The assessment of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) has always been a thorny problem. Analysing progress is exceedingly difficult and sometimes unhelpful. The main reason for this is that many pupils with SEND make progress in small steps. Also, this progress often occurs at levels below those defined by the National Curriculum.
We were delighted to receive this review of our pupil tracking system from Katy-Anne Powley: ‘iASEND has been a great tool for us and allows me to show small steps of progress that children are making. The system also allows us to share this with parents in a clear way. iASEND is simple to use and allows us to meet the needs of our children with confidence and know that we are tailoring the learning for each individual.’ Katy Annee is the class teacher in the Resource Base at Teignmouth Community School and has found that our software is making a real difference to staff's planning and target setting.
The origins of iASEND
This was the problem facing Dr Sue Fisher, an educational psychologist and headteacher of a special needs school based in the northeast of England. While there was a lot of raw data and information about individual pupils, it was difficult to make judgements about their progress. With Ofsted looming, this was an issue that had to be addressed.
Sue developed iASEND (Assessment for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities). It is now capturing the progress of around 4000 pupils with SEND in the UK and across the world. It has been praised by Ofsted for supporting accurate assessment of learning and for how it effectively tracks pupils' learning journeys against challenging targets and high expectations.