What might I do?

Develop a whole scgool approach to the wellbeing of all children

• A coordinated approach to meeting emotional health and wellbeing need (PDF)
• Supporting young minds through tough times (PDF)

Share concerns with parents

• Try to understand what is underlying the presenting difficulty in terms of immediate and wider environmental triggers and past experiences in the home or educational setting. (awareness of other possible causal factors e.g. trauma / abuse / young carer / bereavement etc)
• Develop sound knowledge of the children and relationships
• Use person-centred tools to elicit pupil voice e.g. good day / bad day. (see PC toolkit)
• Agree personal targets with pupil and ensure pupil understands 1) how he/her will be able to achieve them, and 2) how you will support him/her
• Share agreed strategies with staff to ensure fair consistent approach.
• Develop a one-page profile

School Approaches to develop emotional well-being

• Mental health awareness day
• Feelings board eg Emotions for Kids
• Mindfulness: Calm classroom
• Relax kids
• Wellbeing champions
• Questionnaires
• Help boxes

Consider Peer support e.g.

• Guardian angels
• Playtime buddy
• Circle of friends
• Lunchtime clubs
• Homework clubs

Use Solution focused approaches to problem solving.

• (see Primary Strategy resource) (PDF)

Teach emotional literacy

• PSHE / SEAL materials / P4C/ Webster Stratton Dinosaur School /Apple / Zippy curriculum.
• Modelling and normalising feelings
• Building resilience
• Create a sense of belonging / child feels valued and wanted
• Meet and greet
• How to ask for help.
• Emotional vocabulary wall

Inclusive Classrooms  and environments

• Create and plan opportunities to develop social skills in whole-class and group activities

• consistent routines and boundaries / positive learning environment
• use classroom checklists and audits which help you to consider quality SEMH differentiation and inclusive classrooms.
• realistic expectations and positive specific feedback
• differentiated behaviour policy / use of rewards/ incentives and sanctions
• calm and secure learning environment (not too stimulating)
• all efforts recognised and praised
• Structure learning tasks with visuals e.g. visual timetable / task planner to chunk steps in a task / first…next board etc
• Use social stories
• agreed noise levels (noise thermometer)
• well organised resources / tidy / well labelled and easy to access
• Prepare pupils for change
• Quiet zones / time out /safe spaces
• Flexible playtimes
• Class Pets
• Class responsibility /jobs
• Biophilia hypothesis – blue or green outdoor spaces. https://islandpress.org/books/biophilia-hypothesis
• Raise pupils awareness of the ‘social focus’ e.g. “Today I’m looking for good team work / sharing of resources etc”
• Partner working / talking buddies
• Team games
• Lego Therapy

Access to physical activity and movement e.g. Zumba / Active 8 /daily mile/ Healthy Body , Healthy Minds/ Wiggle time / purposeful movement breaks etc

• Further resources to support High Quality Teaching

SEMHS team
Claire Taylor, SEMHS Team Manager
claire.taylor@oldham.gov.uk
0161 770 4485

Healthy Young Minds
For consultation/advice please contact the duty worker on 0161 716 2020
www.oldham.gov.uk/early_help_referral

• Advisory Teaching Team (QEST) 
• Educational Psychology Team
• Mental Health and Wellbeing Team 
• Early Help

When would you move to SEN support?

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

Further resources for targeted interventions

• GM resources
• Mental Health toolkit for schools (Anna Freud)

How might you put in place an SEN support plan?

• 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?

If a child or young person is behaving in a manner which is unsafe, the school has a responsibility to address the safety risk by using a care and support plan. You can download examples of care and support plans below.

For more specific support in dealing with behaviour difficulties you can download the graduated response to behaviour and SEMHD framework from the SEMHs team.

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 researched interventions can be found at:- 

• https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk 
• www.interventionsforliteracy.org.uk 
• Dyslexia-SpLD Trust