Responding To The Return To School:
Having all lived and worked through the recent experiences of supporting our students with SEN through lockdowns and virtual learning experiences, and having taken time to reflect on what this has taught us about our embedded school and educational systems and practices, we now need to consider what additional support we need to plan to proactively help to recognise, reduce and remove barriers to learning for our students in their return to school.
This article therefore builds on the insights shared in Part 1, to identify some key areas of focus and planning, and some implications for the development of professional practices moving forward.
Importantly, we need to acknowledge the impact that the lengthy school closures over the last year have had on our students, particularly those with SEN, and need to be aware that there will be things that we will need to review and go over again with our students, including basic expectations and routines as our students may now be out of their established positive learning behaviours and routines. The support that we will need to put in place now will be different to and more than we have previously needed to plan for and implement for our students, and will need to focus on more than just support with learning.
Our work with our students and the feedback that we have received from their parents has therefore given us a number of areas to focus on: