Last week’s rallies in London, Bristol, Leeds and Birmingham demonstrated the nation’s frustration regarding the lack of funding for SEND provision in schools.
With increased pressure on budgets to support children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), now is the perfect time to invest in upskilling your school staff to ensure you are working more effectively with your external service providers. Our Certificate of Competence in Educational Testing is a great way to start making savings and provide more effective in-house services straight away.
NEW dates released:
Certificate of Competence in Educational Testing (CCET):
• BIRMINGHAM – 26-28 June
• LONDON – 3-5 July and 18-20 September and 27-29 November
• LEEDS – 24-26 July
• MANCHESTER – 18-20 September
CCET and CPT3A (for Access Arrangements) are also available to complete flexibly online.
“I am now in a position to test children that the school has not being able to afford to test, as we currently buy in that expertise at a great expense. This will open avenues to many children previously unable to be tested as needed.”
– Sandra Francis, CCET delegate 2018
“I believe that by assessing the students myself, rather than the Ed Psych, I will learn so much more about a pupil.”
– Elizabeth Jones, CCET delegate 2018
“A greater proportion of students will now be tested as there will not be the need to call in outside agencies. This will help to measure the impact of interventions more and ensure that we have appropriate strategies in place.”
– Emma Rushton, CCET delegate 2018
CCET quick facts
- Learn how to choose the correct psychometric test, administer it and interpret the results in your setting.
- Develop effective support for the most vulnerable children in your setting.
- Study fully online or through blended learning options.
- No prior qualifications required – suitable for teachers, SENCOs and student support staff.
- Receive 10% discount off tests and assessments through the Dyslexia Action Shop.
- Combine with the AAC to become a qualified Access Arrangements Assessor (qualification to teach required).
To find out more, take a look at our dedicated CCET page online, or our CPT3A page if you are looking to train a staff member to be an Access Arrangements Assessor.
Annie Grant talked to RIX Research and Media to discover the potential of intelligent technology for learners with the most complex needs.
The young people of Charlton Park Academy in South London are very comfortable working with new technology. The school has a wide range of assistive and interactive technologies, and also houses the Centre for Motor and Associated Communication (CENMAC), which supplies assistive technologies to children right across London.
‘We are always keen to explore the potential of new technology because it is hugely engaging, it can remove barriers and for some young people with learning disabilities it can be everything’, explains CENMAC team leader Kathryn Stowell. ‘When eye-gaze technology first came in, for instance, it meant that, for the first time, our students with profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD) could do something without any adult support and really demonstrate their level of understanding.’
Personalising learning
It was the Academy’s vision and enthusiasm for technology that led Gosia Kwiatkowska, Senior Lecturer and Co-director of RIX Research and Media Centre at the University of East London, to approach Charlton Park to help pilot MaTHiSiS (Managing Affective-learning THrough Intelligent atoms and Smart InteractionS) a personalised and adaptable e-learning system, developed by a team from across Europe and funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 Framework Programme.
This cutting-edge technology continually adjusts online learning paths to keep learners motivated. It does this through an algorithm that determines a user’s engagement through combining their performance on e-learning tasks with their emotional state, as indicated by their facial expressions and body movements. Although possible applications of the technology are wide-ranging – as part of the project, MaTHiSiS was piloted with users in mainstream and special schools, industry and careers guidance – the RIX Centre’s involvement focused mainly on the potential of the system for young people with PMLD and ASD.
‘This is the group whose needs are hardest to meet and who will benefit most from the technology because securing engagement is crucial if they are to learn,’ says Ms Kwiatkowska, who was also excited by the possibility of the young people themselves influencing the design. ‘As a group, people with PMLD are so often overlooked because they don’t have a voice, but in this project, they have the opportunity to contribute directly to the design of this technology, maybe not consciously but, nevertheless, they are the pioneers,’ she adds.
The MaTHiSiS learning platform has the capability to be used in conjunction with several different interfaces simultaneously so that teachers can create learning experiences personalised to meet the different needs of their students. ‘You could have a child in one corner of the classroom working on a computer, while students work individually or collaboratively on tablets or a big screen,’ explains Ms Kwiatkowska. Charlton Park, who had purchased a robot, were very keen to explore the possibility of linking the platform with this new hardware.
