Post-lockdown learning for students with SEND

While some pupils with SEND may have struggled with learning from home in lockdown, others will have benefited. But which group was in the minority? And what does that mean for how teachers should support all pupils with SEND to transition back to school in September? Chris Parr and Helen Amass talk to the experts to find out
7th August 2020, 12:01am
A Paper Caricature Of A Student At A Desk – Asn Additional Support Needs Coronavirus Lockdown School

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Post-lockdown learning for students with SEND

https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/post-lockdown-learning-students-send

It’s 2pm on a Friday, and Jack is sitting at his desk in his bedroom, calmly getting on with some algebra. At this time of day, he would more commonly be on his way to the inclusion room, having been sent out of his lesson for failing to focus on his work.

Jack says this is not his fault, though. He is autistic and his Year 9 maths classroom is bright and noisy and full of distractions. On Friday afternoons, after football at lunch and a whole-year assembly, his ability to focus is practically non-existent.

Now, though, football has been replaced by a walk in the park with his dog and the assembly is a recorded video. As a result, lack of concentration is much less of an issue.

Many people expected that the long period of school closures owing to the coronavirus pandemic would be challenging for pupils, and particularly difficult for those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). But has this been the case in reality?

As Jack’s experience illustrates, learning in lockdown has been beneficial for some pupils with SEND. The time away from school has allowed them to get on with work at their own pace, free from distractions, and has led to improvements in wellbeing for some.

But is Jack’s experience typical of those with SEND? And whether it is or not, what should schools do next, as they prepare to open their doors fully in September?

Umar Toseeb, a lecturer in psychology in education at the University of York, has been conducting research into the effects of lockdown on children with SEND and their families right from the very start of the period of isolation. His data suggests that positive experiences such as Jack’s are in the minority.

“On the whole, there has been a negative impact [of lockdown on children with SEND]. We do see [some] parents reporting that lockdown has a positive effect or had a positive effect on their child, but that is a minority. So, for the most part, it’s been a negative experience,” Toseeb says.

He and his colleague Dr Kathryn Asbury published a report on 30 April, analysing the data they had gathered from parents over the first weeks of lockdown. They found that, for families of children with SEND, feelings of worry and anxiety had “increased exponentially”, and that the worries they described were often directly related to “being (or parenting) a child with SEND”.

More specifically, parents reported anxiety related to their child’s SEND and the context of the lockdown, including children adopting habits such as excessive hand washing or concern around restricted food preferences, and changes in mood, emotions and behaviour, including “a minority of children who had begun to display psychotic symptoms and suicidal ideation”.

According to the report, the levels of distress described were “higher than one might expect in non-SEND families”.

Toseeb’s research is ongoing and the initial report was based on data gathered during the first weeks of lockdown only, so he admits that things may have improved for families since. However, the initial responses certainly suggest that mental health will be a significant challenge for children with SEND and one to which schools will need to pay close attention.

“It seems, from our data, that for the minority of families, homeschooling is a positive thing and it has been a positive experience and they probably would like more of that. But for the majority, it doesn’t seem like it’s been a positive experience to begin with,” Toseeb says.

How typical is Toseeb’s data? Another survey, conducted by the Disabled Children’s Partnership, which questioned 4,000 parents about the impact of lockdown on their disabled children’s mental and emotional health, revealed similar results.

Of the parents questioned, 77 per cent said that lockdown had a detrimental effect. They reported feelings of exhaustion, stress, anxiety and abandonment by society, as a result of the increased caring load placed upon their families by lockdown and the subsequent loss of many of the services they had previously relied upon, including support offered by schools.

“While there may be some cases where lockdown has been positive [for SEND pupils] - there are certainly some anecdotes from individuals - I think overall the impact on disabled children and their families and children with SEN has been pretty severe,” says Stephen Kingdom, campaign manager for the Disabled Children’s Partnership.

While SEND experts agree that for most pupils the lockdown will have been more detrimental than beneficial, there are some who say the number of pupils for whom lockdown was positive may be higher than the data above suggests.

