The SENCO Year using Tes – Provision Map
The fourth half term:
Well, if this was a normal year – which it very definitely isn’t – then I would be looking at the reviews for my provisions, setting up my summer term interventions, and putting in place transitional documents for students moving from one year to another leaving my school or joining my school in September.
Seeing as it isn’t a normal year, but I’ll probably still have to do those things, I thought it might be useful to focus this blog post on the SENCO year part 4 around producing passports for students.
Passports is a feature that has been within the Provision Map program for around seven years. As you know, the production of an individual education plan (IEP) has never been a statutory requirement. With the new code of practice many schools tried to move away from the traditional IEP and began to produce pupil profiles, passports, or portraits. Instead of containing targets towards which students would work, these were more information-style documents. They had two main functions: to provide information to teachers on how best to support a student in their class and to provide a student-friendly format so that they could carry this information with them.
Many schools have discovered that using passports allows them to create a high number of information documents quickly and easily. Without any targets on there, there is no requirement to hit certain deadlines in which to review what is happening. This means that a student passport could be written to last a full academic year or in some schools, I have seen it written to last a full key stage.
The requirement to review what is in place for a student with the family at least three times a year does not disappear with the use of a passport. It simply means that the targets set within the provisions need to be specific enough to the student to show their personal progress as you don’t have the plan with their personal targets on there.
Some schools use passports within the program for different cohorts of students.
Example 1: a school uses the plans section to create an individual education plan for every student on the SEN register regardless of status and compliments this with the use of a passport written with the child (for some…or for all).
Example 2: a second school decides to use individual education plans for those students with an education health and care needs plan and use passports for their students who are on SEN support.
Example 3: the third example uses plans for its SEN students and passports for those students who enter the school with English as an additional language, the variation on this is to use the passports for pupil premium or looked after children.
There are further variations, for example, schools that use passports for those students they ‘monitor’ or keep an eye on but for whom there is nothing additional to/different from to record.
As you can see, the flexibility exists within the Provision Map program to use passports however you see fit.
When we are working with users of the program, we come across some common questions.
- Can I create a master passport so that I don’t have to keep typing the same headings on to everyone that I create?
The answer to this is yes, you need to go into admin, school settings and create your master passport from within there before you try to apply to a student.
- Can I have different versions of the passport like I have different versions of the template for plans?
You can only have one master version of a passport. However, just as with plans, there is the option to add additional boxes and to delete unrequired boxes from individual passports.
- Can I review a passport?
The simple answer to this is no. You are not setting any targets to be reviewed on a passport therefore you have nothing to review. If you want to make full use of the review features within the Provision Map program and to run reports based on those reviews, then you will need to use the plans or provisions sections instead.
- What reports can I run on a passport?
Again, since a passport does not have any collectible data (It is all free text boxes) there are no reports that you can run about them, other than a list of students with a passport.
- What headings should I use?
This is entirely up to you and the purpose for which you wish to use passports. Whenever I am asked this question, I generally send people in the direction of three websites listed below. The first of these is suitable for primary school passports, the second is suitable cross-phase, and the third is more secondary/FE oriented.
In terms of creating passports within my own schools, I have generally used it as a transition document. What I mean by this, is that myself or one of my teaching assistants or even the new class teacher will sit down with the student and filling the boxes together. We use it as a getting to know me style document alongside setting some goals and parameters for the forthcoming year.
Want to know more about passports and how to set them up? Come and join our webinar. Join an intimate SENCO Webinar with our in-house SENCO Abigail Hawkins.
26th February 2 pm or 5th March 2 pm.
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