But the main attraction of MaTHiSiS for RIX and for Charlton Park Academy was its potential to enable students with PMLD to work more independently, without constant adult oversight. Typically, a child with PMLD will have an adult beside them at all times, assisting with tasks and regulating their emotional state and behaviours by recognising and responding to signs of, pleasure, motivation, frustration or distress. By using a specialist webcam, MaTHiSiS continuously assesses a child’s engagement, assigns an emotional state and then presents learning materials in a way that is most likely to keep them motivated to continue learning. ‘It means that students don’t get bored because material is too easy, or frustrated because it is too difficult,’ explains Ms Kwiatkowska.
Evaluation of the project has indicated that because MaTHiSiS is able to detect emotional states from a range of very subtle indicators, it may be better at assessing engagement than an adult sitting next to the student. But Ms Kwiatkowska is keen to emphasise that the system does not replace the teacher. ‘It potentially increases independence for students by removing the need for an adult to anticipate their responses and keep them on task, because the machine will do that,’ she says.
Technical development
The MaTHiSiS project ran for just over three years, finishing in March 2019. It had three phases:
- Driver – developing the algorithm and the learning materials
- Assisted – RIX and schools piloting and evaluating the technology together, and
- Real-life – Teachers integrating technology into their day-to-day classroom teaching.
In the ‘driver’ phase the project partners worked to develop the algorithm. Across Europe, children’s facial expressions were recorded while they were working on online tasks. Education professionals who knew children really well annotated the video material, indicating points when children’s reactions indicated that they were engaged, motivated, bored or frustrated etc. As the information from hundreds of observations was fed into the algorithm, it was able to learn more and more about the different ways in which young people show engagement.
Teachers also worked closely with RIX during this phase to develop the learning materials to upload to the learning platform. ‘For our target group we were looking at very simple tasks involving cause and effect, matching and basic literacy and numeracy,’ explains Gosia Kwiatkowska.
Assisted implementation
With the platform in place and functioning, the pilot moved on to the second ‘assisted’ phase, in which RIX worked with teachers and teaching assistants at Charlton Park Academy to set up the prototype system and to test its usability, before the final ‘live pilot’ stage. In practice, things didn’t go as smoothly as hoped. ‘Although we could see it had great potential, the learning platform didn’t really work very well when we came to implementing it in school,’ remembers Kathryn Stowell. ‘We had technical issues and the learning materials weren’t really a good fit for the needs of our PMLD students – even though they were simplified, they were still too difficult for children to access – so we moved to testing the system with more able pupils with complex needs.’
Miss Kwiatkowska agrees that things didn’t go as well as planned but points out that it is only through prototypes being piloted in these very early stages that difficulties can be identified and corrected. She applauds Charlton Park Academy’s open-mindedness and willingness to persist with the pilot so that the system could be improved for the future. ‘Early pilots of complex technology do take teachers and students out of their comfort zone. They can disrupt the operation of day-to-day activities and sometimes it’s great for students, and sometimes it’s not,’ she explains. ‘But it was so helpful to be able to feed their comments back into the development process, to improve the functioning of the platform in the future for groups who so often get left out’.
Because of technical difficulties, the pilot was never able to proceed to the ‘live’ stage, where teachers integrated the technology into their everyday teaching, without support from RIX. But the system did become more stable as time went on and the school obtained some success in using MaTHiSiS with their new target pupil group, generating some interesting and useful feedback and data for the project.
Increasing independence
A success of the pilot was the algorithm, which seemed to predict pupils’ emotional states accurately, challenging students and moving their learning a little further without triggering negative behaviours. But if the system was really to free students to work more independently, teachers and support staff needed to believe in it and learn to trust it.
In a feedback interview, Claire, a teaching assistant at Charlton Park Academy reported that her concern about the welfare of students tended to make her second guess the technology and jump in when she anticipated that students might begin to struggle. ‘I didn’t trust the computer to be able to assess their level of frustration as well as I could,’ she explains. ‘I knew by their body language when they were becoming anxious and, although you want to encourage students, you don’t want to harm them either.’
