S17 E6: The One About SEND in RE

Last year, Ofsted published it's new inspection framework and the word that weaves through everything is INCLUSION. It is now a separate area of inspection. And the list of students we need to include is broader than before.

So how do we help ALL students in our classrooms to achieve, belong and thrive - the three words in the back of every Ofsted Inspectors mind.

Surprisingly, very little research has been done into how to support SEND in our mainstream RE classrooms.  Luckily, the answer isn't as difficult or as time consuming as you might think.

'If we get it right for vulnerable students, we get it right for all' This quote by Sir Martyn Oliver sums up the message in this episode.  Quality First Teaching is what helps ALL students, particularly those with barriers to learning.

In this episode I give the current stats on SEND student, look at the areas in the renewed Ofsted guidelines that are relevant to inclusion, look at how to plan for SEND students, how to resource for them, design powerpoints for them, support them with the right pedagogy and when to give bespoke support.  I also look at how you can create an atmosphere in your class that promotes students with poor mental health.

And I give specific examples of what that might look like in RE.

I really hope this is a practical episode which positively impacts your RE classrooms.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/200-million-landmark-send-teacher-training-programme

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68b9a6b8b0a373a01819fe4b/Schools_inspection_toolkit.pdf

https://news.sky.com/story/how-children-with-send-from-poorer-families-are-being-left-behind-at-school-13450800

EEF Blog: Five evidence-based strategies to support high-quality teaching for pupils with SEND

EEF Blog: Supporting pupils with SEND – 3 key messages for schools

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7dcb85ed915d2ac884d995/SEND_Code_of_Practice_January_2015.pdf

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/access-arrangements-for-gcse-as-and-a-level-2024-to-2025-academic-year/access-arrangements-for-gcse-as-and-a-level-2024-to-2025-academic-year

