“We have Year 7 or 8 children coming to us with a reading age of 5,” says Natalie Walsh. “And their school wonders why they are flipping tables in the middle of a Macbeth lesson.”
Walsh - co-principal of Sendscope, a provision in Liverpool supporting students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) - says she sees incidents like this all the time. “If a core subject makes you feel inadequate, you feel like you can’t do anything,” she says.
Jacqueline Bebbington, fellow co-principal at Sendscope, says that these issues are often exacerbated because pupils are struggling with the transition from primary to secondary and feel overwhelmed.
“Many students, regardless of whether they have SEND or not, typically feel nervous, scared and excited about the transition to secondary school. For some, this can become a challenging and traumatic experience as they embark on an unfamiliar change in their life.”
Witnessing situations like these while working at a secondary school meant Walsh and Bebbington knew there would be many more students with SEND struggling with transition and facing suspensions or the threat of exclusion.
As such, they had always wanted to set up a school to help students work through this and then, where possible, return to the mainstream.
Though Walsh says they were “afraid to take the leap” for some years, the pandemic and changes in personal circumstances led them to open Sendscope as an independent special school that offers bespoke placements for students aged 11 to 14, funded by local authority income from students’ education, health and care plans (EHCPs).
A bridging placement
The core purpose of the school, Walsh says, is to offer a bridging placement “whereby children come on a short-term basis, we find out their needs, how they learn best and then transition them [back] to secondary”.
Most such placements are short-term “12-week resets”, while some students attend on a part-time basis, split between Sendscope and their mainstream school. In some instances, Sendscope is named on an EHCP for a year, but the school aims to return them to a mainstream setting.
When it first opened, the school accepted only students in Years 7 and 8 but has since expanded to Year 9. The current capacity is 16 places but that will double to 32 by September. Walsh and Bebbington plan to then add 16 places each year as they welcome Year 10 pupils in 2025 and Year 11s in 2026.
The impact has been clear. Of the 43 children who have attended Sendscope so far, 26 have returned to mainstream schools while most of the rest have transitioned to another specialist setting, while a few remain with the school.
The school received an Ofsted “good” rating in November 2023, and inspectors noted that pupils enjoy their time at the school, behave well and are “happy and safe”.
Literacy focus
Indeed, Walsh says a big part of the early work they do with students is helping them to feel secure at the school - something that is centred on helping them unpick why they found the move to secondary so hard.
“We say, ‘Tell me what the problems are’ and lots of them say: ‘I struggle to concentrate,’ or ‘My handwriting is a problem,’ or ‘I have maths anxiety.’ They will verbalise their own worries.”
By working through this, the school is able to start building up their confidence around learning, which is done through bespoke curriculums for each year group, written by Walsh and Bebbington and approved by Ofsted.
Bebbington says these curriculums are “age appropriate” and follow the national curriculum - to aid transition back into the mainstream - but with “necessary reasonable adjustments” to suit each child’s needs.
At the heart of each curriculum is the teaching of literacy, which is the bedrock of all lessons, says Walsh. “We develop their reading because if the children can access the curriculum, they’ll want to attend.”
To help with this focus, one of Sendscope’s five full-time classroom staff is dedicated to literacy and “delivers all our reading interventions”, Bebbington says, adding that the programme is based on the University of Sussex’s Faster Read Project.
This focus impressed Ofsted, with its report noting that pupils can “read confidently to their classmates and demonstrate their understanding by responding to teachers’ challenging questions”, and have a good understanding of numerous texts, “including works by Shakespeare”.
Building on this, all Sendscope lessons follow the same routine, so students get to know what to expect and what is expected of them, Walsh says.
“Every lesson looks the same but the content changes, and all of our lessons begin with the explicit teaching of vocabulary,” she explains, reiterating the literacy focus.
Within lessons, teachers use evidence-based metacognitive approaches based on an, “I do, we do, you do” format, which Walsh explains moves from explicit instruction to guided practice, and then independent practice.
“The model has been successful at Sendscope because it is both highly flexible and structured. It minimises anxiety as children are aware of the ‘now, then, next’ routine and of the support in place for them.”
Of course, all this can only happen if students come to school.
To encourage attendance, each day begins with a “cosy and warm” breakfast club, as Walsh describes it, while Sendscope staff make regular phone calls to parents to help “rebuild relationships” with education, she says.
This was something Ofsted highlighted, noting particularly that parents appreciate the level of communication provided.
A sector need
This approach means that Sendscope has seen improvements in attendance, behaviour and academic results, something Bebbington says is no surprise because they are all connected.
“They are no longer the children you’re finding difficult to teach because you’re teaching adaptively enough to meet their needs and you’ve improved their attendance and their behaviour.”
Given the state of SEND provision, Margaret Mulholland, SEND and inclusion specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, says it is clear why a school like Sendscope is needed.
“With SEND provision in the state sector plagued by funding problems and long waiting lists, it’s no surprise that smaller, independent providers are filling the void,” she tells Tes.
“Where this is done effectively and with appropriate oversight, as in the case of Sendscope, the results can be fantastic.”
Mulholland says that the opportunity now is to take what they have learned and “spread good practice across mainstream and special schools” so more settings can benefit.
Simple ideas for all schools
Walsh and Bebbington acknowledge that Sendscope’s complete approach is not possible in mainstream settings, but say there are elements all schools could adopt to ease students through transition, especially those with SEND.
The first is to help students really get to know their new school.
One simple idea Bebbington recommends is for transition to involve not just meeting teachers but all staff that a student may encounter, such as office staff, canteen staff and site managers.
“That way, if you come in late, or you’re lost because you don’t know where your classroom is, you’ve got a familiar face to ask,” she says.
Technology has made introductory meetings, virtual journeys and school tours more accessible, she says, and should be used to reduce students’ fear of the unknown.
Walsh also suggests that “transition needs to start earlier than the last two weeks of the Year 6 term” and schools should offer SEND students at least one extra day of induction to help them prepare for the move.
For Bebbington, the effective use of teaching assistants is crucial. “The evidence suggests schools often use TAs as an informal instructional resource for pupils in most need and this has the effect of separating pupils from the classroom, their teacher and their peers,” she says.
Instead, she recommends that teachers look to the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF)’s guidance, which recommends that TAs are “used to help pupils develop independent study skills, and given direction to deliver high-quality one-to-one and small-group support”.
She adds: “Our TAs play a significant role in the lives of our students, and following the EEF framework has made a real difference to the professional development of our TAs and the progress of our students.”
At a policy level, Walsh and Bebbington advocate for SEND teaching to be incorporated more thoroughly into initial teacher training so that teachers in all settings are better placed to adapt their teaching to suit all learners and know how to support them.
When I was at university, I got half a day’s training on SEND,” Bebbington recalls, “and then I was asked to teach inclusively!”
It’s a view others have shared and, with increasing numbers of students having EHCPs, training has never been more important. “Good teaching for SEND is good teaching for all,” Bebbington says.
For now, though, the hope at Sendscope is that offering a dedicated provision means fewer students will fall through the cracks of transition and instead return to their secondary school journey.
Ellen Peirson-Hagger is senior writer at Tes
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