Role of SENCos & SENDCos

The main goal of this toolkit is to support nominated children to stay in the classroom and get the same out of their learning and school experience as their classmates. As a SENDCo your role is crucial to the implementation and improvement of the toolkit and you may be a newly nominated SENDCo to fulfil this role. In school, you will help facilitate teachers use of the toolkit to enable children to hit small, achievable targets.

The items below are the main areas where we’ll ask for your support. Some are to do with recruitment of eligible children, some to do with the delivery of the toolkit, and some are to help us evaluate it. To say thank you for taking the time to be part of this research, school staff involved will receive £10.

Eligibility and recruitment

You will need to work with teachers to identify students who are eligible for the study (you may already have an idea of who is suitable). We ask that you include both boys and girls in your recruitment process and we will provide you with short questionnaires which can be completed by class teachers to briefly screen for ADHD traits.

You will also be responsible for the first contact made to the parents of eligible children for the programme to gauge their interest and ask permission that their details may be passed on to the research team. This may include offering to meet parents who are unsure and may have questions about the study before they give consent to take part.

Know ADHD training

The first step of the programme (‘Know ADHD’) will involve completing online training which can be completed at any time. This training will consist of some videos and small activities to help you learn about what causes certain children to have difficulties paying attention, being impulsive or hyperactive. Understanding the general causes of these behaviours will help you get to know the specific issues that young people participating in the study may face later in the toolkit. This training will also include more detail on how the toolkit works.

Know the Child

The ‘Know the Child’ section of the programme will call for you to organise two meetings with parents, teachers and others involved in the toolkit at the school. These meetings will serve as an opportunity to identify two problem areas where the child is currently struggling and will allow you to complete functional behaviour analysis to understand the pre-cursors and consequences around these behaviours for the child.

Understand motivations and setting 'targets'

You will be coordinating and supporting teachers and TAs to plan and deliver the toolkit strategies in conjunction with support from parents at home. Your role will also be crucial in assisting teachers and TAs to progress, maintain, and, if necessary, switch strategies. Each module will contain 10 possible behavioural strategies, and each child will receive two modules. You will need to decide collaboratively which strategies to use based on the two behaviours identified in the ‘Know the Child’ step. The teacher will then implement these strategies in class.

How well is the toolkit working?

After some time working with the toolkit you will be asked to take part in an initial meeting with the research team to discuss the toolkit, as well as attending a focus group with other involved members of staff held for each child to discuss the strengths and limitations of the toolkit. We will also ask you to contact the research team should the need for immediate change arise within the toolkit.