https://www.kialo-edu.com/p/470f6228-2213-467d-bbdb-dcb915057db8/356549

Transcript

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Before we get started, I'd like to thank Reimagining Education for sponsoring the RE podcast. They share our passion for making learning exciting, meaningful, and accessible to everyone. It's so good to have their support so we can keep bringing you more conversations about religion, ethics, and philosophy. To learn more, just head to reimaginingeducation.uk. Welcome to the RE Podcast, the first dedicated RE podcast for students and teachers. My name is Louisa Jane Smith, and this is the R.E. Podcast. The podcast for those of you who think supporting SEND in RE is difficult, which it's not, and I'll prove it to you. I wonder how confident you feel in supporting SEND students in your RE classrooms. If you had to rate your confidence using a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the lowest confidence, what number would you choose? Think of that number now. So let's start with our definition. SEND means special educational needs and disabilities. But what we will discover in this episode is it now more broadly means all students which have barriers to learning. So for example, social, emotional, mental health or protective characteristics. More about that later. The first thing I want to do is take the special out of SEND, because they're not special and the support they need isn't always special. It is what helps all learners to know more and remember more. Sir Martin Oliver, HM Chief Inspector of Education, Children's Services and Skills in England said, if we get it right for vulnerable children, we get it right for all. And this is also what the research shows. And this concept will underpin this episode. I'm going to start by explaining my context. Then I'm going to look at the wider SEN context and highlight some key data. Then I'm going to look at the renewed Ofsted framework, which has a renewed focus on inclusion. Then I will outline some misconceptions about and barriers to supporting all students. Then I'm going to focus on some effective techniques in RE, including planning, resourcing, pedagogy and in-lesson support, literacy support, and when to use bespoke support. Then I will suggest some quick wins that you can implement in the next week. So, my context. I have recently been diagnosed with ADHD, to no surprise of people that know me, but I suspect I could have Aud. This means I can hyperfocus but also get overwhelmed, either because I've taken on too much or I have cognitive overload. This means I often struggle to take in what I read, or what I should be listening to. My worst nightmare in CPD is when I hear the instruction, okay now, get into groups and discuss this. Because nine times out of ten, my brain is switched off for the previous two minutes, and I have no idea what we are meant to be discussing. This is not necessarily because I'm unfocused, but simply because my brain has got overloaded and just switched itself off. Often I focus on the inconsequential information, what we call extraneous load. Information is extra to what you actually need to know, but I totally miss the main information being shared. When I am writing, I often write the wrong word. This presents as dyslexia, but it's actually because I've written what someone else was saying at the time I was writing, or what random thought my brain gave me amongst all of my racing thoughts. I also have rejection sensitivity disorder or RSD. It's a common side effect of ADHD rather than part of it itself. And it's caused by all the negative messaging I got as a child, so why can't you be more like or less like? This diagnosis has made me make sense of my experience and helped me to understand the experience of some students in my classroom that I have often got frustrated with. Right, let's look at some data. Ten years ago, nearly a quarter of a million students, so 225,000, had an EHCP, compared to over a third of a million in 2022-23, so 360,000. Ten years ago, nearly 1 million students had SCND support, so 925,000, compared to over a million in 2022 to three, so 1.1 million. So overall, numbers are increasing since 2016, but the proportion between boys and girls is changing. So more girls now are being diagnosed. This is because historically more research has been done for boys, as SCND is often more obvious in boys. Girls are more likely to mask because they've been socially conditioned to behave appropriately. This is now being recognized and rectified, so more girls are being diagnosed. And this is important to us as we need to understand how to remove the barriers for girls when it isn't as obvious. So they're more likely to be passive rather than disruptive, compliant but unengaged. If we now consider the key statistics for the academic year 2024-25, the total number of pupils with SCND is over 1.7 million. So that's about a 5% increase from the previous year. The number of pupils with SEND support is 1.3 million. That means that 400,000 students with SEND don't get support. And there are also likely to be many more undiagnosed students in your classrooms. Approximately half a million, so about 5% of all pupils, have an EHCP, and the most common need for this is autistic spectrum disorder. The most common need for SEND support is speech, language, and communication needs. As many of us will be aware, there is a renewed Ofsted inspection framework, and I'll put a link to that in the show notes. In case you haven't read it yet, I want to highlight some key changes relevant to this episode. Ofsted want to raise standards and improve the lives for all. An SEND now includes any student with a barrier. Inclusion is one of the areas specifically being inspected. So there'll be one dedicated inspector just looking at inclusion in any inspection. So inclusion is at the heart of Ofsted and the focus for all inspections. Ofsted break down who needs to be included, and it's a much more broad definition than just SEND, because it includes socio-economically disadvantaged pupils, so those eligible for pupil premium, pupils with SEND, so this means pupils receiving special educational and disability need support, those with an education health and care plan, so EHCP, pupils who are known or previously known to children's social care, such as children in need and looked after children, pupils who may face other barriers to their learning and or well-being, which may include pupils who share a protected characteristic. So it's interesting to point out there that that final category has a mental health focus. Plus, it mentions pupils with a protected characteristic, so gender, sexuality, disability, etc. The other change which is quite subtle is the wording. Schools have to support all students, especially those with SEND. So previously it was including those with S C N D. Also announced in January 2026 is