About
Assessing and meeting the needs of children with Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) in mainstream schools is the foundation for improving outcomes, parental confidence and delivering the financially sustainable SEND system, as envisaged in the SEND and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan.
This project has been created due to the success of the national Autism in Schools project. The approach of Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools (PINS) has been developed around the key principles of the Autism in Schools:
- Whole School Approach
- Good quality training for staff
- Parents Supporting Parents groups
- Understanding students experience of schools
Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools (PINS) will bring health and education specialists and expert parent carers into mainstream primary settings to:
- help shape whole school SEND provision
- provide early interventions at a school level
- upskill school staff
- support strengthening of partnerships between schools and parent carers
The Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools project is testing a new model for supporting good outcomes in mainstream schools for Neurodiverse students and strength parent carer and school partnerships. The project will focus on strengthening knowledge, skills and improving environments to better meet the needs of neurodiverse children. Through a focus on supportive learning environments and well-equipped schools we can improve the outcomes for this group of children.
Each school in the programme will complete the nationally agreed self-assessment tool for schools to identify priority areas for support. Schools will collate the findings and use them to assess themselves against a number of high-level domains (including Leadership, Culture and Values, Mental Health, Readiness to Learn, Teaching and Learning, Environment and Communication).
Find out more, including an overview of the school involvement, pupil voice and parent carer involvement on Somerset Parent Carer Forum’s PINS page.
Progress so far
We are delighted to announce that we will be moving into Year 2 of the PINS programme in April, with 30 new schools joining the Year 1 cohort of 38 schools. All the Year 1 schools have completed a self-assessment which has helped to shape the 37.5 hour package of tailored support for their school.
As part of the project Somerset Parent Carer Forum have held 42 parent carer coffee mornings across the schools where they have talked to parents about their experiences and signposted them to information and support.
Training for schools which has taken place includes:
- Use of data to support monitoring of inclusion
- Making Sense of Neurodiversity
- Good Autism practice which supports teacher with understanding reasonable adjustments and strategies they can use the in the classroom
- Anxiety and Autism
- Supporting neurodiverse students with transitions
- Using pupil voice within the school
Become involved
New schools wanting to be involved in Year 2 are requested to submit an expression of interest by 5 pm on Friday 25 April. These submissions will be reviewed, and successful schools will be notified by 2 May.
An information session for schools will be held on Tuesday 22 April, at 3 pm via Microsoft Teams. To join the session, please register.