Only about 8 per cent of parents who took part in the Disabled Children’s Partnership study said they had seen an improvement in their children’s mental health during lockdown. However, Margaret Mulholland, SEND and inclusion specialist for the Association of School and College Leaders, suggests that, in some cases, there could be a disconnect between the lockdown experiences of the families of young people with SEND and the experiences of the young people themselves.

“One of the things that struck me in many of the meetings I have been in is that some of the parental groups are really not feeling like there was a good experience, but we have anecdotally received quite a lot of good examples of children feeling that it suited them well to be working at home and being able to do things at their own pace, getting support from parents they trust or sisters or brothers. And that, for many SEND children, has been helpful,” she says.

Anne Heavey, national director of Whole School SEND, likewise recognises that there have been positive effects for some. “Some pupils have positively thrived with remote learning, with the ability to control sensory elements and pace their own learning,” she says. “For those who have found the benefits, the opportunity to develop identities as successful learners is positive.”

According to Heavey, those with needs and disabilities for which learning is undermined by “the sensory, social and travel demands of ‘pre-Covid’ school” are most likely to have found the changes positive.

In particular, autistic pupils may have been positively affected, adds Mulholland.

“We’ve had examples of young people on the autistic spectrum (and everybody on the autistic spectrum is different) finding that their stress levels were lower, in some instances. So, actually, what they were capable of engaging with, the learning was greater, because they weren’t using up so much energy on keeping their anxiety levels under control,” she says.

Meanwhile, Chris Pond, a primary Sendco in Bedfordshire, has also seen positive effects for school refusers.

“Two of our pupils with SEND are also school refusers and are delighted to be at home. Parents report that behaviour has improved and anxiety has greatly reduced, so the lockdown has helped in one way with their mental health,” she says.

How should this data guide schools in September? Well, for most pupils, it will mean that any ideas about extending home-working should be abandoned. But what about those few students for whom lockdown has been beneficial? Should they also be rushed back to the classroom?

Pond, Mulholland and Heavey all stress that any decisions should not be based on “type” of SEND. “I’ve heard a lot of ‘all pupils with autism will find this hard’ or ‘all SEND pupils are disadvantaged’,” says Heavey. “[But] every person has had a unique experience during this period.”

Mulholland adds that parent voice is crucial in any decisions - the pupil may have found things easier, but what about the family?

“I think we have to tread very, very carefully and consider the parent voice,” she says. “I think, more than anything, we want parents to feel confident and that they haven’t been ignored.”

Kngdom agrees. He says schools should not assume that for the 8 per cent of families who reported improved wellbeing during lockdown, they would be happy for their child to simply remain at home, or that this would be the best option for the pupil.

“Actually, those cases where you might find some more positives, that’s probably more of an indication of how the system was failing those children before rather than that lockdown itself is positive,” Kingdom explains.

“Having the break and being away from the pressures of school, for that minority of children maybe has had a beneficial effect. But that is really damning about what school was doing before rather than how good it is now, and we’d be really worried if the message that got taken out of this was, ‘Well, let’s not have these children in school.’”

So, for both those with positive and negative experiences of lockdown, schools will need to adapt when these students return. It will be important for teachers to ask why the experience was negative or positive and how school should react to that.

One thing that should be at the forefront of teachers’ minds in this process is avoiding generalisations.

“The right answer on this will be unique to every child’s circumstance and need profile,” says Heavey, and Toseeb agrees.

“I think the easy answer is that it is not easy,” he says. “Each child and each family has very different individual needs and preferences.”

Flexibility will, therefore, be key as schools make arrangements to return, says Kingdom. This could mean recognising that behaviour policies might need to bend a little or offering more flexible support arrangements to help pupils to cope emotionally.

“What parents thought they needed for the important return to normality and return to school, a lot of it was around flexibility from the schooling approach, understanding of their child’s emotional needs, flexibility on behavioural policies. So, as children return, to recognise that it’s going to be a difficult transition,” Kingdom explains.

Joining the dots between external support services will also be important to smooth the transition, Pond points out.

“One further big issue is the support received from external agencies has come to a grinding halt and restarting a lot of this support will take time,” she says.