On the other hand, Anne, an experienced teacher, was more confident to step back and see how well students interacted with technology on their own. ‘There was a temptation to jump in too soon because you were anticipating when they might be getting bored or frustrated,’ she says. ‘But I realised it was OK to hold back a little and I noticed then that system not only stretched them a little bit, but it made them a little more independent. It reduced their reliance on the adult and I thought, well hang on, maybe sometimes it could be the adults that are holding them back.’
Gosia Kwiatkowska recognises how decisions that teachers make with the best intentions, can limit opportunities for students. ‘Children with more complex needs come to rely on adult’s ‘protecting’ them from things that may be perceived as too challenging, but MaTHiSiS gives students the chance to make mistakes and to try again and again, without the teacher stepping in, so long as the system assesses that they are still motivated to do so,’ she says. ‘And by allowing students to take those extra steps, MaTHiSiS can challenge teachers’ preconceived ideas about the abilities of students with learning disabilities and reveal capabilities that teachers may not previously have understood or realised they had.’
Engagement and progression
At first students at Charlton Park were a little wary of the new set-up but they soon gained in confidence. And while it was never possible to make the robot work with MaTHiSiS during the pilot, it was used as a reward to encourage them to participate and persevere with the online tasks.
The robot was a key motivator for some children but others surprised staff by their determination to succeed in the online tasks, without an incentive. Gosia Kwiatkowska recalls one student who couldn’t get over a barrier in one of the online tasks. ‘The system kept presenting the same activity over and over again and he was still failing,’ she remembers. ‘We asked if he wanted to stop and play with the robot but he said no. He was motivated and engaged by the activity and the system was recognising that and pushing him to try again, and he felt an enormous sense of achievement when he got through it.’
Students with learning disabilities typically make very small steps in learning progress and the MaTHiSiS system recognises and reports on this, along with data about how much and when a child has remained engaged. Kathryn Stowell recognises the usefulness of this for tracking and reporting on students’ progress and for teachers as they choose learning resources. ‘It added to the information we have to demonstrate students’ cognitive abilities and encourages teachers to think more critically about the resources they use in the classroom, in terms of their ability to engage and motivate students,’ she says.
Looking to the future
After three years the project is now at end and an evaluation has been prepared. Generally, teachers who had used MaTHiSiS were positive about it and despite concerns about technical issues, believed strongly that the system contributed to greater engagement and independence for learners.
Gosia Kwiatkowska hopes that new funding may be available in the future so that the technology can fulfil its potential and, eventually, become a commercial package available for all schools to use.
A major area for development is the appropriateness of the learning materials for target groups, especially those with PMLD. ‘It’s important that the technical teams and practitioners continue to work together so that everyone has a good understanding both of the potential of the technology and the needs of different groups of children, so that the product is really fit-for-purpose,’ explains Kathryn Stowell. Ms Kwiatkowska recognises this challenge. ‘Students with PMLD are unique and we all need to recognise that and take account of it going forward. You cannot develop a ‘PMLD persona’ and develop materials for just that one persona,’ she says.
There are of course other challenges, particularly around the stability and usability of the platform to support individual and collaborative teaching and learning in a busy, inclusive classroom. And staff training will also be needed to address what Ms Stowell describes as ‘a step change in teaching approach’, similar to that required when eye-gaze technology became available for teaching and learning.
Despite the challenges of the project, Kathryn Stowell remains really positive about the potential of MaTHiSiS. ‘We have a long-standing relationship with RIX and it was really exciting to be involved in a project that focused on the needs of young people, especially those with PMLD. It’s really important that their voice is heard when new educational technologies are developed so that they can show the potential they have to learn and achieve.’
This article was originally written for RIX Research & Media.
We have heard from the Department for Education (DfE) today that NPQ funding is available for our National Professional Qualifications for the May 2019 intake and we wanted to share this good news with you straight away.
NPQ funding – Places are available for leaders and aspiring leaders in:
Maintained schools, academies, free schools and PRUs in category 5 and 6 areas
Schools in a MAT which includes a category 5 or 6 area school
Fully-funded places available for NPQML, NPQSL, and NPQH
Book now to secure your place and don’t forget that NPQ funding is not limited to one place per school, so if you are already studying with us, please share this news with your colleagues who may wish to book. If you are looking to book a number of colleagues onto the programmes, please contact our Account Manager, Natalie Rowe, directly on natalie.rowe@realgroup.co.uk or 01273 35 81 92.
