baseline - this could be a behaviour, a feeling or a skill
  • Intervention
  • Evaluation
  • Next outcome

The plan below is a good example of how interventions have been reviews with outcomes in mind.

Requesting an EHCP assessment

Where, despite the school having taken relevant and purposeful action to identify, assess and meet the SEN of the child or young, the child or young person has not made expected progress, the school or parents should consider requesting an Education, Health and Care needs assessment.

Code of Practice 6.63

The code of practice says that SEN support should be adapted or replaced depending on how effective it has been in achieving the agreed outcomes.

Have there been regular reviews showing how the teacher, working with the SENCO, has revised the SEN Support plan in light of the child /young person’s progress and development- agreeing on any changes to support and outcomes in consultation with the parent /carer and pupil on what is working well, as well as what needs to be changed? 

Are difficulties severe and persistent despite high-quality teaching, regular attendance and specific targeted intervention over time? 

Refer to Oldham guidelines for requesting an EHCP assessment

Further resources to support EHC planning