When appointed to the role of Assistant Headteacher and SENCO I needed to lead the improvement for our SEND provision, as prior to 2014 the progress our SEND pupils made was significantly below national average. In part, aspects of this development involved increasing our range of high quality interventions and being able to monitor, strategically, what impact these were having and how cost effective they were.
After researching different provision mapping tools, Provision Map's Learning Plan and Provision mapping software ticked all the boxes to the outcomes that we wanted to achieve. The software has helped significantly with the day to day leadership of SEND but also with keeping track of Pupil Premium spend and impact. Regular updates are provided as well as excellent support and training.
Provision Map's Learning Plan and Provision mapping software has many great features; from developing bespoke learning plans and student profiles to the excellent reports it produces to help ensure funding is used well and follows the pupil. The reports allow you to have a strategic overview of what impact each intervention is having, but also allow you to drill down into what progress each individual pupil has made within the intervention. In addition, I am able to create costing reports quickly to show how much each intervention is costing, and also costing reports for pupils that show how much we are spending per pupil and the impact this is having. This is particularly useful when applying for an EHCP and saves significant time.
The features above really helped to justify our SEND and Pupil Premium spend and impact to inspectors and we have been so impressed with Provision Map that we have now purchased the Safeguarding module and Class Charts to ensure fluidity to our whole school systems.
Over the last four years the progress our SEND pupils have made has increased rapidly to significantly above average and they now make some of the greatest progress nationally. As a result we were awarded The National SEND Award (2017) for the most inclusive practice across a school and commended at the Education Business Awards (2018) for inclusion. Consequently, I am now invited to speak at many national conferences on SEND and Inclusion.
As the Strategic Lead for SEND at The Sigma Trust, we have now embedded the provision mapping tool across all of our Secondary Schools and each SENCO is now finding life much easier!
