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Embedding this approach Stage 1: Hearts andMinds You need your staff to believe you, as many will have never previously struggled with language. There will be some who need to make an empathetic leap to recognise that the language they use canmake life hard for certain people – students and staff alike. They must then agree that working on it will improve the workings of the school. Ask someone whose first language isn’t English to describe what it was like when they first arrived in this country. With colleagues, watch a filmwherein autistic people describe what it’s like to grapple with the complexities of language. Ambitious About Autismhas some excellent films like this on its YouTube page. Stage 2: Psychological safety Enjoy talking as a staff about howwe can all get it wrong sometimes. If you’re a leader, model humility and share how you’re aware that you need to work on something, particularly yourself. If you can establish a culture whereby people are happy to help each other and call each other out (respectfully), then you will have a self-moderating and self- improving system. Stage 3: One step at a time Small, incremental changes embedded properly, so that they become habit, is an especially effective way of embedding new practice. Choose one improvement – like the ‘name first’ approach – and work on this first. Adopt it as your focus for a number of weeks, until everyone can report that it’s happening habitually. Once you hear names appearing in instructions first – everywhere, throughout every corridor and classroom– it’ll then be time to add in the next step. This is pretty much how the intervention approach of precision teaching works. Children will only add in new spellings once they’ve fully mastered previous ones. So when it comes to the language you and your staff use, be sure to always keep things precise – both in how you use your existing language, and when layering in new strategies. And take things one step at a time. Rebecca Leek has been a primary and secondary teacher, SENCo. headteacher and MAT CEO; she is currently the Executive Director of the Suffolk Primary Headteacher’s Association The law firm Browne Jacobson recently conducted a survey among school leaders and found that 65% of respondents were either ‘dissatisfied’ or ‘highly dissatisfied’ with existing government guidance on how they should support pupils with SEND. Current levels of SEND funding, and government policy on SEND more generally, came in for particular criticism, with 90% and 82% of respondents respectively being ‘very dissatisfied’ or ‘dissatisfied’ with these. In terms of what they felt the government’s policy priorities ought to be, 68% considered the creation of a national set of SEND standards to be the most important. 66% felt that funding for 33 new special schools (as announced by the previous government) was what they chiefly wanted to see, while 48% believed that priority should be given to standardising education, health and care plans. The survey was conducted in October 2024, and took in the views of over 200 leaders – among them, CEOs, executive headteachers, trustees and governors. According to Laura Thompson, a senior associate at Browne Jacobson specialising in SEND matters, “ While insufficient SEND funding continues to be a major cause of frustration for school leaders – despite the extra £1bn pledged in the Autumn Budget – the wide range of issues captured by our School Leaders Survey is another sign, if one was needed, that the SEND system requires a significant overhaul. “ One assistant headteacher at a trust covering five different local authority areas told us they have to deal with five different processes and five different EHCP templates. Since the publication of the SEND code of practice in 2014, there have been questions around when – or if – a standardised template will be prepared for EHCPs but there is still no sign. For something that would, in the grand scheme of things, be a relatively straightforward change to make, it could make a significant difference to schools, local authorities and parents. ” The full ‘School Leaders Survey SEND findings’ report can be downloaded via tinyurl.com/ts141-SC1 “Verbal disciplinewithina school helps everyone” 47 teachwire.net/secondary L E A D E R S H I P