a pledge of£200 million from the DFE to train teachers to meet the needs of all learners, plus£3 billion to create exclusive spaces within mainstream schools alongside the already invested$740 million to create 10,000 new places in alternative provisions. Bridget Phillipson says every child, wherever they live and whatever their need, should have the opportunity to go to a local school where they can achieve and thrive. That's why we're equipping staff across every stage of education with more training on SE and D and inclusion than ever before, helping to deliver our vision of a truly inclusive education system. This is a key part of our mission to reform the SEND system so that schools can take children from forgotten to included and give parents the confidence that the right support will be there at every stage of their child's education. Notice she used the words achieve and thrive, and this is significant. I'll tell you why later in the episode. So what have we learned so far? The number of children with SEND is increasing, mainly due to an increase in girls. Ofsted have a greater focus on SEND, it now has a separate inclusion area of inspection, which will be graded on the new report card. And inclusion has a much broader definition. So let's now have a quick look at the new off-quo access arrangements, as this will become significant in a minute. And I'll put a link to that in the show notes. In the maintained sector, 16.6 to 25.5% of students got extra time in the academic year 2024 to 2025. In the independent sector, it was 22.4 to 32.1%. Why do you think more students in independent schools get extra time? Now it's worth saying that many independent schools are alternative provision schools. However, independent schools that are not alternative provision schools often have access arrangements officers, i.e., it is their full-time job to get the correct access arrangements for their students. Also, parents of students in independent schools often have more time, more resources, and skills to navigate and sometimes even play the system. Let me reveal evidence of this. In an article from Sky News written by a friend of mine, Anjan Pierbacchus, who's been on the podcast, it states that S CND students from poorer families are not given as much support as SCND students from wealthier backgrounds, because wealthier people are able to finance the support up to£20,000. The system is so convoluted it puts up barriers for parents who lack the time or ability to navigate it. I'll put a link to the article in the show notes. So this isn't just about Ofsted, this is about social justice. Although Ofsted agrees. The 2010 Equalities Act is mentioned four times in the new Ofsted framework, and it even references the Human Rights Act of 1998. But why is SEND a matter of social justice? If there is inadequate support for students with barriers to learning, this leads to negative experiences at school, which means SEND students have more absence, more exclusions, are more likely to be taken off-roll, meaning they get lower outcomes, so they have less opportunities or life chances, which means they have a higher likelihood to enter the criminal justice system, which provides further barriers to social justice. As such, as RE educators, we must create inclusive, accessible environments that provide equity, participation, and uphold human rights for all, regardless of their abilities. This is why SCND support in RE should be the bedrock of what we do. If this is what we teach, let's practice what we preach. However, there is a lack of research into this, hence why I did this episode. So how do Ofsted suggest we do this? By high quality teaching, by setting high expectations for all pupils, we often expect less from certain students, by ensuring our curriculum is ambitious, broad and balanced, by making sure our curriculum is well sequenced to build knowledge logically and focusing on language. And I'm going to look at what this looks like in RE. So one thing Ofsted are looking for is effective curriculum design and it lays out what it means by this quite clearly. It means the curriculum is coherently planned and sequenced so that pupils build knowledge and skills sequentially and cumulatively. Time is available within the curriculum for revisiting content and dealing with gaps in knowledge and skills. The curriculum has subject-specific rigour so that pupils gain disciplinary knowledge and can answer subject-specific questions. Leaders and teachers have sophisticated understanding of the differences between subjects. This informs teachers' choices and helps leaders precisely evaluate quality and take targeted actions for improvement. Decisions about the curriculum are refined over time based on evidence and insight from within and beyond the school. So before I get into the nitty-gritty of SEND and RE, I want to address some misconceptions about supporting SEND students. One misconception that I've already hinted at is that you need to have lower expectations of certain students. You don't. You have to scaffold up, not dumb down. Lower expectations will lead to lower outcomes, as it allows the barriers to stay barriers. Another misconception is that SEND means low ability. This is not always the case. Often children on the autism spectrum are very high functioning, and their barriers are not the content, but the learning environment because of their sensory needs or fixed beliefs or ideas. I had a student who refused to use his phone in a class under my direction as it was against the school rules. I offered him an iPad, but he refused to use an Apple product on moral grounds. He therefore threw the school iPad across my classroom. Then he got so worked up he wouldn't go to the computer room with his TA to complete the work there. So this isn't about ability, it is about barriers. Maybe what we call high ability are simply people who have less barriers and who are insensitive to how good the teaching is. Another misconception is that you have to do something different for all the different learning needs in your class. Sometimes you do, but remember, good teaching is good teaching for all. I already know what you're doing is great, but how could you do it even better? So setting high expectations for all learners. Remember, Sir Martin Oliver said, if we get it right for vulnerable children, we get it right for all. So why do SEND students need support in RE? RE presents unique challenges for students with SEND due to its abstract concepts, complex vocabulary, and interpretive nature. RE also deals with sensitive issues which can be upsetting for any student, but particularly SEMH students. But RE is a lesson where students can achieve, belong, and thrive. And these three words will be in the mind of all offstead inspectors. And that is why Bridget Phillipson used those words in her press release about the pledge of£200 million to train