Everything you need to know about Provisions in Provision Map:

Week 3 – The first full week getting stuck into the new school. 

Audit SEN Register:

OK, I’ve decided where to start. I need to audit the SEN register now that I have a list. I can start doing a bit of a paper trail for that and scour the filing cabinets. Whilst I do that I could really do with an up to date list of all the things that are going on in school and who is involved. I’m going to train my TAs on how to enter provisions onto the system and get them to enter everything and everyone they are involved with. That would be a good start.

Provisions are so quick and easy:

5 in already. It takes about 5-10 minutes to set up each provision when they don’t already exist within the system.

How to start and set up Group Provisions in Provision Map:

We’ve started with the group provisions and it’s interesting how we have set them up.

For example, the Emile Numeracy Catch Up (for our Y7 catch up funding) is run with just one member of staff with two groups. Each group gets 14 hours of support but I really didn’t want to create the separately as they vary on the days they attend (the constitution of the groups varies daily). So, I just doubled Anita’s hours to reflect the two groups running. Whereas the Lexia catch up group (the same students) has three members of staff and all 52 students’ access at the same time. No adjustments to the staff hours were needed.

I did have to visit the school business manager to get some of the other costs (like licences and , but they only need entering once.

Allocating support for ECHP students in Provision Map:

I’m making a start on entering the support for the EHCP students. Jin is in. Y6 and has a 1:1 for 5 hours a day (all academic times). I find it best with 1:1 support to set them up separately rather than add them all to one provision and allocate the costs separately. It means I can add far more information to their provision and make it very bespoke to that child. It also means that the allocated member of staff can be held accountable for completing the review on that child and I know exactly who to chase down if it hasn’t been done. If a child had 1:1 reading though I would probably add all examples to the same provision.

Setting up Provisions and interventions in Provision Map:

Setting up provisions and interventions doesn’t actually take very long; it’s just making sure you’ve got all the information to hand. I’m currently chasing down the heads of department in the secondary for what they deliver. You guessed it; PP is under my remit too so I’m trying to capture that information in here. In the primary sector, I need to talk to the class teachers and their TAs for anything that is happening in the classroom that I’m perhaps not aware of.

Whilst reasonable adjustments do not necessarily mean a child is on the SEN register, I think it’s important to reflect that material, so I’m hunting down a list of all pupils who use an overlay (and what colour/type/cost) along with other things like writing wedges, fiddle toys, chewies, pencil grips, therabands, etc. I want these reflected on the child’s information, but also I want to account for their cost as well. I think this is where a lot of money is spent that schools don’t always account for effectively.

Some reasonable adjustments don’t cost me anything at all, like an adaptation to the behaviour policy or a uniform change, but I think it’s quite important to have them recorded. This is useful when a parent asks what is in place for their child but also for any external agency or to let teaching staff in the school know about a child they perhaps don’t normally teach.

Once I’ve got all the provisions on, I can start running reports and doing other fancy things. But let’s slow down a little. I was using it to audit my SEN register.

Now, if I choose a student and I scroll down to their purple provisions section I can see what they are accessing. If the Code of Practice tells me they should be in receipt of something additional to/different from (paragraph 6.15), then this section should have something in it. If it hasn’t, then I’ve either forgotten to add what the child receives or they possibly don’t belong on my SEN register with any status. They might be someone I need to monitor or perhaps they need to come off entirely. This is another reason why putting on the reasonable adjustments is a really helpful exercise. Very occasionally there will be the odd exception to the rule and there is genuinely a child for whom there are no provisions or interventions that does need to be on my SEN register.

Provision Map has its own Provision Library ready for you to access:

Sometimes the provision I want to set up is already in the Provision Library. In that case I simply ‘borrow’ a copy and ‘apply’ my group of students to it along with their specific information for example the dates, the costs, staffing and student names. At other times, the teachers have come up with something creative and I have to ‘add’ their provision to the library. I like those! They really make me think about what we are doing and why.
Possibly the most important box on the page is the intended outcome one. Throughout the program, whenever we measure outcomes we use a -2 to +2 scale. This can be confusing to start with, especially if you don’t understand the rationale behind it. I’m running a staff CPD session in week 3 so ‘ll go into it in more detail there.

I’m going to keep working my way through these and come back to you in a few days once I’ve got the information on there!

Creating Plans in Provision Map:

I’m not going to worry about creating plans yet. There are some old WORD documents the school has been using so I’ll make do with those for the minute. As and when I have to do a review, I’ll create their plan on the system. If I’ve got some admin support next week then I might get them to upload the word documents as a file to each child. That way I can start encouraging all staff to use the program as quickly as possible! Any new materials that appear and I’ll scan them straight in.

There are three places to attach files in the program. Against the core information of the child (this is where I’ll put their historical plan and anything that is long term and overarching like an EHCP), against an individual plan (so I’d probably attach anything shorter term like a speech and language therapy report or an OT assessment here) and against any provisions (this ends up against every child within the provision, so I’d only use it to record perhaps a policy for the intervention or a blank baseline assessment.)

I can make some of the files confidential. My Educational Psychologist is brilliant but does have a habit of adding additional information that isn’t always relevant. So, I tend to limit the audience that gets to see the advice. Everyone can see that the file has been attached but only those that need to can actually open it. I’m a little restrictive with this, as I don’t want to give it to, for example ,the 17 teachers they have in the secondary phase this year for them to change groups and I have to reselect a different 17 teachers! When I produce a printout for professionals I also have a sheet that lists the files that are attached, although they don’t print out, it’s just so they know what additional information I have. When I print for parents I sometimes turn that feature off so that they don’t get a list of everything we have on the system. Of course, if they demand a SAR (subject access request) I’d have to give them everything anyway.