In my new role, I am able to recognise the work of our SENCO, far more so than I have been able to in previous roles. Here is what I have observed;
The role is truly diverse. Even more so than I had previously recognised. You could easily argue – polarised. From understanding inflexiblities of legislative frameworks to empathising with parents and / or students.
Break throughs, successes or connections, can be extremely rewarding and uplifiting. Hearing a student present about himself and his annual review is right up there with the best moments of being a Headteacher so far.
The sheer number of stakeholders SENCOs inact with on behalf of any one student is almost bewildering; parents, family members, teacher, governors, in class-support, assessors, medical or therapists, exams, premises, local authority staff.
SENCOs are acronym experts. Data dynamos, identifying, tracking, monitoring, intervening and evaluating.
Hats off to all those SENCOs leading the front line, as far as I see it, endlessly doing more with less.
Three Free Chrome Extensions
Here is my small contribution to promoting accessibility for students with Chrome.
- OpenDyslexic: A font replacement tool that switches most fonts on a website to a more readable format
for dyslexic readers. - nOverlay: A screen overlay tool designed to soften contrast and make pages more readable.
- Visor: A screen visor / overlay tool for targeted reading.
All three extensions are available but turned off by default. For those wishing to use them, such as your
students learning with dyslexia, this is how they can be activated.
- To enable the OpenDyslexic font, click on the “O” extension icon, and flick the switch to on. Perform the
same action again in order to disable the extension. - To enable nOverlay, select the nOverlay extension icon, and click on “Unpause nOverlay”, you may need
to refresh the current website for it to take effect. To turn the extension off, you can simply select “Pause nOverlay” from the extension options menu. - Visor will automatically activate when you click on the extension icon in the top-right of Chrome. You can
change the overlay tint, intensity and opacity, as well as the visor size by moving the sliders. The visor can
be moved around the screen by moving the mouse while browsing. To disable Visor, click the blue “Off”
button at the top of the extension menu.