teachers to support SEND. So achieve means with well-designed curriculums, exceptional teaching and considered pedagogy, there is no reason why all students can't do well in RE. Belong. If students see themselves represented in the curriculum and are welcomed into our classrooms and given a chance to explore their own worldview, they will feel that they belong. Thrive. Our USP, our specific skill set as RE teachers, is helping students to feel safe because of the number of sensitive topics that we often deal with. So supporting SEND learners in RE is essential to ensure equitable access to curriculum content and foster inclusion. Inclusive RE teaching promotes engagement, promotes cultural understanding and spiritual development for all learners. By embedding strategies tailored to SEND needs, educators can reduce barriers, improve attainment, and enhance classroom participation. The RE classroom is an amazing place where students can feel safe to be their authentic self because we work so hard to create a safe learning environment. Because that value underpins our subject, but it's also necessary due to the difficult subject matter. RE is a lesson where all students can achieve, belong, and thrive. So what are the barriers to supporting SEND students? I think teachers are becoming disempowered, driven by an outdated EHCP rather than their knowledge of and relationship with that child. There is also a lack of time, particularly when you teach RE, to 300 plus children a week. There are outdated beliefs that you have to create individual or less challenging curriculums or adapt resources for certain students, which links to the feeling of lack of time. There are problems with diagnoses. Either the diagnosis comes quite late in their education, or a child is having issues getting a diagnosis, often due to lack of resources, going back to that article I mentioned earlier. Or the diagnosis is wrong. ADHD is often misdiagnosed as dyslexia or anxiety, particularly in girls. Plus, the process is so arduous with lots of forms and hoop jumping, many parents or schools simply give up. Maybe you work in the maintain sector where SEND departments are understaffed and under-resourced to do their job as well as they could. As we have said, private schools often have dedicated members of staff whose job it is to get students extra time or a scribe, etc. There is also a lack of research into RE and SEND in mainstream schools, hence me doing this episode. So that's enough of the context and the preamble. How do we overcome these barriers in RE? Right, the bedrock of supporting SEND is to create a positive learning atmosphere. And this starts with relationships. So get to know your students. Use positive compliance language in your classroom. So things like, well done, the back row, ready to learn, or well done, everyone has their books open, and a few people are starting to write the title. Rather than pointing out the students not meeting expectations. With any student who isn't complying, ask if they're okay first. Then remind them of the expectations. Create a sense of belonging in your classroom. This is huge, but it's also the USP of RE. Students need to see themselves in the curriculum. The more diverse and representative your curriculum is, the greater sense of belonging your students will feel. Gender, race, religion, sexuality, the right images, designing your curriculum around your demographic is all going to help the students to see themselves in your curriculum. Greet at the door. I have a lovely student from Jamaica, and many of her students are from a similar area of the world. She stands at her classroom every lesson and says grand rising to every child that walks through her door and they say ground rising back. And they immediately feel seen in her classroom. Empower students to consider their own worldviews. Get student voice or case sampling, which is a method that Ofsted are going to use. This is a technique where you follow a student's timetable for a day to get a sense of what their experience is across the curriculum. But it could be really helpful for you to see what works or doesn't work for a student you teach. So why is belonging such an important part of SEND? SCMH is as much of a barrier as SEND. For example, anxiety is similar to dyslexia in terms of it being a barrier to learning, because anxious children can't learn. But SEMH and SEND are not separate, they are interlinked, so we have to have a holistic approach. The ventral vagal system is the newest branch of your nervous system responsible for social engagement, calmness, connection, and safety. It enables rest, learning, and positive interactions. So how can you create a calm, safe state in your classroom in order to engage the ventral vagal system of your students? Can you use Maslow's hierarchy of need to help you? So, how can you meet their physiological needs? How can you ensure that they feel safe and secure? How can you make them feel like they belong and create a sense of connection? How can you improve their self-esteem, so their confidence, their respect of others, their need to be a unique individual? And then can you help lead them to self-actualization, where they really understand who they are, accept who they are, and understand their purpose and their potential? If you can start meeting those needs, then actually what you can do is engage the ventral vagal system in your classroom. Creating this sense of belonging supports all learners, but specifically supports learners with SEMH and with protected characteristics. But how can we specifically support these vulnerable students? When talking about gender and sexuality or life after death, euthanasia, abortion, crime, poverty, food banks, you must give students a heads up. But can you call it content advisory? Many of us use the phrase trigger warning, but that phrase is a trigger in itself because it has the word trigger and warning in it. Do not cold call any student. This is why it's really important to know your students. Don't cold call students who you know are anxious. Also, this goes back to your diverse curriculum. If children see themselves in your curriculum, this will foster a sense of belonging and will begin to remove their barriers. And it goes back to relationships and creating a safe classroom. See, it all kind of connects really nicely, doesn't it? The EEF, so the Education Endowment Fund, provided the research behind this episode, and you will see that what the experts say is that supporting SEND comes down to what is considered good pedagogy for all. Scaffolding, explicit instruction, cognitive and metacognitive strategies like chunking and checklists, Freya models, and the use of technology, for example, a visualizer. They suggest that you should ensure that your deployment of teaching assistance is effective. They have specific guidance on literacy, and they say you