The deadline for submissions for our May cohort is 15 May.
Take a look at our dedicated NPQML, NPQSL, and NPQH pages online to find more information.
We’re happy to be able to share two pieces of great news at the start of the summer term.
Firstly, registrations are now open for this autumn’s free Access Arrangements Update course.
Secondly – having taken on board feedback from some of last year’s delegates who need to maintain SASC CPD – we’ve now registered the course with SASC and those completing the course now benefit from three SASC-accredited CPD hours.
How do I register for the free Access Arrangements Update?
Registration is simple. Simply click on this link and enter your email address, name and confirm that you are an access arrangements professional and you’ll automatically receive a log-in.
What if I am already registered from last year?
Then the good news is you don’t need to do anything at all. As soon as the new JCQ update is released and we’ve created the course, you’ll be sent a reminder and the new course will be in your personal Campus Online dashboard.
I’ve forgotten my log-in details
Again, this is no problem. To reset your password simply visit Campus Online and follow the links and you’ll have access once again.
If I register today, can I see the current free Access Arrangements Update?
Absolutely. For our free course, we give access to registrants for the entire year, so you can go back and check on the details of the current updates at any time. The next update course will be available from early September.
Will I gain a certificate upon completion?
Again, the answer is yes. Once you have completed the different strands (which should take around half a day) you will be able to download a certificate to show you have finished the update.
Can I share this with my colleagues?
As part of our duty to maintain professional standards, we would like this to be accessed by as many people as possible. The only caveat is that this course is intended for qualified access arrangements professionals. This update does not confer the right to carry out access arrangements to those without CPT3A or an equivalent JCQ-recognised qualification.
This article was originally written for and published by the International School Leader Magazine.
Author: Jalak Patel (Senior Educational Psychologist at Real Group Ltd which provides e-learning, training and assessment specialising in special educational needs and inclusion).
As a greater number of international schools adopt increasingly more inclusive policies and practices, the question becomes ‘How can we support all members of our school community to join us on this journey?’
I was reminded of this recently when talking with a head teacher who had been observing the quality of interactions between staff and students in her school. She noted that there appeared to be some staff who naturally adopted a more positive, inclusive manner when engaging with students and others who were less so. Interestingly, she recognised that these differences existed across all areas of the school community. She wondered if whole school training might provide an answer.
Ask the important questions
For whole school training to have any real impact, my experience has taught me that certain factors have to have been considered beforehand. What does the senior leadership team want to achieve? Moreover, what do they truly believe in? Before we can ask others to ‘do as we say’, we have to examine our priorities and make sure that they are in line with our purpose.
Welcoming a diverse range of students into our schools will undoubtedly make our classrooms a more interesting and vibrant place to learn. However, it may also lead to a change in the academic outcomes that many international schools have traditionally strived for. Do we truly value a student’s incremental progress against what they could do last week, last month or last year? Or is the message sent to staff that academic outcomes still outweigh other considerations?
What does whole school mean?
When we say ‘whole school’, how often do we really include the whole school? When was the last time that you included teaching assistants, school administrators and lunchtime supervisors to whole school training? What about your school caretaker? International schools operate within a wider cultural context, and levels of understanding around interacting with and supporting students with additional needs may vary. Being able to articulate a shared understanding of inclusion and its importance is an important step when contemplating change.
Including all members of staff in training, while immensely valuable, naturally leads to some logistical concerns: we tend to think of English as our main language of instruction but is it useful to consider whether another language of delivery might be more appropriate for some members of staff? Is the training being delivered at a time that is convenient for all? Are part-time staff expected to come? Will everyone be paid for the time they are there? These are all important considerations when we want to maximise the impact of whole school training. For inclusion to work we need everybody to understand and be on board.
We also need staff to be able to share their concerns and anxieties in a welcoming environment. For some staff, this may be the first time that they are going to be working with students who require some level of differentiation. For others, they may be concerned that their competence will be called into question. Effective senior leadership, in the form of an open door, a listening ear and a safe space, can help to alleviate these anxieties and lead to solution-focused conversations.
