Christmas Hours

Check when Council Services will be closing over this Christmas period.

Christmas hours

Meeting needs in Social, Emotional and Mental Health

SEND Graduated Response Toolkit

Meeting needs in Social, Emotional and Mental Health

The video materials below explore some of the issues around meeting the needs of children and young people with Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs. 

The following pathway will help you to plan a graduated response to meet the needs of children and young people with Social, Emotional and Mental Health difficulties.

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

What might I do?

Develop a whole scgool approach to the wellbeing of all children

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

Consider Peer support e.g.

Use Solution focused approaches to problem solving.

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

Desired outcomes: 

These must be realistic and be specific to the pupils starting levels and expectations for the group.
An example might be:

  • Listens calmly to the teacher and /or others in class and responds by putting his/her hand up, or
  • Demonstrates less anxiety and feels safe in following instructions on first time of asking.

Preventative Services you may request

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

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
 

Further resources for targeted interventions

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

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:- 

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