should deploy high-quality structured interventions to support pupils to make progress. And I'm going to put a couple of links in the show notes to areas of the EEF website that is relevant to this episode. So let's move into specifically how you plan for SEND students. One thing you can do is to observe particular students in other lessons because SEND support isn't generic. You need to know your child, but you can also ask the child what they need. Specifically ones you're struggling to engage. Ask them which lessons they do well in and go and watch them in that lesson. See what the teacher does. Collaborate with your Senco. Know the access arrangements for the students in your class, so annotate your seating plan. Do they need extra time or a large font or coloured paper or to sit at the front or to sit near a door or brain breaks? Have tactical and annotated seating plans which are used for SEND needs. And make sure you can easily access students that need help. They don't all need to be at the front, but as long as you can map a route to easily get in with them and do what we call check-ins, and that's really important. Plan an ambitious, broad, and balanced curriculum. A worldviews approach is a really great way of doing this so that you help students to achieve and remove barriers from the off. Sequence your units to build knowledge logically. For example, teach religious worldviews in chronological order. Consider what prerequisite knowledge is needed to be taught first. For example, the Jewish ideas of a Messiah or salvation is probably good to learn before you look at Jesus and who Jesus was and what he taught and Christian beliefs about Jesus. Diversify your curriculum so that students can see themselves in it, so know your demographic. Plan drama, physical activities, movement activities, sensory activities. But make sure the content leads the activity, not the other way around. Assess more than just writing, so have structured oracy tasks. So Chialo is an online debate platform that might be helpful here. Streamline your lessons. Have no extraneous tasks or knowledge. Be very clear of the substantive content that they absolutely need. Right, let's move on to resourcing for SEND. Print out PowerPoint slides. It's really helpful for students who find concentration or reading off the board difficult, or those who struggle to remember because they can then look back. Check paper colour and font size for certain learners. Not just for assessments, but also for all resources. If you find that there's one colour that supports a few students in your class, just print all of the resources in that colour. It's so much easier. Maybe have tier two or command words on table mats. Have visual glossaries, so keywords with their meanings and dual coding. And that could be command words as well as tier two and three vocabulary. Use knowledge organizers. So one side of A4 with colour coding and dual coding, not just text. And actually AI are really good for creating these. You can just put all of your resources and the curriculum in and they'll create them. Resources must be academically rigorous, and then you scaffold up, you don't dumb down. Make sure that your resources are well designed. So one side of A4, use the correct font, so Century Gothic or Comforter are really good because they have the correct A and make sure that there's some white space on those sheets. Use authentic knowledge, so don't paraphrase things. And make sure there is clarity of key substantive content. So you know exactly what the students need to know. Any resources should have questions to support comprehension. And there's three ways to use these resources. One, give them a task to do as they read. For example, highlight all the reasons given in the text or highlight all the influences given in the text, whatever is relevant to the point of the lesson. Get the students to read the texts and then answer questions. Or for each paragraph, write two questions that can be then answered from that paragraph and underline the answer. Always have a teacher version which is completed for teachers. This optimizes your cognitive load in the lesson. It ensures you teach to the resource so that you can then support all learners to complete it. Make sure the resource has clarity of information and questions to support comprehension. It's always nice if you link the resource back to the learning in the PowerPoint too to create logical learning that connects together. When designing PowerPoints for SEND, black text on a pastel background is best for dyslexic students and won't disadvantage anybody else. Use the right font, so Comforter or Century Gothic so that have the correct A. Use the same size font and sentence spacing and have consistent design and layout on each slide, because some students with ASD will get distracted by inconsistencies, even if things are not lined up properly. This helps limit extraneous load. So the things in the lesson which students have to process, which are not necessary for the lesson. The other way you can limit extraneous load is to avoid busy slides and avoid distracting displays on your walls, particularly at the front of the classroom. So remove gifts, remove unnecessary images. You can use images, but only those that are used as a teaching tool to annotate or for the purpose of dual coding. Don't use lots of different fonts, don't use lots of different text sizes. I would have a look at the Oak National PowerPoints because I think they consistently use specific fonts and colours for specific tasks and content. The design and the layout of the PowerPoint slides are consistent. In my lessons, I try to only have one new keyword. There's consistent design. Slides have different consistent coloured banners for the different types of activities in the lesson. So a yellow banner means it's a curriculum map. A purple banner means it's teacher input. A red banner means there's a discussion task. A black banner is checking for understanding. A grey banner is for student activity. I make sure there isn't lots and lots of slides. I make sure there isn't lots of information on each slide and that each lesson is designed in exactly the same way so they are streamlined with no extraneous load, that extra unnecessary information that we need to process. And obviously, I use the correct font. This optimizes cognitive load, so it gives exactly the right amount of information. One thing I haven't spoken about is learning maps. It is so important for many students with SCND, particularly ADHD, to show the journey of learning. Where we are, where we've been, where we're going, how does it all fit together, and what is the big picture. This has the added advantage of stopping certain lessons being a surprise. So they might have warning if there's a particularly difficult topic coming up. So it's really good for ESMH students too. Right, let's have a