A different approach to ALN

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Information about the school

Cardiff Muslim Primary school is an independent faith school in the Cathays area of Cardiff. It is a happy family school that serves the local Islamic community successfully. The school aims to ‘nurture emotionally intelligent and morally uplifting role models who aspire to excel academically and strive for excellence.’ Part of the school’s vision is to ‘promote excellent character, human values’ and aspires for its pupils ‘to become model citizens and future leaders’. Staff prioritise a high level of care and support for their pupils. The school has a strong focus on developing pupils as respectful and responsible citizens.

Pupils come from a diverse range of backgrounds and the school has a higher than average number of pupils with English as an additional language, including those new to the country and city. A number of families move to Cardiff just to attend the school.

Context and background to the effective or innovative practice

The COVID-19 pandemic affected pupils’ progress in many different ways. Pupils were directly impacted both physically and emotionally and experienced differing levels of support with their learning at home.

Challenges:

• When pupils returned to school, the gap between pupils in the same year group was vast. Teachers found matching activities to meet the needs of all pupils effectively extremely challenging. 
• Several pupils in Year 3 and Year 4 were not yet able to read effectively enough to be able to access the curriculum. This was having a negative impact on their wellbeing and behaviour in class. At this point it was unclear if these difficulties were due to underlying specific learning difficulties, or as a direct consequence of being away from school for long periods of time due to COVID-19.
• Pupils lacked confidence and were heavily reliant on both the teacher and any support staff in order to complete tasks.

Description of nature of strategy or activity

The school employed an independent external specialist teacher as their Additional Needs Coordinator (ALNCO) on a part-time basis. This has improved provision for pupils with additional learning needs (ALN)  significantly in many ways. This has included accurate specialist screening and diagnosis of pupils with specific learning difficulties. The impact of high quality targeted provision ensured many of these pupils made rapid progress and developed their confidence as learners. The school also employs an intervention teaching assistant and together with the ALNCO and class teachers, they have introduced and delivered a range of innovative teaching approaches.

These included:

• Establishing Year 3 and Year 4 intervention groups, managed by the ALNCO specialist teacher and delivered by the intervention teaching assistant. Sessions have covered literacy and mathematics and although continued to broadly follow teachers’ planning, were adapted to meet pupils’ needs. Staff included multisensory sessions including practical hands-on strategies to break down concepts in order to address gaps in pupils’ understanding. Staff understood that it was very important that the learning out of class was not merely a repetition of what the pupil were already struggling with in class. 
• A specialist teacher targeted intervention support twice a week for pupils experiencing reading difficulties. Sessions focused on developing literacy skills, independent strategies and rebuilding learning confidence.
• The school established a robust system for the early identification of specific learning difficulties and made onward referrals to other professionals promptly. Staff ‘screen’ pupils at risk of dyslexia and they are assessed by the ALNCO specialist teacher. ALN staff share their findings and detailed reports with class teachers and support them to implement recommendations.
   

Innovative approaches included

• ‘Look Books’ to encourage pupils to be more independent in their learning. Look books act as a child’s unique visual reference bank. Personal look books are more discreet than visual references on a wall in class and, being mobile, can go with the pupil wherever they are learning. Staff encourage pupils to take ownership of their Look book and can add in anything they like. This could be colouring, games, checklists, times tables, mnemonic memory aids, high frequency/topic words etc. Once a pupils no longer needs an item, they can remove it easily.
• Colour coded writing frames as part of the writing process. Writing is an area of difficulty for nearly all pupils in the intervention group. Pupils have lots of ideas but struggle to get these down on paper. Pupils lack confidence to write phonetically, and struggle with the planning and organisational aspects of writing. Staff designed a colour coded system, which they have embedded into the writing process across the school.
• Brain talk – pupils learn about the brain and staff encourage them to reflect on how their own brains work. The development of strengths-based strategies (meta-cognition) is an area of focus in the intervention group. This is something staff would like to develop further across the whole school in order to continue to foster the inclusive ethos at the school .
   

External referrals

Independent schools can struggle to instigate referrals for pupils they are concerned about, however, providing parents with a letter from a specialist teacher proved to be a successful approach to securing GP referrals. As a result of this approach, six pupils from Years 3 and 4 had specific needs diagnosed.

What impact has this work had on provision and learners’ standards?

The intervention group has shown that many pupils with ALN make excellent progress when the school has identified and addressed their specific learning needs. Providing pupils with a smaller group provision helps to fill gaps in their learning. Staff support pupils to develop independent strategies to enable them l to feel more confident. By promptly identifying underlying specific learning difficulties, staff help ensure that they recognise pupils’ needs across the school and that they put adjustments in place. Targeted interventions appropriately support, monitor and celebrate incremental progress closely.

Low literacy levels in particular were having a detrimental effect on pupils’ learning across all subject areas. Pupils who attended the intervention group have made excellent progress in literacy, which has in turn enabled them  to access learning more effectively across all subject areas.
 

Staff development

The school works hard to provide pupils and staff with a positive and inclusive environment, where they celebrate and acknowledge pupils’ strengths. It is also fundamental to nurture within all pupils the notion that everyone is different and are good at different things. The school works hard to ensure that they support all pupils to understand how they learn and are able to recognise areas they need support with. 

Following several staff training sessions and an ALN specific online group, staff across the school are continuously developing their understanding of additional learning needs and as a result they now identify and support pupils at an earlier stage of their education. Classrooms have become more inclusive, and leaders encourage positive attitudes towards different learning styles.

How have you shared your good practice?

The school has a good relationship with several other local independent schools and regularly share any useful information, relevant news and innovative practice. Staff also worked directly with an independent school in Birmingham to set up a similar system in regard to ALN provision and processes following the positive impact of the school’s successful approach to supporting pupils with ALN.

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