[senco-forum] setting up a SEN dept

We have all files colour coded with pupil year of entry, which is the same for the Special needs bulletin which we produce for Departments, it's yellow this year, and for any booklets of entry scores in the year 06/07.  I started this to help me remove files when pupils leave, as all puils are kept alphabetically - except statements in different drawers.  I have enough colours for one each group and one over as the year coming in the following September.  I will aslso start a brief file for any pupil who might come, who has had contact with us through an open evening or special visit.  These files have no colour and have '?entry 07' on the file title and I assure parents that all info will be shredded in the SEptemebr of that year if they do not arrive with us.

  School has produced a useful sheet for record of meetings and we use those even for phone calls where possible even if all boxes are not filled in.  If action is needed these go in the Action box for the right person/LSA or self to deal with, if it requires other school staff an e mail is usually sent.  When action is completed it is filed.

  On entry, after Y6 report and SATs sheet are removed, we get files on any pupil who has been at SA or SA+, had speech therapy or other intervention in the past, and obviously all pupils with statements.  Some of this info is never looked at again, but it is kept - for every now and then a pupil needs massive input and when you look back yes they had some intervention at age 5 or 6, which worked, but then transfer to secondary brought all the difficulties back....  We do keep any scores from Primary, letters which might be relevant etc.  But cute pictures and complete pieces of work have to be shredded.

  I therefore have 6 drawers full of files (school size about 1300).  Then I have statement pupils also in drawers but separate drawers from other pupils, with 4 files each, sorted: 1st - copy of statement, folded open at their needs page, last Annual review, current IEPs, 2nd - correspondance and meeting sheets, 3rd - old annual reviews and IEPs, plastic wallet for each year- for ease of looking at old stuff, 4th file for Primary stuff kept.  Sometimes there is so much info it has to have further files, but then everything can be locked away easily.

  This means any one of us LSA or teacher can both file and retrieve info fairly easily, though every pupil in school will also have a school file not in our office which will contain Y6 report, SATs info sheet, admission sheet and then all letters personally home for that pupil, behaviour /positive slips once dealt with.  There is info on SIMS but often not enough to be very helpful, and I did go on a course but really felt that it duplicated in an unhelpful way what we already did.  My wonderful LSAs do have some admin time and will type letters and help with Annual Review paperwork, gather info for either me or one of them to act on etc.  I admit that I do too much of the paperwork at times, but as there was not even a computer for the SENCO in 2000, it takes time for everyone to get up to speed to use the computer to generate things.

  Sorry this is a long winded reply for June but we all pick up useful ideas from other people and then think how we could better do what we do.

  Anne

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