The legislative changes relating to Special Education Needs and Disability in recent years are now embedded in the thinking and planning of services and schools. However, the specific practicalities of ensuring access and inclusion for deaf pupils are sometimes difficult to identify or get overlooked in a blanket SEN policy. True inclusion means a deaf pupil can access the curriculum, progress and succeed to the full extent of their ability and take part in the extra-curricular activities of their school and the wider community.
We can help schools and services draft and implement policies by visiting with an objective, specialist perspective, drawing on experience of a variety of practices and ensuring obligations under the Disability Equality Duty are met.
Developing and implementing an assessment policy
A training day on the rationale of assessment was led with all staff from a service contributing to decide what they wanted their assessment policy to contain. As a result, a small group wrote the policy and developed an action plan which included training requirements.
Detailed training on assessing syntactic development was given, which also increased staff understanding of language development. This was followed up by discussion with staff about individual pupils who were causing particular concern.
Implementation of the policy was reviewed jointly with the senior staff.