Increase parents confidence to support learning of SEND pupils at home

Background and context

A school set out to make a positive impact on the learning progress of Year 3 SEND pupils and to ensure parents are engaged and up skilled to support their children with their reading and writing at home.

What did they do

• They set up a parent/child home learning club for year 3 children with SEND and their parents, it ran 1 hour after school for 10 weeks.
• They prepared adapted homework tasks for the SEND group of children in Year 3. This included key visuals to support the learning of Year 2/3 high frequency words and sentences with the HF word.
• They used picture writing to support the talk for writing and colourful semantics for developing sentences.
• They analysed reading support at home for children with SEND. And created home reading and writing journals for Year 3 SEND group children. Parents were expected to read with their child for at least 5 to 10 minutes every evening this was monitored through reading and writing journals.
• During the home learning sessions, they modelled how to use phonics, picture clues and reading words in context to develop reading fluency and writing.

What was the impact? What changed?

Over the course of the club they closely tracked progress of Year 3 group children and correlation between engaging parents and those parents who do not.

As a result, parents feel more confident with supporting their children at home especially in reading and writing at home. They are equipped with strategies for supporting their children’s reading and home reading is now happening more frequently. Progress and attitude towards reading and writing has improved.

Teacher observations and data clearly show that the SEND group of children in Year 3 demonstrate a more positive attitude towards their learning. In class, they are beginning to work more independently. All of the children in the group, apart from one child, whose parents did not participate regularly have made progress.

Individual case study

When pupil A entered into Year 3, they had no reading age. They had no knowledge of how to read nor spell Year 1 or 2 high frequency words. Pupil A and was unable to apply their phonics knowledge to write simple words to nor create a short SVOL sentence. Pupil A was working well below Year 2 expectations.

They lacked the confidence to respond to any questions they were asked. They would look blankly at the person speaking to them. Pupil A would not participate in class or group discussions without prompting. Their written work consisted of scribbling and they were unable to say what they intended to write. Pupil A was receiving specialist interventions for speech and language and would respond only in a 1:1 learning situation. Mum was concerned about there child's progress, but felt stuck as to how they could support their child at home.

Since attending the SEND homework club, pupil A's attitude toward learning has improved. Their confidence has grown immensely, and they participate in discussions readily and now raises their hand to offer answers to questions.

Pupil A can apply his Year 1 and 2 high words and phonic knowledge more effectively when writing simple words in simple sentences. Pupil A has now achieved a reading age. It is still below the Year 3 expectations but they are enthusiastic about reading and is now observed applying phonics, as well as the other strategies shared, to read unfamiliar words.

Pupil A is supported with their home-learning more effectively by mum who now has a good knowledge and understanding of various strategies used at school to support children with additional needs. Pupil A’s attendance at school has also improved.