At Oak Tree, to support our SEND learners in Art and Design, we have created a provision map of how all teachers and support staff can support children across the Art and Design curriculum. 

We have the same high expectations for all learners, and make reasonable adjustments to ensure we enable all children in our care to aim high and achieve their best. This is achieved through allowing children to present their work in a creative and innovative way (photo slips), staff checking in regularly to check understanding, metacognition strategies (such as sentence stems) are used to encourage independent learning and avoid cognitive overload and deployment of support staff to allow children to be utilise help and support unique to their needs.

Keeping our expectations high: teachers have the same aspirations for all students. Students are encouraged to access the same objectives as their peers and are given support by the TA/T and/or through the use of resources such as visual aids, scaffolds, prompts, vocabulary banks etc. The aim is to support the SEND pupil to be included, achieve and make progress.

No ability groups: mixed ability and flexible grouping allows for collaborative learning, peer support and extension. Children may be moved to groups according to their knowledge and skills of the area. Flashbacks, key questions and AfL techniques ensure support is swift and purposeful.  We foster success in all pupils.

Communication-friendly classrooms: This benefits all our children. The Department for Education noted that speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) is now the most prevalent area of SEND, accounting for 23 per cent of needs. The language of learning can be technical, can be specific and can be completely unintelligible to a growing number of our children with communication difficulties. We create a positive atmosphere where it is normal and accepted to ask for help and make mistakes. Strong teacher questioning, use of sentence stems and the development of articulate succinct answers with specific technical vocabulary, all support our SEND pupils.

Range of learning opportunities: We use a range of different technologies (both hardware and software) and a range of themes in our Art and Design teaching. 

Use of technology: ensuring accessibility for all, engagement, multi-sensory and different ways of recording. Within a year group different software or hardware may be used to support children and help them access Art and Design skills in different ways, still meeting the learning question and objectives of the session.   

The 9 Protected Characteristics

The 9 Protected Characteristics have been embedded throughout the Art and Design curriculum to ensure that children at Oak Tree are exposed to a broad and balanced curriculum in which reflects the multicultural society in which they live in.