Providing support to those students in your classroom who need it is not always easy. The more conspicuous the tool offered, the less likely the student will be to accept it - being singled out as “different” goes against the instincts of most young people.

It was a problem Leyla Gambell, a Sendco in Kent, encountered when she tried to use visual tools to support those pupils in her primary school who experienced challenges with communication. She knew the resources could help, but they were like a flashing arrow above the pupil’s head denoting difference.

So, what did she do? Tes caught up with her to find out.

Not being able to communicate effectively is a huge barrier at any stage of life, but in primary school it can negatively affect pupils significantly, can’t it?

It really can. We know from countless studies that all children need to be able to communicate effectively in order to function successfully in education and within wider society. However, communication difficulties are common in schools, and staff need to be skilled and confident in using resources and techniques to support children who have barriers to using language. Difficulty with communication leads to frustration, challenging behaviour, anxiety, social isolation and low self-esteem.

There are many interventions out there that can be used to support these pupils, but what you really feel needs to be used more are visual communication resources.

Yes, I am fortunate in my area of Kent to have very supportive Specialist Teaching and Learning Services (STLS). As a new Sendco, STLS provoked much of my initial investigations into specific visual resources, which are often targeted at children with SEND (special educational needs and disability). I felt, initially, quite blindsided by all this new knowledge. Questions flummoxed me: have you tried a five-point scale? Comic Strip Conversations? Widgit symbols? I was determined to find a support structure for my students who struggled with communication, so I decided that a focus on visuals would be an excellent place to start in our development of communication-friendly classrooms.

Did you dive straight in?

Initially, my focus was mostly on provision for my children with SEND. I explored different visual aids that these students could use to communicate, and realised that the common theme among them was an effort to break down the complexities of language and communication. Comic Strip Conversations, for instance, devised by Carol Grey, are designed to support people who struggle with “quick exchange of conversation”. They visually depict - using stick figures and speech bubbles, as well as colour - social interactions. I have used them successfully with autistic children who find social communication difficult, and who need other people’s thoughts and actions explored in an explicit way. I have also used the technique after a behaviour incident, as part of restorative practice (usually at least a day or so after the event, to give the child time to cool down and think about it clearly). We carefully revisited the situation, reflecting on what was said and what people might have been thinking, before considering how the situation could have been resolved differently. And we detailed all of this visually.

The children like having control over the drawings and the fact there is no pressure to maintain eye contact or to use language. The strip could then be sent home for parents to talk through and further the support.

Other techniques that appealed to me were task-management boards and five-point scales. A task-management board is a to-do list of what the child has to do in order to complete a task. A five-point scale is a technique for emotional regulation; in our school, we use it for encouraging self-regulation when a child is feeling angry or frustrated. The child co-produces this scale as a visualisation with a trusted adult, and identifies on that scale what makes them feel angry and what might help calm them down. The scale is laminated and kept close at hand for the child to refer to. If a child finds themselves at a “red-rage: 5”, they can revisit their scale and look at ideas or strategies that might calm them down. The aim is to get back down to a “happy place: 1”.

Did your initial use of these approaches lead to success?

Having established these resources in practice, I soon came across an unexpected difficulty. These tools, designed to support inclusion in the classroom, were becoming a symbol of exclusion. For those of our older children who were already finding learning a challenge, being asked to use resources that further set them apart from the person sat next to them was, for some, a final straw.

Many children flatly refused to engage with the aids. So we needed a different approach. Fortunately for me, it was offered up by a Year 5 teacher. In a flash of inspiration, she had spent a session with her class devising individual five-point scales so that each child devised their own and kept the completed one in front of them. Everyone feels angry sometimes. What better way to illustrate this than to show that everyone can use the same process to manage their emotions.

So the visual communication tools became a whole-school approach?

I’ve come to believe that the easiest and most effective way to decrease teacher workload and to improve inclusive practice is, wherever possible, for strategies to be adopted as part of daily life. Whole-class task-management boards can be built into every lesson to benefit every child, and can even be used as a planning tool to reduce workload further.

l children (and staff!) can make and use their own five-point scale. This is what has worked best in our school and it is the model that I’d like to take forwards. After all, when was the last time, as adults, we went shopping without a list? Used a coloured pen to highlight the most important thing we needed to do today? We all use visuals, every day, and need to train all our children in how to use them.

Has the new whole-school focus had the impact you hoped it would have?

I can think of lots of examples to demonstrate just how transformative it has been, but one particular situation springs to mind. When I covered Year 5 one afternoon later on in the year, I read some of their class book to them. We came to a scene where the main character struggled with their anger and lashed out.

“Everyone gets angry sometimes, and that’s OK,” I told Year 5. “But how else could he have managed those difficult feelings?” Lots of hands went up, with one girl waving her laminated card in my direction. “He could have used a five-point scale!” she shouted. Cue great excitement, while they shared with me the different techniques from their own scales that they might use to support this character and manage his anger. It was true inclusion in action.

What’s your next target?

I would like to start every year with the expectation that all children (and perhaps even staff) make a five-point scale. I would also like lessons to have embedded within them a task-management board for the whole class, so that all children can benefit from learning how to identify the steps needed to complete a task. This vision for inclusion is low-cost, high-impact and focused on a change of ethos: by making these small changes, I believe we will see a great benefit to all our children, supporting them to feel included, to communicate effectively and be confident, independent learners.

Leyla Gambell is a primary school Sendco

This article originally appeared in the 23 October 2020 issue under the headline “How I… made visual communication tools inclusive”