18 Aug My SLCN Journey as a Secondary School Teacher and Why It Took So Long
I don’t remember much time being dedicated to learning about SEN when I completed my PGCE in Secondary History. I do recall my NQT (ECT) year in 2003: feeling quite assured that SEN wise, I had some understanding of what autism was and felt pretty well equipped to pull some strategies out of the bag in terms of SEMH, or BESD as it was called in those days (Behavioural, Emotional and Social Difficulties). The way it seemed to me when I secured my first teaching post, it would be unusual to have made it through a year training in inner city London secondaries and to have not focused as much on the behaviour of the students as on your subject specialism itself.
Indeed, If you’d asked me what the main form of SEN was at any of the three schools I worked at in Holloway, Camden and Hackney in my training and NQT years, I would have answered ‘undoubtedly SEMH’. It was visible as soon as you walked through the school gates… there were some significant behavioural issues. The consequence was that reining those in became the focus of every day: even in the face of a persistent and unrelenting pressure to achieve results. We sat in briefings that revolved around new sanctions and behavioural policies; we attended training on Adverse Childhood Experiences and safeguarding; we stood poised to the right-hand side of the whiteboard to write names of students who were demonstrating ‘expected’ behaviours and who could go out to lunch on time. I followed a pastoral route as I became more experienced as a teacher and often taught students who had been labelled as dysregulated and ‘hard to teach’. I saw them very much as a product of their upbringing and environment: to me that must have been the catalyst for their behaviour. Despite holding various positions over the years in teaching and leadership, I taught for years knowing very little about SLCN.
It wasn’t until I had been a teacher for over 10 years that I received any form of proper training relating to Speech, Language and Communication Needs. This isn’t unusual: a YouGov poll, undertaken by the Communication Trust, found that only 27% of teachers from their sample had received any training in this area. Following my own initial training which really struck a chord with me, I realised looking at transition paperwork that there were so many children in primary school who had SLCN but the numbers just didn’t match with the students on SEN support at secondary: who seemed to have another identified primary need (often SEMH).
My journey to realising how fundamental an understanding of SLCN is and how prevalent it really is as a need in (I would wager) most secondary schools in London, was a long one and one that I now find quite disturbing. The lack of attention that is given to SLCN in secondary schools and the deficit of knowledge about it among most staff is both concerning and – I would actually argue – also understandable. So why do issues of SLCN go ‘under the radar’ at secondary school? Outlined below are some of my own ideas from observations ‘on the ground’ in schools complemented by existing research. This is certainly not an exhaustive list but an outline of a few factors which make up part of a very complex problem.
- Labelling students with SLCN as ‘SEMH’
This has already been eluded to above. By secondary age, if not by key stage 2, I believe that a clear transition happens in the way that students are perceived by many staff. The age of culpability in the UK is 10 years old and I wonder if we sometimes unconsciously shift our thinking in many different ways to give children less ‘grace’ after and around this point. An assumption that they should be able to ‘control themselves’ after this age coupled with a lack of understanding about SLCN at secondary level (because it is not on the agenda) means that underlying difficulties can be forgotten. Action… behaviour… consequence. Are the latter two focused on more as students get older but the first forgotten? The link between SEMH and SLCN is well documented and understood by speech and language therapists. It makes good sense that at a very basic level, if communication is impaired in any way then this will lead to frustration which in turn leads to disengagement. I would argue that secondary schools which have SEMH listed as their primary need for SEN should look closely at the students’ profiles in terms of SLCN and consider this as another avenue to focus on for training and CPD to improve student outcomes and experiences of education.
- CPD agenda and time pressures
A recent podcast by ‘The Times’ entitled ‘What’s wrong with our schools and how to reinvent them’ details ceaseless pressures on all schools but particularly secondaries to focus on attainment to the exclusion of students’ wellbeing and mental health and to the detriment of achieving a broader and more holistic curriculum. The focus on attainment has been at the fore for as long as I can remember although granted, following the pandemic CPD priorities can be seen to have shifted slightly in 2021 to include supporting mental health, attendance, and reducing the attainment gap. SEN as a priority is ever present but is in my opinion usually on the ‘back burner’ as it is still unfortunately seen as something that just encompasses one group of students. The link has not yet been made in every school that provision which engages students with SLCN and ensures their attainment will, in fact, improve the quality of provision for all. Time is another issue in secondary schools. The length of the day varies from school to school but certainly I was used to the expectation that staff meetings began at 7:15am and staffed enrichment clubs and detentions finished at 5:30pm. If attainment is at the heart of things and enrichment is an add-on (albeit crucial for the students considering the constraints of the current curriculum), then what time is actually left for CPD?
The problem with the term ‘SLCN’
In my view, ‘SLCN’ is quite an odd umbrella term that somehow makes more sense in primary than secondary school, especially in the earlier years where there is a routine focus placed on developing and observing children’s articulation. At this stage, this is not specialist intervention, but part of a teacher’s job. By secondary level, mentioning ‘SLCN’ to staff often brings about glazed or puzzled looks. I had a conversation with a specialist at the Communication Trust a few months ago when we were setting up our service. When she found out I was working mainly in the secondary schools she empathised: they are notoriously hard to ‘get into’ to push this agenda. We wondered whether a rebranding as ‘Oracy’ and a mention of the close correlation of SEMH and SLCN might garner more interest. At a secondary level in a mainstream school, we are primarily focused on the ‘language’ and ‘communication’ parts of SLCN. How does this need (which impacts sometimes as many as 50% of the students in Enfield secondary schools) alter vocabulary and reading? How does it impact their writing? Does an understanding of it mean that we better understand student reactions and behaviours? It is not always entirely clear to staff that all of these things are linked to SLCN – indeed, they are some of the very questions we are considering in our training and work.
A report from the Department of Education entitled ‘Understanding Speech, Language and Communication Needs: Profile of Needs and Provision (2012) was written as a response to the ‘Bercow Report’. It states that: ‘the term speech, language and communication needs is problematic because the term is used in different ways by different people, that can be confusing and it does not help dialogue among different professionals’. Perhaps this is part of the problem in engaging secondary practitioners to support students with SLCN: for many of them they may well already be doing so in their everyday practice but in bringing an understanding of the theory and good practice together it is the term itself that is nebulous and off-putting.
So from my perspective at least, SLCN (and the need to train staff in understanding it) is clearly often misunderstood at secondary level and flies well below the radar of many staff compared to needs like autism or SEMH. When ECASS was set up, I searched for comparative SLCN services nationwide and found barely any which extended their reach to include support for students aged 11-16. We have identified a clear ‘gap’ here and yet are working with many schools whose SENCos and SLT understand the prevalence of the need in Enfield and the necessity to train staff in this area: this borough is leading the way!
Watch this space later in the term for a follow- up blog which will deal with some quick fixes which support understanding and identification of SLCN for students 11-16.