Sheffield SEND Manifesto
Learn Sheffield has been commissioned by SCC to support improvement in SEND in the city.
This commission includes both leading the development of the strategic approach and the delivery of some specific activities and reforms.
Content from this project will be added to this page as it becomes available – please use the links below to access the content that you are interested in.
Healthy Child Development
A small multi-disciplinary group has developed a detailed description of the features of healthy child development. This term, the group has focused on children’s development from the perinatal period to 11 years. The next phase of work will focus on the teenage years and will be completed by the end of the summer term.
Children’s development has been described in detail in three inter-connected areas:
- Social and emotional development, speech, language and communication.
- Physical development, movement and co-ordination.
- Cognitive development, curiosity, confidence and creativity.
We have further subdivided each of these areas. For example, social and emotional development, speech, language and communication is subdivided into receptive language, expressive language, social interaction, emotional literacy and regulation, belonging and identity, and attachment.
Research supports our view that these are the important and generative features of healthy development during childhood.
While there are many varied models of child development, most conceptualise it to be sequential and cumulative, with later development building on skills and capacities acquired earlier. We have therefore described in detail how children grow and develop in each area through the perinatal period, early childhood and childhood. Although we see this as a continuous process with many predictable features, we know that it has a unique course for every child; it does not always progress at the same rate and each stage is affected by the preceding one.
We also recognise that children learn and grow through progressively more complex interactions with people, objects and symbols in their immediate environment. Importantly, this is a gradual and reciprocal relationship between a child and its physical and social environment. We have therefore included a description of what children need to support healthy development in each area.