look at what underpins really good pedagogy for SE and D. Remember the misconception that you have to do something different for SEND students. You don't. Do what you're doing. Quality-first teaching supports SEND. Don't teach different lessons with different resources. Scaffold up, don't dumb down. Support doesn't come from simplifying content. And remember that quote: if we get it right for vulnerable children, we get it right for all. So let's consider some pedagogy that you will already be using because they are quality first teaching methods which support all learners. Do now and recall, particularly based on misconceptions or prerequisite knowledge. This accesses schema and provides the hooks on which to hang new learning. These do nows must be low threat, high challenge. So things like true or false, multiple choice questions, short answers, fill in the gaps, and no more than five questions. Remember, these are not tests. Do now are not testing their memory. They're trying to retrieve previous knowledge that's going to be helpful for this lesson, or in order to improve their long-term memory. So in my lesson on the shahadah in Islam practices, I'm going to retrieve Tawhid, Prophethood, Muhammad, Imamate, and Sunni and Shia differences because these are all things that are relevant. Another thing that you will use is checking for understanding. Checking for understanding should happen after every new chunk of learning. Three short questions, which are true or false, or multiple choice questions. This must be whole class. All students must take part using whiteboards or using fingers or using coloured cards. And the teacher must explicitly track every single answer to check that understanding of every student. And they must address the misconceptions or reteach things that people just haven't learned yet. Using sentence starters and keyword lists for extended writing tasks are absolutely vital for all learners, particularly SEND. One of the most powerful things you can do is modeling. So it could be that you have a visualizer and you show the work layout. So particularly key stage one to three might need modeling how to write the title and date and underline it and leave a space, etc. Don't assume that all students can do that. If you are working on a worksheet, you can have the worksheet under the visualizer and model how you want them to complete that worksheet. You can have quotes or images under your visualizer and you are annotating them and modeling to the students what you want them to do. If you are teaching GCSC, you can do model exam questions. So either have a pre-written one on the board and unpack it, or have a pre-written one which you put under the visualizer and you can highlight all the key elements in that model answer. Or if you're really brave, you can live model one under the visualizer and explain your thinking, so metacognition. Then you can support that with a slide where there's colour-coded success criteria and sentence starters for then students to apply what you've modeled them. Paired work. Now, there is something called think, pair, share. Often teachers do not do the think. They go get into pairs and discuss this. It is so important, particularly for ADHD students, that you do give moments of silence in your lessons for students to think before they talk. ADHD students will have slower processing capability than those without ADHD. So they need time to clarify their thoughts before they discuss. Otherwise, their pair will do all the work. That's not then using the ADHD brain. You're not getting that desirable difficulty and they're less likely to remember what they're discussing. Use multimodal ways of teaching. So you can use videos, but remember to use closed captions, and we will talk specifically about EAL techniques separately. This next bit I cannot emphasize enough. I want you to focus on explicit, clear, concise, deliberate, consistent instruction and explanation. I want you to chunk, break down tasks step by step, one instruction at a time. Use prompting. This can be verbal. So what was that word that we learned? Or oh, it begins with, it means that. Oh, look at the board, is there a keyword there you can use? Look at the display behind you, which of those quotes could you use? Target specific questions to specific students. This is why it's really important to know your students. So you have low threat questions to those who need encouragement and use the bounce questioning technique. So ask the question to someone. If they don't know it, ask someone else and then ask the initial student the same question and they can use the other person's answer. Right, let's start to break it down even more. So let's look specifically at literacy. Here are some don'ts. Don't have unscaffolded ORIC tasks which become unproductive or dominated by particular students. Use Socratic questioning, target certain questions to certain students, have equitable systems for ORIC tasks so that all students have the opportunity to get involved. Don't limit scaffolding activities to pill paragraphs or similar strategies, as they become constrictive once the fluency of student writing improves, and therefore the scaffolding becomes the barrier. Don't teach fragments of quotations by rote learning. Instead, ensure your students understand the context or the story or the source the quote originates from. And you can use hermeneutics in order to do that. Don't introduce students to challenging text by getting them to read it. Always read it yourself in the first instance and get the students to follow along using a ruler or a special reading ruler. If you get the students to read complex text, the students might read it wrong or with a kind of lack of clarity or the wrong intonation. Also, the child reading often can't take in what they're reading because they're so focused on reading and getting it right. If you read it, you can then stop when you need to and ask questions rather than interrupting a poor student who's trying to read. When you have read it, you can then use hermeneutics to unpack it. And my lovely dear friend Dawn Cox created that dialogue method. If you do a Google search of Dawn Cox hermeneutics dialogue method, it's all there and it's absolutely brilliant. Don't introduce too many tier three words in one lesson or in one unit of work because this does not optimize cognitive load. The Education Endowment Fund says number one, prioritize disciplinary literacy across the curriculum. Number two, provide targeted vocabulary instruction in every subject. Three, develop students' ability to read complex academic texts. Four, break down complex writing tasks. Five, combine writing instruction with reading in every subject. Six provide opportunities for structured talk. And seven, provide high-quality literacy interventions for struggling students. So what can we do to develop strong literacy skills