The Balancing Act: Integrating Strategy and Compassion for Inclusive Leadership

 

This blog is based on a presentation for the Church Of England’s Flourishing Trust Network and is a deeper exploration and continuation of previous blog:

Cassie Young - SEND and systems: A reflection toolkit

This is aimed specifically at Trust leaders, CEOs, and school leaders and builds on the foundational principles that guide our roles in fostering a balanced, inclusive culture in our schools.

As leaders, we navigate the complexities of head and heart, making decisions that balance strategic foresight with empathy and compassion. Inclusion lies at the very core of this responsibility, challenging us to hold our values steadfastly while responding to the needs of our pupils, teams, and communities. In this reflection, we will delve further into the vital components of effective communication and curriculum design, emphasising practical strategies that bring inclusion to life.

 

The Head-Heart Balance in Leadership

 

As Trust leaders, you share a responsibility to lead with both head and heart. This balance is at the core of the challenging and rewarding roles we occupy. Compassionate, empathetic decisions with children at the heart of our work are essential, yet we are also strategic leaders required to make difficult decisions. These decisions may not always align with popular opinion but are necessary for the overall success and health of our schools. Nowhere is this balancing act more critical than in fostering true inclusion.

Inclusion challenges us to confront our own biases, and sometimes to become an ally, even when it means challenging others within our own organisation. We’re pulled in multiple directions, often making decisions at a pace that can feel overwhelming. Research suggests that educators make 1,500 decisions in a day – everything is important to the person asking for your time. 

 In this post, we’ll discuss how leaders can maintain a culture of inclusion through consistent communication and curriculum strategies, focusing on the importance of daily practices over one-off gestures.

Inclusion is not a one-off event. It’s not a special week or something tucked into a school development plan. Real inclusion happens in the day-to-day—through the consistency of our practices and decisions.

However, we find ourselves in a landscape of uncertainty—political shifts, changes in the curriculum, and tight funding. Many of these are outside our control, but as leaders, we need to focus on what we can control. The decisions we make have to be sustainable and long-lasting.

You’ve all noticed that your roles are becoming more critical, particularly in well-being, recruitment, and retention. You’re often the protective barrier for your teams, shielding them from external pressures. And let’s be honest: sometimes, we’re just trying to survive.

But as leaders, we can’t afford to only survive. We must thrive and flourish—our teams, communities and children in our care depend on it.

 

Key Reflection Question: How Inclusive is Your Trust?

Reflect on this: How do you truly know how inclusive your organisation is?

Inclusion is more than a value or vision statement; it is an everyday practice. 

Are your inclusion vision and values evident in the daily life of your organisation? How do you gauge the inclusiveness of your Trust? 

Who are the key individuals supporting you in measuring this?

 

The Fundamentals of Inclusive Schools

Through extensive experience across various schools and Trusts, four essential areas consistently emerge as crucial in supporting our most vulnerable pupils effectively:

 

Behaviour: Cultivating positive behaviour systems that embed whole-school inclusion as the norm.

Communication: Ensuring all stakeholders are informed and aligned, living out the Trust’s vision for inclusion.

Identification: Early, accurate identification of individual needs.

Curriculum: Providing accessible, inclusive learning for every child.

In this blog, I’ll concentrate on Communication and Curriculum, as these areas are most likely to undergo adaptations amidst future changes.

 

Communication: The Glue Holding Inclusion Together

Consider the network of people involved in the education of a child with SEND: the child, parents or carers, the SENCo, teachers, support staff, and external specialists such as educational psychologists or therapists. Each brings a different perspective, yet all rely on effective communication. For children with multiple identifiers—such as being Looked After, Pupil Premium, or supported by social workers—this network becomes even more intricate as we look at every pupil with SEND in the school, and multiplied by the number of schools within a trust, federation or cluster of schools. 

Within these communities, communication is not just important; it’s essential. It creates cohesion, transparency, and trust. However, our current framework often fragments communication. With outside agencies frequently interacting directly with schools, coupled with statutory requirements, exhaustive paperwork, and pressing deadlines, this approach can compromise cohesion.

 

Key Reflection Question:

How do you, as Trust leaders, communicate your vision for inclusion?

Who are your essential contacts who regularly “temperature check” this vision?

