The regular habits of a strategic SENDCO

The SENDCOs I come across have enormously challenging roles. Each day might have professionals to get hold of, pupils to regulate, colleagues to check in on and parents to get back to, let alone, forms to fill in and emails to reply to.

Maintaining a longer-term, strategic lens in this context is tricky. The sheer busyness of the role can prevent a SENDCO from being able to prioritise strategic leadership of SEND.

Overcoming the operational challenges

The difficulty of remaining strategic is a reflection of the size and complexity of the role, not a criticism of SENDCOs. In this context, the most successful SENDCOs I know are good at turning their strategic priorities into a series of ‘habits’, which they then sequence accordingly.

For example, that might mean something like the following:

Daily

• Checking in with key pupils (or ensuring key colleagues are doing so)
• Checking in with the inclusion team
• Maintaining visibility around school, including within classrooms
• Knowing which pupils with SEND are absent

Weekly

• Checking pupil attendance and following up as appropriate
• Learning walks (or similar) with a specific focus
• Parent surgery slots
• Pastoral meetings
• Staff surgery slots

Half-termly

• Observing and feeding back to trainee teachers
• Identifying key pupils for keyworking, attendance monitoring, etc.
• Meeting with leaders with specific responsibilities, to support their inclusive leadership (Head of KS2, Attendance Lead, Family Officer, Head of T&L, etc.)
• Meeting with the reading/literacy/phonics lead to discuss the intervention offer and the progress of pupils within those interventions

Termly

• Meeting with the Finance Business Manager
• Observing and feeding back to TAs
• Learning walks with several middle leaders (i.e. Heads of Department or Phase) and senior leaders, with actions agreed as follow-up
• Pupil review meetings, including pupil and parent voice activities
• Reviewing the progress of pupils within interventions and adapting provision accordingly
• Observing and feeding back to Early Career Teachers
• Meeting with the SEND Link Governor
• A parent coffee morning

Aren’t I busy enough already?

The list above infers that SENDCOs are given adequate time to do the role, and that they can spend time away from the urgent, operational matters that can easily dominate each day. We know that this often isn’t true in reality.

So anyone looking at this list should, at best, be considering what needs to be on their own list – what are the ‘habits’ that relate to their strategic priorities, which will be unique to their context, and what is realistic in the time available?

They also need to consider the factors that might get these habits ‘done’, or factors that might otherwise help or hinder their impact – alignment with the school’s development plan, support from other senior colleagues, additional protected time, or sharing these habits with other key stakeholders.

The last thing a busy SENDCO needs is to add even more to their to do list. But breaking down our strategic priorities into a set of regular habits, and trying to ensure these habits become enacted in practice, is one step to ensuring the development of our provision over time.

Gary Aubin is author of The Lone SENDCO and co-author of The Parent’s Guide to SEND