in all our students? The first tip I'm going to give you is something I've only been made aware of very recently. Teach concepts first, language afterwards. Otherwise, there's nothing to hang the new word onto. So for example, teach the oneness of Allah as a concept before you teach the word tawheed. So one, concept, two, visual, dual coding, three, the language, the keyword, and then four, use that word in some extended writing or oracy task to embed the understanding. A keyword on its own won't stick, and we want students to have sticky knowledge. You can teach keywords using the Freya model. The Freya model is a really effective way of teaching keywords supported by the EEF. So you put a keyword in the middle of a page, and then you have any four of the following that you would do around that keyword. A definition, the etymology, use the word in a sentence, non-examples, so things it is not, i.e., reconciliation is not easy, cannot be done alone, etc. Dual coding. I would model one and then give students a blank one. You could even use this at the end of a lesson rather than at the beginning, as they may not have enough knowledge to complete it before they've done all the learning. Why is it important to teach students etymology? It's because it helps them understand why the word is as it is, and link it to other similar words. So it's really important that you break down keywords in order to help them to link it to words they already know. So if we take a word like omnipotent, omni will link to all of the other omniwords in RE, so omnibenevolent, omniscient, but also to words like omnivore, which means to eat all. Potent could be used in science or food technology to mean a strong smell. So therefore, omnipotent becomes much more accessible to all students because you're linking it to existing schema and linking it to other words. I've mentioned dual coding quite a lot, and this is so important, but make sure the dual coding you use is consistent. So every time you use the word omnipotent, you use the same dual code. I love the Noun Project, which is a website which creates amazing symbols for most words. Any word that you teach a student, use them in your resources, but make sure you have word banks on the resource if you're using some of those keywords. Can I just ask you not to use Google for definition? So they will give you the AI definition or the dictionary definition, which isn't always accessible to all learners. Adapt the definition for your learners. You can also use tangible examples. So if you are teaching the constructionist view of religion, set it in the context of a construction job and ask the students what someone in construction might do, and that might help them understand a constructionist view of religion, which is that religion is created by people. Or when teaching the difference between outcomes and intentions in theme E, crime and punishment, use the example of the difference between murder and manslaughter. The outcome is the same, someone dies, but the intention is different, and so therefore the punishment is different. Using I say you say is really simple but really powerful. Children find it easier to write words that they can say. So if you are teaching a keyword, you say it, and then the students say it. And then use that word throughout the lesson and use it in future lessons so it becomes embedded. Remember, good literacy means social justice. The more students can Speak, write and understand words, the better off they will be socially, in exams, in applying for jobs, in being interviewed, in getting promotions. How do you support SEND students with extended writing? One way is because but so frameworks. This is a method adapted from the writing revolution for RE by Joe Kenned shout out. And we actually have a very specific episode on this, so if you haven't listened to that, you can go back. So you'll have a stem sentence which remains the same, and then you add a because and you give a reason, you add a but and you give a different idea or exception, and you add a so and then give a consequence or influence. So an example of because but so in RE is Siddhartha Gautama was born into Hindu Dharma, so that's our stem, because he was born in India two and a half thousand years ago. Siddhartha Gautama was born into Hindu Dharma but, but he rejected the caste system. Siddhartha Gautama was born into Hindu Dharma so he incorporated ideas like karma and rebirth into Buddha Dharma. You can use other subordinating conjunctions like after, although, as, before, if, since, though, unless, until, when, while, the list goes on. So let's have a look at how we support SCND students in lessons. Some of these we've already mentioned, but let's look at in-class support distinctly. Signposting, so mapping where we've been, where we're going. Even if you haven't got a specific slide on this in your presentation, please spend 30 seconds doing this at the beginning of a lesson. Targeted questions based on ability. Low threat questions to those with lower ability, challenge questions to those who you know will thrive with this. Adaptive teaching. Whatever you have planned may not be working in the moment because students are not static. So be mindful of how the lesson is landing and make adjustments as much as you can. You can even ask the students, what's going on? Why is this not working? and get some instant feedback. Brain breaks. Depending on how long the lesson is, these might be necessary for all, but may be necessary for some students in any length of lesson. Whiteboards to plan answers. It's magical because they're lower threat. Students are happier to attempt questions on a whiteboard because they know if they get it wrong, they can just wipe it away. It also helps them to organize their thoughts. Make links. Hang new learning onto previous learning. So we call this accessing schema. So you're accessing knowledge they already have. And these provide hooks for the new learning. And you can access that using retrieval. Right, EAL, English as an additional language. I have found out recently that PowerPoint has a language function. You can actually get the PowerPoint to put up live captions in any language. So you will be speaking, and PowerPoint is creating captions in the language that you have chosen. Magical. Word quite easily. If you just highlight a Word document and you can translate into any language, it's great. That will also help EAL students to feel seen and create that sense of belonging. I've mentioned questioning quite a lot, so let's have a look at effective questioning. Let's take a scenario in a lesson. Teacher. Who was the Buddha? Pupil, the most important person in Buddhism. Teacher. Perfect. The Buddha was the founder of Buddhism who lived in ancient India and became enlightened when he realized that he had solved the problem of suffering. What common mistake has this teacher