Embedding good practice
The model of training adopted by a school may go some way to develop not just knowledge and understanding of inclusion but also everyday practice. We know, from research into good practice, that an effective model of whole school training includes the delivery of knowledge and key concepts, modelling and demonstration, and opportunities for practice alongside developmental feedback, coaching and mentoring. For inclusion to become embedded as part of our everyday values and behaviours, planning effective whole school training should include opportunities for all members of the school community to be involved in these different stages of development.
Change takes time. In the context of a fast-paced school, it can be difficult to recognise and celebrate small steps of success. Having a clearly defined action plan, with sufficient time to implement each stage, and opportunities to monitor and reflect is key. Including everyone in discussions around ‘what works’ and ‘how we can improve’ may lead to some interesting and innovative ideas for the future. In settings where there can often be a high level of transience – in either the senior leadership team or in the wider school community – it will be important to revisit all aspects of the plan on a regular basis.
Whole school training is most effective when the process itself is as inclusive as the ethos that schools are working towards; where there is a shared vision held by all, a clear approach for working towards mutually agreed goals, opportunities for solution focused conversations to take place and celebration of all achievements, no matter how large or small!
Key considerations
- What are your school priorities for the coming year? Consider how inclusive they are.
- Have you seen examples of good practice that you admire? Speak to colleagues in other settings about how they have achieved their goals.
- Inclusion doesn’t just happen within the four walls of a classroom. All facets of the school community need to be considered – people, building, teaching styles and learning materials.
- Be aware of the wider cultural context in which your school sits.
- To be truly inclusive, there needs to be a shared vision of what inclusion means and what this looks like in your school. Every single member of the school works together to ensure that all learners feel respected, valued and supported to achieve their goals.
Last month, Real Training was awarded SEN Resource Supplier of the Year at the GESS Global Awards ceremony in Dubai. In addition to this, our SEND Programme was highly commended in the Special Education Resource category at the Education Resources Awards (ERA) last week.
We are so excited to have been acknowledged in these established industry awards as it gives us great confidence that our courses and qualifications are valued by acclaimed leaders and experts in the education sector as well as our own customers.
Of course, one of our latest additions to our established SEND Programme is our International Award in SEN Coordination (iSENCO). This is a unique qualification designed and developed with – and exclusively for – educational professionals working in an international setting.
Course content
The iSENCO qualification aims to develop the delegate’s skills in leading the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) provision at an international setting. This includes looking at current challenges facing international schools when looking to develop a fully-inclusive setting. Delegates will gain a deeper understanding of how the wider cultural, political, historical and community contexts influence the school’s SEND provision. Through Real Training’s practice-led learning model, delegates will be reviewing current SEND and inclusion policies and implementing strategies to make a difference in their setting throughout their learning journey. Take a look at our iSENCO page for more information on course content.
Suitability for the qualification
iSENCO is an ideal qualification for the school’s SENCO, the Inclusion Manager or maybe a current teacher who is an aspiring leader in SEND. Although they need to have completed an undergraduate degree, they do not need to hold the UK Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), unless they wish to complete an additional module to gain the UK’s mandatory qualification for mainstream school SENCOs – the NASENCO qualification.
Book now for the May cohort
If you are ready to book yourself, or a colleague, onto the iSENCO course please complete our simple booking form today and we will be in touch straight away to progress your booking, ready for the May 2019 cohort. This is a great month to start, as the delegate will have time to complete much of the reading and assignment preparation over the summer holidays and therefore be ready to implement positive changes in their setting in the new academic year.
Are you looking to become a qualified Access Arrangements Assessor ready for the next academic year? With our intensive CPT3A qualification, you still have time.
Our Certificate in Psychometric Testing, Assessment and Access Arrangements (CPT3A) comprises the Certificate of Competence in Educational Testing (CCET) and the Access Arrangements Course (AAC) to meet the Joint Council for Qualification’s (JCQ’s) requirements for qualified assessors, as long as you also hold a qualification to teach.
How can you benefit from the CPT3A qualification?
There are many benefits to the CPT3A qualification – not only for the educator completing the course but also for the educational setting and the children who attend it. Upon completion of CPT3A, you will be able to:
- Select, administer and evaluate a wide range of educational tests and assessments.