 

To streamline communication, I have five approaches for your consideration:

SEND Clinics: Regular, dedicated time for reviewing individual cases. An open door at a regular time for staff to talk through concerns or specific ideas with your most skilled and knowledge staff members for SEND. I have seen these become just general ‘chats’ so ensuring there is a clear structure and being outcomes driven can be supported by….

Leadership Principles: Clear, trust-wide principles around inclusive practice and language. This is shared with every single member of the Trust…as everyone is seen as a leader in their own right.  Ensuring that all members of the Trust are seen as professionals and trusted to act in a way that is wholly child centered and actively pro-inclusion, really can both reassure trust leaders, but also can show when people fall out of these boundaries.

 

1:1 Meetings: Regular catch-ups between school leaders and trust leaders to share updates, challenges, barriers and strategies that are working well.

Team Around the Child (TAC) Meetings: Bringing together all key players around the child to streamline support. Replacing Pupil Progress Meetings, so that SENCo’s are not doubling up on meetings and all voices can be heard together. These aren’t cozy catch ups, but opportunities to voice and lay out resources, strategies and balance expectations. Teachers being part of these meetings can be transformative in the sense they can professionally develop and ensure full understandings around need.

Pupil Voice: Incorporating the perspectives of students with SEND at a trust level. CEO’s often go into school to just talk to pupils with SEND and other focus groups. This is a really fantastic way to temperature check. 

 

Key question:

How do you, as Trust leaders with the highest vantage point, communicate your vision for inclusion?

Who are your key people to regularly check the pulse on this?

Curriculum: Embedding Inclusivity from the Start

I’ll assume that within your trusts, you’ve worked hard to build broad and balanced curriculums that offer cultural capital and build confident, knowledgeable children and young people.

But the question remains: How accessible is this curriculum?

Does your curriculum naturally lend itself to inclusive access, or do you find that pupils with SEND need significant adaptations or bespoke plans to engage with it? 

Micro-questions like

 “Do SEND students need extra scaffolding for this lesson?”

and macro-questions like,

 “Does our entire curriculum framework consider different learning needs from the start?”

both matter.

Inclusion shouldn’t just happen through interventions—it should be embedded into the very fabric of the curriculum. 

Ask yourself:

Have we built a curriculum that can be adapted by teachers to meet the needs of all pupils?

Or have we designed a curriculum where inclusivity is woven in from the start, allowing all students to access it without major alterations? This will not only support your teacher’s workload, but also ensure that inclusion is considered as an integral part of the whole, not a bolt on.

Example A: History lesson containing dense reading text, no visuals or simplified versions. No alternative formats are provided for content. Verbal instructions are provided with the assumption that everyone processes and holds information at the same rate. Pupils will write up their work to demonstrate their knowledge, all children are working independently and there is no expectation on noisy levels, behaviour, and no time scale given to complete the work until the bell goes for break time.

Example B: The same History lesson: Resources with key terms provided, simplified texts provided with a breakdown of the key points, audio versions available to complement texts (not removing the reading! Important that expectations are still high, stretching and challenging children) Opportunities built in for children to discuss their thinking, to ensure adults can listen and assess understanding and alternative ways for children to demonstrate their knowledge using Edu tech, verbal or written presentations. A quiet space for children to work and clear timescales and countdowns for those who struggle to manage time or transitions.

This could potentially (assuming atypical presentations) support pupils with ADHD, ASD, SLCN, SEMH, Anxiety, fine motor difficulties, cognition and learning difficulties..and more.

I’m not suggesting every single approach should/would be used, but alongside teachers deep knowledge of pupils, they can add and remove approaches and strategies as needed to provide scaffolding and adaptations to ensure the inclusion of all pupils.

There’s often a temptation to try to “fix” everything at once. We need to avoid building our strategies on sand—rushing to tick every box without creating a sustainable foundation.

We operate in a time of uncertainty, with many factors out of our control. But as Trust leaders, we can focus on the things we can control. We can shape communication systems that build trust and streamline processes. We can build a curriculum that supports inclusivity by design, not as an afterthought.

Our roles are incredibly challenging, but they’re also an opportunity to make a lasting impact on the lives of thousands of children. By balancing head and heart, focusing on sustainable strategies, and addressing the fundamentals of inclusion, we can build truly inclusive trusts.