made? And how would this hinder SEND students? What the teacher has done is reworded the student's answer themselves to make it more accurate or to make it higher level. This prevents the student developing the answer themselves. Knowledge sticks when there is desirable difficulty. If you get the students to develop their own answers, it will help them to know more and remember more. Saying, go on, tell me more, allow students to develop their answer without the teacher jumping in and developing it for them. Can you say that again? But can you say it slightly better? Or can you say that again and can you use the word insert key vocabulary here in your answer? This empowers students to improve their own answers without the teacher doing it for them. Can you say that again and can you use the actual words? This makes students use authentic vocabulary. You can use your prompting techniques that we mentioned earlier, so you can point to a word on a PowerPoint or display or bounce the question to another student and then return to your original student. But questions in lessons should be planned, deliberate, targeted, and guide students to more fluent or see. Now, while for the majority of the time you don't need to do anything special for SEND students, and I have made this point quite a lot, there are times where you should. So some students do need resources printed on a different colour, particularly if they have dyslexia. Some students do need a larger font if they have visual impairment. EAL or students with auditory needs may need subtitles. Cold calling must be targeted to match the ability and not used for students with SEMH. In the lesson, you will need to move around the room and assess individual needs in that moment. And we've talked about adaptive practice and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. You will need to consider ASD sensory sensitivities like colours, sound, etc. But actually, if you think about it, most students are going to learn better if there's a calm, quiet, purposeful learning environment. Anne Crisman wrote an article for RE online on what this looks like. Please note that this is about RE in alternative provision schools, so not always applicable to mainstream education. So I'm not going to go into too much detail about it, but it is worth reading what she's written. She talks about connection, so linking learning to students' experience. She talks about knowledge, so clarifying what the key substantive knowledge is. She talks about senses and sensory learning, because actually senses aids memory. She talks about symbols, so dual coding, and she talks about values. What is it that the child finds important and if you try and link your learning to that? Sensory learning is really important for most children, but particularly those with SEND and specifically those with ASD. There is a link between your senses and your memory. So getting students to work with artifacts uses the sense of touch, incense accesses smell, music accesses hearing, video accesses sight. Your senses also connect to your emotions more than words, and emotions improve your memory. That is why you can remember really happy and really intense memories from quite a young age. Obviously, only use this when it is vital to the learning and not as a gimmick. For example, students handling the 5Ks in Sikhi or listening to non-liturgical worship when teaching Christian practices or the call to prayer in Islam practices. And obviously, school visits are an ideal way of doing this, and this has the added bonus of creating cultural capital, which is about social justice. Now I know the school visits are time-consuming and logistically challenging and not accessible for all students. So if it is easier, go on to RE Hubs and look for visits and speakers that are verified for your area. Or you can do online virtual visits to places of worship as well. And that's all on the RE Hubs website. I'll put a link to that in the show notes. So what have we learned now? SEND support starts with relationships, have great curriculums which are well sequenced, rigorous, and involve high-quality teaching because quality-first teaching works for most students most of the time. I'm not going to spend too long on this, but just a quick way about how you can use AI to support SEND students, taking away that barrier of time. Put your resources through AI and ask it to make them suitable for dyslexic students or adjust reading levels or translate or adapt a lesson according to an EHCP. Get AI to create knowledge organizers, get AI to create do nows, checking for understanding questions, comprehension questions. Get AI to create a summary of lessons. Just make sure your prompts are accurate. So can you create five multiple choice questions based on the attached document with three plausible answers, suitable for a year-age student in England, making sure there is equal distribution between A, B, and C. Please make sure you ask a question on. Professor Rob Coe from the EEF said, A great teacher is someone who is willing to do what it takes to be demonstrably more effective next year than this year. So let's think about your next steps. A top tip, please focus on one thing at a time, perfect that, and then build on it. Some quick wins could be to greet each student at the door to your classroom as they enter. Or annotate your seating plans and ensure there is an accessible route to all your SEND and EHCP students. Or improve your PowerPoint design. By the way, you can change all fonts in the desktop version of PowerPoint. So what one thing could you do next week to improve support for all the learners in your classroom? Then create a long-term plan of what you're going to do. What's going to be your focus in six months' time, in a year's time, in two years' time? At the beginning of the episode, I asked you on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the lowest, how confident you feel in supporting SCND in RE. Well, what would your number be now? Has it gone up? I really hope so. I really hope this episode has helped you realize what you are already doing to support all students in your classroom. Because SCND support isn't something extra you have to do. Because quality first teaching supports most learners to achieve most of the time. However, I hope I have given you a few tips on how to make changes to further remove barriers and help children in RE to achieve, thrive, and belong. In this way, we are working together to achieve greater social justice for the young people in our classrooms. This podcast is supported by reimaginingeducation at reimaginingeducation.uk. My name is Louisa Jane Smith, and this has been the RE podcast. The podcast for those of you who think helping SEND children is difficult. But it's not. I've just proved it to you. But thank you for letting me help you support all our learners to achieve, thrive, and belong.