Teachers will, of course, need support from the government here, as getting those essential services up and running is beyond schools’ control.

“We need the government to sort of have a clear plan going forward for how it will support children returning to normality,” Kingdom argues. “And that needs to include reinstating the support now: social care support, therapies, and then having a plan for how to return to school, how they’ll be supported on that journey back, the focus on wellbeing, and clarity around shielding.”

Continuity of external services might not be within teachers’ powers to fix, but there are some simple steps they can take to support their learners with SEND ahead of the return to school.

1. Preparation

Toseeb suggests making sure that children are prepared in advance for any social distancing rules they will need to follow when they come back in September.

“Some of the concerns that we heard from parents were firstly around trying to explain the concept of social distancing to some of their children with different types of needs,” he says. “It might be easier at home and when you’re in your bubble, and you don’t necessarily need to enforce social distancing. Whereas in school, they might need to enforce it more and that might be particularly distressing for the child if they don’t necessarily understand why they’re having to do what they’re having to do.”

Teachers can help here by providing resources to assist parents in explaining the concept of social distancing and the need to follow rules around it at school.

Using “social stories” or visual aids can work well, Toseeb adds. These types of resources can be used to prepare children for the practicalities of returning, such as how things will be different, where they will need to sit and what they will need to do.

“Specifically, one parent mentioned having photographs of the classroom as it now looks and how the child would fit into that new environment. I think that’s important,” Toseeb says.

2. Prepare to differentiate

Another thing that schools need to do in advance is to make sure their online support is up to scratch for those pupils who may end up continuing to learn from home in September for any reason (such as continuing to shield), and to prepare for the event of a second lockdown.

Differentiation is key here; this is an aspect of online learning that schools didn’t always get right during the first period of lockdown, according to Heavey.

“One thing that has worried me in lockdown is the overreliance on Sendcos and support staff to adapt work sent home to pupils in some instances,” she says. “A massive systemic issue with SEND provision has been how illuipped many teachers are to support pupils with SEND in the classroom though high-quality teaching. This has been amplified and entrenched by lockdown and remote learning.

“Worse, some schools have not differentiated work at all. We need to make sure that, if this happens again, teachers do feel able and willing to set and monitor appropriate work, drawing on the Sendco and with the support of teaching assistants.”

Mulholland agrees that a lack of effective differentiation in online learning has been a problem for some schools, and points out that additional CPD around remote learning and inclusive teaching will be needed.

3. Learn from the positives

However, Mulholland also sees an opportunity, as lockdown ends, for teachers and support staff to work together more effectively and improve their communication with the families of children with SEND.

“We’ve had some really good examples where we’re hearing that Sendcos aren’t overwhelmed because they are doing the capacity-building in the teachers, rather than having to be the interface with all the families of children with SEND,” she explains.

“Where it’s worked really well is where the role of the Sendco has been more strategic: helping teachers to be inclusive, to keep in touch with their most vulnerable learners - those within education, health and care plans, or those that are on SEND support, and really helping them recognise who the audience is that really will need that extra scaffolding.”

This is something that Mulholland has already seen schools beginning to do more of. And Heavey agrees that there is cause to be optimistic, if schools are willing to make the most of the opportunity that has been handed to them.

“We need to home in on what silver linings we have discovered for individuals (especially around blended learning and reasonable adjustments) and maintain those, whilst also supporting every child to re-establish themselves in school,” she says.

This will be an important message as schools return, Mulholland adds, and will provide a chance for schools to really develop how they work with SEND on a whole-school level.

“Actually, this has given us a great opportunity to think: how often do school leaders get to put their children with SEND right at the centre of their thinking? Not that often. And how can we harness that? To really say: ‘You’ve done a great job in trying to consider these young people - now let’s really use that to reflect on what we could do better and strengthen that communication with families as well.’”

While the period of isolation may not have been a positive experience for the majority of families, there is hope that something good may still might come out of lockdown for young people with SEND: better provision and more effective communication with their families.

Chris Parr is a freelance journalist and Helen Amass is deputy commissioning editor at Tes

This article originally appeared in the 7 August 2020 issue

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