Let’s continue to ask ourselves the hard questions:

How do we know how inclusive our organisations are? 

and 

How can we ensure our vision for inclusion is lived out in every classroom?

By focusing on key areas like communication and curriculum, we create lasting change. This supports not only our vulnerable learners but the wider school community as well. We have the power to make a tangible difference that will last long beyond our leadership roles. It’s a privilege, but also a responsibility.

 

 

 

 

 

SEND and systems: A reflection toolkit

 

‘It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.’  

John Wooden

It’s almost a relief for those that have ‘SENCo’ or ‘Inclusion’ in their job title to see that there is a current focus on this area of education and more importantly, those children and young people who fall under this umbrella. The confused faces and annoyance by those that have finally sat up and paid attention to what happens in education towards pupils with SEND is almost comforting.

But, I have repeatedly promised myself (and others!) that I will not moan and get annoyed about the current landscape we are working in, and I’m very aware that this wave of interest will not last forever, so if those of us have anything possibly useful to offer by sharing and supporting or offering reflective questions...we're here! 

Attending the roundtable discussions in collaboration with CST and Ambition was really insightful and it confirmed the idea that we have some really good stuff going on and also highlighted areas that just haven’t been talked about or explored in enough depth. The resulting 5 principles of inclusion paper, (found here) so carefully and considerately put together by Tom and Ben was such a push forward to add clarity and opportunities for reflection that are so needed.

Conversations with my colleagues and those whom I work in schools with (both through my own trust and outreach work) are now raising and asking questions around the following areas:

• How can we do this better? 
•  What can we actually ‘do’ differently/more effectively?
• When does inclusion ‘by all means’ risk being a form of exclusion? 
• We feel we are getting interventions right, but children are still struggling, what can we do?

I feel that potentially, we may be doing things the wrong way around. There has been such a (rightful) focus on meeting individual needs of pupils, that we have forgot that these pupils are part of a bigger picture and system of school, trusts, and alternative establishments.

The narrow, specific and precise lens on pupils’ provision is vital. Getting provision, intervention, support, scaffolding (adaptations) and curriculum 'right' is key to success. Alongside decent relationships and high expectations, you are potentially on the road to success.

However, retracting the focus to the wider picture, you suddenly see a much bigger job on your hands. This is where school and trust leaders, working alongside SENCos becomes an incredibly powerful and transformative need within the system.

For example:

Pupil A has sensory, communication and interaction difficulties.

They struggle with transition around the building and unstructured times. They find social interaction challenging and Initiating work alongside peers is challenging due to distractions and high anxiety.

The school have recognised these difficulties, and the pupil has a clear timetable, breakout space with support around regulation, adult support to encourage starting written work, clear now/next boards and key peers who also support and use appropriate language structures to reduce anxiety around interactions.

This all sounds pretty good. 

Clear strategies, used consistently, with adults and peers on board to ensure this will support the pupil to have successful days.

Now consider the wider lens of the whole school:

• Unstructured times (break/lunch/before and after school) works (or appears to work) for the majority of children. It’s loud and busy with many activities planned on the day by groups of children, but pupils generally mix well, and incidents are dealt with swiftly and appropriately by adults. 

• There are limited spaces for smaller groups to go or quieter areas in the inside and outside of the building. 

•   General changes to staffing/available classrooms are well communicated to staff but not students. 

• There is a very small number of pupils with communication and interaction difficulties, so this is reflected with a small number of peers having strategies to support and model language.

•   Movement around the building depends on the class/time/teacher.

Now, I’m not going to be an advocate for a specific approach to this, but the wider lens and environment that surround pupils with SEND is as important as the precise lens of personalised provision.  

It’s like wrapping a pupil in cotton wool and then placing them next to an open fire.

Pupil A sometimes joins class from break heightened and dysregulated. The adults support this pupil with emotional regulation, they access the safe space, on occasion they miss the input of the lesson, the peers that would normally offer a level of familiarity or friendship are working with others, they feel again and again that they are different, they can’t keep up and worst-case scenario, they don’t belong.

So what?

This is where the real moral purpose and reflective leadership needs to kick in. The ability to step back from your school or educational establishment and look at the big picture of the fundamentals and ask ‘If this is good for the many, what about the few?’   a very powerful action is to step into the shoes of your most complex children and take a (metaphorical and literal!)  walk around the school, experience the curriculum and the access to the community for them. This is also an opportunity to see if you have a consistent understanding of what successful provision looks like.

