[senco-forum] Literacy Support

It seems you need direct evidence that the policy is wrong for these  
children in your school without seeming "unreasonable" and a stirrer to your  
unsympathetic Headteacher. Someone correctly suggested reference  to CoP guidance -- 
this is statutory guidance and must be taken into  account in all aspects of 
SEN -- and its main principles and aims must be sought  to be achieved. And the 
governing body has a duty to do its best to  meet the needs of each child in 
the school (there has to be an SEN  designated governor). I'm aware, also, 
that the parents of the children most  affected by this policy are the least 
likely to raise a fuss with the head or to  be interested initially. So my 
suggestion is not an immediate solution -- it  will take some work and about a term 
or two.

All SEN children should have an IEP (or similar) and these should have  
targets which, although brief, should be measurable and achievable (for  monitoring 
and motivational purposes). So you need to run some baseline tests as  soon 
as possible on all of the affected children at around the same time.  Literacy 
and reading ages are obvious examples, but writing speed, moving from  
non-cursive to cursive writing, spelling, numeracy, language and  concentration and 
attention are all possible as simple small-step progressive  target areas. For 
Action+ children, external advisers (i.e. SpLD specialist  trained from 
central teams or the EP) can be called in to advise or carry out  assessments 
(fortunately your Head allows withdrawal for assessments). Then  monitor progress of 
pupils with these sound IEPs from the start of next term (if  possible). Make 
sure all parents have a copy of their child's IEP and that they  understand 
what it is aiming to achieve. Then carry out individual reviews,  involving as 
many parents as will show interest, towards the end of the winter  term. It is 
likely that many, if not all, will have failed to reach their  targets 
sufficiently -- i.e. have failed to make expected progress. It can be  explained to 
parents the problems surrounding the need for small group  withdrawal, etc., 
as reasons for the lack of sufficient progress.

If enough parents become concerned (I hope that quite a lot would) then  
parent power (and advice from the external specialists) may influence the Head  to 
listen to your previous advice to allow withdrawal. If s/he remains  
obdurate, some parents may wish to complain to the Chair of Governors reminding  them 
of their aforementioned duty. Other parents of severely affected children  may 
decide to make a formal request to the LA for a statutory assessment (for a  
possible statement) based on the IEP evidence and the fact that the school  
appears unable to provide sufficiently from its own resources (a legal  
justification for assessment that the LA must acknowledge in deciding if a  statutory 
assessment is necessary).

The Head has to come to realise that s/he is not able to dictate  policy 
based on her/his own views -- but that there are legal and statutory  guidance 
requirements that are designed to protect SEN children against  arbitrary and 
inappropriate policies as is being forced here. 
Best of Luck
Brendan   