- Read, write and interpret reports, allowing you to better support other professionals, such as educational psychologists.
- Provide better in-house support to all children and parents in your setting.
- Purchase psychometric tests that would otherwise be restricted and gain a 10% discount through the Dyslexia Action Shop.
- Join our SEND Programme with 30 credits towards a postgraduate qualification.
- Complete access arrangements applications in your setting as a qualified Access Arrangements Assessor in line with JCQ requirements.
- Record your CPT3A qualification on the British Psychological Society‘s (BPS’s) Register for Qualifications in Test Use (RQTU) and access their database of test reviews.
2019 Dates and venues
If you’re looking to be qualified to apply for access arrangements in October, we recommend our CPT3A intensive route – one of the 3-day intensive CCET courses in May, followed by the 1-day intensive AAC in June or September – this should allow you to be qualified in time.
CCET
- 8-10 May, Bristol (Aztec Hotel, Bristol)
- 22-24 May, London (Novotel City South)
AAC
- 28 June, London (Novotel City South)
- 20 September, London (Novotel City South)
- 27 September, Manchester (Venue TBC)
If these dates or venues are not suitable, please take a look at our dedicated CPT3A page online for details of all available intensive courses. Alternatively, CCET and AAC can be completed as online modules, to be started as soon as you are ready.
If you wish to discuss the CCET or CPT3A study options in more detail, please contact us.
Join us in London on 15-16 May to learn about an alternative and unique way to effectively assess your student’s progress.
Our Cognitive Abilities Profile training is designed to train education professionals in how CAP can be used to structure an in-depth individualised assessment for students from early years into adulthood.
During the 2-day course, you will cover a range of topics including:
- The principles, key questions and concepts of dynamic assessment and how they apply to CAP.
- The different models of cognitive processes and the seven functional domains of cognitive abilities.
- The contents of the CAP toolkit and how to use this to develop informed and effective interventions.
We advise you to purchase a CAP toolkit in advance of the event. This can be purchased on the Dyslexia Action Shop website.
The course is open to anyone who works in the learning and development of children, adolescents and adults, and is particularly relevant for psychologists, therapists, teachers and SENCOs. Book now to attend our 2019 course on 15-16 May at the Novotel London City South hotel.
To find out more about the Cognitive Abilities Profile training, please visit our dedicated CAP course page online. Alternatively, you can ask our course advisors any unanswered questions by contacting us.
We have been told that staff training often gets overlooked as this is something that can be seen as an avoidable expense. But what if staff training actually saves you money, meaning that you have extra budget to spend on other important areas?
CCET Training – what is it?
Every school needs to undertake student assessments during the year – tests to assess for progress as well as for special needs. Many schools invest in Educational Psychologists (EP) or Specialist Teachers to carry out these tests on the school’s behalf. However, did you know that our Certificate of Competence in Educational Testing (CCET) qualification trains educators on how to carry out these services in-house? This can, therefore, lead to reductions in spending on outsourced services or perhaps simply means you are able to afford more meaningful services from your EP or Specialist Teacher, rather than just the standard assessments.
Who and how?
The CCET training is an open-access course so we welcome applications from any of your staff members. However, it is worth noting that the qualifications they hold in addition to CCET will determine which tests they will be able to purchase from the test providers. Please contact us on 01273 358080 for further advice on this.
Our qualification can be completed flexibly online with full tutor support. Alternatively, we offer several 3-day intensive courses for those wishing to fast-track their learning. There are still a few places remaining for our upcoming courses in London and Birmingham this month:
- 13-15 March, London (Novotel London City)
- 20-22 March, Birmingham (IBIS Birmingham New Street)
If you are interested in either of these courses, you can book now via our simple online booking form. For further information regarding the course content, please visit our dedicated CCET page online. You can also visit our Certificate in Psychometric Testing, Assessment and Access Arrangements (CPT3A) page if you are interested in your colleague also becoming a qualified Access Arrangements Assessor.
Since we launched CCET in 2006, we have trained over 2500 teachers, SENCOs and other professionals and they are now carrying out educational testing for their schools in the UK and all over the world. If you are interested in investing in in-house expertise in this area and have unanswered questions, please contact us.