In order to support this across our trust of schools, I put together a narrative of reflective questions, scenarios and approaches that add both consistency and opportunities for SENCos and School leaders to work shoulder to shoulder in a pursuit for improvement.

Fundamentals of SEND identification

 

The identification and assessment of pupils with SEND is an essential process in schools. It is important to identify pupils with SEND to ensure they receive the appropriate support they need to achieve their full potential.

 At Trust level we needed to look at the wide lens of each school:

•  As part of the Trust as a whole 
• As individual establishments 
• At how we can align and support consistency
• How we can provide opportunities to share strong practice
• How we can get it right for our most vulnerable learners 

The fundamentals

Driven by the school and Trust values and vision, we know that getting the basics right and putting the fundamentals in place well, is beneficial to all children but particularly those that we have concerns around academically, socially, and emotionally.

Our key fundamentals are the bedrock of strong SEND and Inclusive practice. Research and ‘on the ground experience’ has been gathered to inform the next stage of our implementation and the following sections are the beginning of our approach to inclusion and SEND identification. 

  

BEHAVIOUR | CURRICULUM | ATTENDANCE |ASSESSMENT|COMMUNICATION

 

• Is the behaviour and curriculum strong and consistent? How does it lend itself to include all children?

 

• Are we confident that the fundamentals are in place to ensure all children can flourish and make progress?

 

• Are we doing enough to ensure attendance and participation of pupils remains a priority? How do we incentivise coming to school?

 

• Does everyone in our trust understand their role in being a champion for children? 

 

• Are we celebrating achievement, reinforcing it and articulating this success widely?

 

• Do we have a collective understanding of the words ‘Assess’ and ‘Assessment’.

 

• How we move from the wider lens of Trust strategy towards a narrower lens with a sharp focus on individual pupils needs on the ground ?

 

Behaviour

 

• Do all children and staff have a robust [understanding of the expectations, routines, transition, and ‘pinch points’ to create a safe environment within the school?

 

• Can adults and staff articulate the reasons for the expectations, routines and transition approaches? (Why do we do this, in this way?)

 

• Does the school’s behaviour policy ensure that routines for transition, unstructured time and in-class learning strategies support all pupils? What evidence do you have to support this?

 

• Does the school environment ensure low arousal and avoid sensory spiking? Is everyone on board and aware of the expectations? Does everyone have the knowledge and CPD to know why this is important? 

Point of reflection: 

Low behaviour expectations, inconsistencies, and an over reliance on verbal evidence from staff without deeper assessment or observations from SENCos and the ‘leap to label’ can often result in overidentification and high numbers of pupils on the SEN register needlessly.  Labelling children can often mean that adults are looking to ‘fit a description’ or overlook behaviours and difficulties that don’t fit a specific description of need. Likewise, anecdotal evidence and informal discussions can often delay support for pupils, if the systems are not in place to consistently and robustly evidence gather. 

 

 

Curriculum 

The curriculum provides a framework for teachers and other professionals to assess and evaluate students' learning needs. It is through this assessment and evaluation that a student may be identified with SEND.

Schools use the curriculum to understand student’s attainment and progress in different subject areas.

If a pupil is struggling to meet the standards expected within the curriculum, it may indicate a learning difficulty or SEND but this is not always the case.

 It is recognised that the curriculum provides teachers and professionals with a reference point to measure students' achievements and an opportunity to put mechanisms in place to support them in the learning process.

 

• Is the curriculum taught well enough by all staff?  
• Do some subjects offer a better experience? 
• Does there need to be more support for key teachers or support staff
• What approaches do you use to ensure all children can access the curriculum?
•   How do you monitor and evidence this?
• What subject specific scaffolding, adaptations and approaches do you use? (E.G. Maths Manipulatives, Music  using adaptive instruments, P.E using specialist equipment)
•    How do subject leaders use their outcomes to plan next steps for pupils with SEND?
• How do you know as SLT that your curriculum is meeting need?

