The SPENCER community has continued to grow and, this week, we’ve caught up with Becky Clarke, former SENDCo at Maiden Erlegh school in Reading. Becky is now Assistant Headteacher at the new River Academy school and both River and Becky’s former school are mainstream schools in the Maiden Erlegh trust. Across these two schools, Becky has been using SPENCER for around 9 months and below shares her experience using SPENCER as part of a graduated response to need in mainstream schools.

Fergus: Thanks for speaking to us Becky, could you please give us an idea of your context and how you use SPENCER to support your work in that context?

Becky: Certainly. So, I'm actually in a brand-new school now, but previously I was working at Maiden Erlegh School in Reading, which was a mainstream secondary school with 900 children, ages 11 to 16, and I was SENDCo.

I've been SENDCo there for eight years, and the SPENCER tool was introduced to me—I think in the autumn, maybe in the spring? Claire Dickinson [Spencer 3D Chief Operating Officer] came to a SENDCo network meeting and talked about it, and I thought, "Well, that sounds like something I'd like to get involved in as part of a trial."

So, Claire then came into the school and did some training, initially with me and, I think, five TAs (teaching assistants), and then later in the summer term, she came back to review how well we’d done and how we’d used it.

We’ve used it as a profiling tool as part of the assessment section of our graduated response. It’s another string to our bow in assessing. There’s a sequence of questions in six different areas, and the answers range from "always" to "never." It’s easily accessible once you get into the rhythm of it. But as with everything, it’s only as good as the data you input. So, it can be tricky in the secondary setting to get the relevant staff together—that’s one of the biggest frustrations.

In secondary schools, I envy primary colleagues, where it’s one teacher and maybe one TA, and they know the child really well. But in my case, I’ve involved heads of year (if they’ve known the child long enough), TAs, and occasionally parents, because there are some sections—like questions about sleep habits—where only parents would know the answers.

Inputting the answers is easy, not particularly time-consuming, but I’ve never sat down and done one child’s profile on my own because I prefer to vary whose input I use. So, that’s how I’ve approached it.

You input the data, and it produces pie charts that identify the highest areas of need for students, along with helpful definitions. What’s clever is that SPENCER sometimes identifies things we hadn’t even considered in terms of how the child presents.

It gives a definition and then a range of strategies, which you can look at and assess to decide which ones are relevant and likely to work.

In the training, they mentioned focusing on a pie chart that isn’t all blue—one with a bit of amber or green, so you have something to work on. For instance, we had a Year 11 girl last year who had bullying issues. Her social interaction area needed work, and by addressing that, we hoped to reduce both her bullying others and her becoming a victim of bullying.

So, I’ve used it as a tool, and I’ve printed off the strategies. A challenge, though, is that you can’t save it as a PDF—you have to print it and scan it* - I’ve also lifted bits of it—like copying recommendations into emails—so we can share them with colleagues and agree on strategies, which can then be put into a plan or discussed with parents. For instance, with the same girl who had a visual impairment, one of the first questions was whether she had been given glasses, which she was, but she wasn’t bringing them to school. Or, "Has she had a recent optician's appointment?" Sometimes, the obvious things can get overlooked in the busyness of school.

I’ve probably used SPENCER with around two dozen children. But the frustration is getting someone who knows the child well enough to sit down with you. If you put "sometimes" for everything because you're unsure, you end up with a very generic profile.

[*automated sharing of recommendations is in our product roadmap. You can see more about the features we’re bringing to SPENCER here.]

Fergus: Yeah, absolutely. Why did you decide to use SPENCER? What problem does it solve for you that you were experiencing before?

Becky: I think SPENCER provides an objective assessment of a student’s additional needs. A lot of what we do in SEN is about reasonable adjustments, best endeavours—it’s all a bit woolly. But with SPENCER, you’re putting in data and it’s interpreting it for you. It’s similar to when I’ve used the Boxall Profile—you input a score, and it gives you a bar chart, which identifies areas of need.

It flags up areas you might not have thought of. For example, self-esteem—it gives a definition of self-esteem, and just reading that definition helps you think, "OK, how can we address this?"

So, SPENCER provides an objective assessment, identifies areas of need, and then ranks them by severity. It also flags potential strategies to try, which you can include in a support plan. I think it’s a very cost-effective way of assessing a student’s needs before calling in the Educational Psychologist service, which can be expensive. Our EPs are excellent, but SPENCER is useful for gathering initial information.

I did a demonstration of SPENCER for our EPs a few months ago, and they were quite interested. They even raised some very detailed points about specific questions, like why one was under education and not neurodiversity.

It’s a cost-effective way of assessing needs, and it’s also good as part of the graduated approach—useful evidence if you’re submitting an EHCP (Education, Health and Care Plan) or compiling permanent exclusion evidence. You can show what you’ve tried and what strategies you’ve followed. The strategies are clear, and the definitions are well written.

Ultimately, though, it’s only as good as the data you input and how well you use the strategies it suggests.

Fergus: How does SPENCER fit into your graduated response plan?

Becky: I follow the assess-plan-do-review model, and I would use SPENCER as part of the assessment stage. It’s not an initial step, but it’s one of the tools I’d use for assessment and identification. It helps me plan the support we’re going to put in place, whether that’s through interventions, strategies for staff in lessons, or things for parents to do at home, like hearing tests, sight tests, bedtime routines, diet, and so on.

You also have it dated, so you know when the information was input. What I haven’t done yet, but could do, is go back in and reassess to see if there’s been any change. That’s something I’d like to try—using it as part of the review process.

Fergus: You mentioned the Year 11 student earlier. What kind of impact have you seen from using SPENCER, either from an administrative perspective or from the students' side?

Becky: In terms of impact, I definitely feel SPENCER is another string to our bow. It’s helpful to be able to demonstrate to colleagues and parents what we’ve done for a student. I tried to use it with a pupil when I was showing it to my EP, and it was interesting how unaware the pupil was of how she struggled. That was eye-opening.

With the Year 11 girl, I wouldn’t say SPENCER made a huge impact, but it did give us another way to show that we were supporting her. It also empowered the teaching assistants and other staff who contributed to the assessment—it was an eye-opener for them as well.

I didn’t get the chance to demonstrate it to all the teachers at the time, but I definitely feel I could do that in my new school. When we get it up and running, it will be a useful tool to have.

I love a checklist, and SPENCER gives you one—things you can tick off as you try them. Depending on how you’re keeping records, it’s helpful for evidencing what strategies you’ve used.

There are lots of strategies in SPENCER, and you still need a professional eye to pick the right ones, but it saves you from starting with a blank page. And sometimes it highlights things that seem obvious but that you may have missed in the busyness of school life—things like hearing tests, sleep, diet, and so on.

SPENCER often confirms suspicions we’ve had about a student. It gives us confidence that we’re on the right track, but also offers fresh insights. It’s not just a case of guessing, "What should we try?" It’s great to have that additional objective input.

In terms of impact on individual students, we [Becky’s previous school] were still in the early stages, but the challenge is always getting the right people to input data and having the strategic time to follow through operationally.

Now that I’m more familiar with the process, I’d be keen to use it more. If I can demonstrate it to staff, we could start using it early on in the year, and if staff are familiar with it, the whole process will be quicker. I’m really impressed with it.

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