 

Attendance

 

• Are pupils in school the majority of the time?
• Are staff demonstrating authentic kindness and warmth seeing their pupils attending school? (Remember in primary, it’s not often the fault of the child!)
• Are there significant issues with attendance, punctuality, or persistent absence?
• Are there trends in specific groups of pupils? 
• What actions are the school taking beyond the Office and FLO roles? (SLT, Teachers, Support staff)
• Does everyone know who the ‘harder to reach’ families are?

 

Reflection point on persistently absent children:

Is this the result of a SEND and/or learning need or is this the reason concerns have been raised?

It is important that all outcomes are considered, they could be linked, but equally it would be useful to look at attainment and achievement once the child is back in school, gain feedback from teachers to inform decision making.

Example of action in practice: The Trust Attendance Officer continues to ensure that we raise the profile and importance of attendance whilst supporting workload (particularly in our small schools) this has worked incredibly well and developed relationships with some of our harder to reach families and ensured there is a ‘buffer zone’ to maintain the positive relationships. The attendance officer forms a protect barrier for both schools and families. Which we believe is part of the trust role.

 

Culture

 A school that follows an inclusive culture recognises the fact that SEND is a natural part of diversity. They endeavour to see children as ‘part of the whole’, not ‘separate and different to’ the community that they belong to:

                                (Image: https://www.seainclusion.co.uk/ ) 

 

• Our teachers and staff are trained to identify SEND by understanding the signs, symptoms, and common challenges that students with SEND may face and we do this through our CPD offer, having skillful SEN coordinators in all schools and establishing SEN Team meetings, in which we focus on specific SEN training to cascade in schools. 

• OCMAT’s ‘Leadership Principles’ document is based on our values of communication, compassion, and collaboration. We shared this will all school leaders and SENCos to ensure there was a collective agreement around our approaches to inclusion, particularly identification of SEND. This turns the conversation between schools and the Trust from ‘We can’t meet need’ to ‘How do we meet need and what do we do to make this work?’  Our two larger schools with long standing leaders continue to model this level of commitment and understanding of the leadership principles.

 

Questions to consider: 

• How can you tell what kind of culture you have in the school/s and how do you know?

• How is the desired culture explicitly nurtured?

• How do you challenge beliefs, attitudes and behaviours that sit outside your own leadership principles?

 

Assessments, baselines, and identification 

Inclusive schools recognise that some pupils may require additional support to achieve academic and social progress. Therefore, they are proactive in monitoring students' progress through regular assessments and reviews, which help identify students who may need additional support.

Moving towards 2 different approaches if a child joins the school:

What happens when a child joins your setting in Reception?

Core expectations: 

Speech/language link on arrival

NELI (if available)

Reception baseline

SDQ 

Early interventions are reliant on picking up on issues and difficulties as early as possible. EYFS baselines are useful as indicators. We also use speech/Language link for pupils on entry, to ensure that interventions such as NELI or referrals to Speech and Language therapists can be made.

What happens when a child joins your setting in-year? 

Transitional information

Age-appropriate assessment

Statutory assessment

Boxhall profiles or SDQ

Regular assessments are carried out throughout the school year to identify any SEND. This could include using screening tools and checklists, analysing academic performance, and monitoring behaviour patterns. We use a Trust wide assessment calendar to align our dates and data input – This makes it easier to pick up trends and areas for development.

 We encourage SENCos to ensure that they are observing at different times of the day, different lessons and different environments to pick up on reoccurring behaviours, consistencies and the strengths and difficulties that pupils are experiencing as a daily diet.

Thorough discussion and agreement:

SENCo evidence gathering includes all or some of the following:

• Pupil voice
• Parent/carer meeting
• Pupil progress meetings (round table discussions)
• Ongoing assessments
• Snapshot observations
• Different time, different place observation/assessment
• 360 info gathering
• Structured and unstructured times
• Different types of teaching approaches
• Joint observations to reflect and talk through what they are seeing (with members of staff or staff within the trust, i.e. Another SENCo, SLT, central team member or colleague)

Reflection point: 

Understanding the child in a wider context before putting the child under the lens in isolation is vital to ensure identification is as accurate as it can be.

 

Mainstream Core Standards (MSCS) 

Our settings use a checklist and guidance  to reflect the work the teachers and support staff have already put in place. This comes from the KELSI mainstream core standards document, which covers the 5 main areas of need. (Found here ) 

We believe this ensures that support and strategies can be in place before seeking further support and advice. This also ensures that all available resources and observations can take place alongside Quality First Teaching in order to gather evidence, and change approaches to see impact before specialist pathways. 

 

 Communication

Schools are complicated and tricky places for effective communication, whatever type of setting you are in, and particularly in a MAT structure with multiple layers of people and responsibilities.

What we often find is the person with the most influence and impact on pupils are the last to be communicated with, but often the first to raise concerns over children who may need further support .  E.G. Parents/Carers, SENCos, outside agencies may hold meetings with in depth discussions around past history, current needs, future issues without the presence of the teacher or supporting adult. Therefore, some behaviours or support strategies are overlooked or not clearly followed up in the classroom due to lack of information.

The child at the centre of the communication structure should always be the priority .  This does not mean everyone talk directly to the child but ensures a decision is made around which information is vital for who, and what information needs to be shared to all parties. Considering the model below, the sheer number of people that could potentially be involved in decision making is far away from the 2-3 way communication models we are usually presented with.

                         

 

This isn’t just about looking at the structures that don’t work, but also when they are successful.

When it goes well, we know that:

 

• CYP voice is heard, reflected on, supported. They feel heard and seen as complete humans with the ability to have control over their path.

• Teachers: Regular communication and collaboration with teachers is vital. Teachers are often the first to notice any learning difficulties or disabilities, so it is important that SENCOs work with teachers to identify pupils who may need additional support. Some schools use ‘SEN Clinics’, which are weekly/fortnightly drop-in sessions for teachers and support staff to discuss pupils and in our smaller schools these take place in pupil progress meetings which happen every short term.

• Consistent priority: Having a standing agenda item during staff meetings is also a powerful approach. Small and regular concerns can often build a picture, so these opportunities to talk are vital.

• Parents/Carers: SENCOs should involve parents in the identification process, as they can provide additional insights into their child's development and provide information about their personal circumstances that may impact their education. Parents/Carers must be reassured that concerns about having a child with SEND does not necessarily mean they do have a SEN, which is why the language we use in discussion is not labelling with a term (Autistic, Dyslexic, ADHD etc) this is particularly important for teachers and support staff, who will normally have more contact with parents/Carers. This is to ensure that we are not ‘looking’ for behaviours to fit a need type, or overlooking others which could better reflect the child’s profile and needs. SEN Registers talk in umbrella terms of need unless the child has a formal diagnosis.

• A flow chart for parents/carers ensures the process is clear and not a one-way street.  It explains the identification process clearly.  This is a process to understand the need and identify the right support and intervention is in place. The EHCP is not an end goal in most circumstances. By being transparent we are building trust with our families.

 

 

 

KEY CONSIDERATIONS

 Challenges and barriers: 

• SENCOs should be mindful of the potential challenges and barriers that may prevent pupils from accessing support, such as language barriers, cultural differences, and social stigmas surrounding SEND

Fair and unbiased approaches:

• SENCOs and Leaders should also ensure that the identification process is fair and unbiased for all pupils, and that they consider the impact of any known conditions that may complicate the identification process.

Impact of co-existing conditions:

• It is important to remember that behaviours children present are not always the direct result of a Special Need. E.G A child showing highly disruptive behaviours, could be due to an underlying Speech and Language need, trauma response or auditory processing disorder, but could also be something completely different (e.g., safeguarding issues, bullying, ACE, trauma, life disruptions, puberty) This is why observations and triangulation of evidence is so vital. 

• There may be a need to refer pupils to external agencies, such as educational psychologists or speech and language therapists for further assessments and support.

Underpinning

The identification of pupils with SEND is a complex process that requires careful consideration and collaboration between leaders, teachers, support staff, families, and healthcare professionals. SENCOs play a vital role in this process, ensuring that all pupils receive the support they need to achieve their full potential.

Getting 'the big' stuff right at whole school level will support pupils with SEND at an individual level too. School leaders working alongside SENCos and inclusion leads will ultimately ensure that both the wide and narrow lens are questioned critically and acted on. 

Our job as Trust and School leaders is to provide strategies, opportunities for planned collaboration, raise confidence of all practitioners and to share good practice wherever possible by joining up thinking, actions and reflections for the betterment of all children and their families.