When Visual Supports Are Wrong
Hi, I'm Steph, an autism and SEND specialist. Each week I write one real story from inside a school. What I saw. What it meant. What it might change for you on a Monday morning. And, starting this week, a few new resources worth your time.
Here's something the years observing at the back of the classroom have taught me.
The moment that gets remembered, the one that ends up in the incident log, is hardly ever where the story begins. It begins earlier. In something, perhaps most of the room missed.
Learning to spot that earlier moment is a skill. It isn't instinct, and it isn't magic. It's knowing where to look. And it can be taught.
This week, it starts with a boy standing at the wrong counter, at the wrong time, doing everything right.
The Board Said Lunch
I was observing a boy transition into the classroom from the playground. I'll call him Teddy.
He came in with his class, by himself. No prompt. He went to his table, chose a book, with a sand timer counting down beside him. All of it following his usual routine.
Then he stood up, picked up his now-and-next board, and carried it to the lunch counter. And waited.
It wasn't lunchtime. It was PE.
However, his now-and-next board still showed 'lunch' and 'wash hands' from earlier. Nobody had changed it. So while the rest of the class knew that it was P.E next, Teddy was working from the last set of instructions he'd been given. He wasn't confused about the routine. He was following it. Exactly.
The staff member working with him saw it straight away. She didn't correct him with a stream of words. She didn't try to move him straight away. She knew the PE coach was about to walk past with the class, and so she waited for that, because seeing the PE coach can say “it's PE now” far more clearly than a sentence can.
The coach came past. Teddy joined the group. No incident. No upset. This could have however, turned out very different.
A child stood at the wrong counter, at the wrong time, and did everything right, because the one thing he has learnt to trust was wrong.
We put visual supports in place and they can really aid communication, learning and transitions.
"But a visual only helps as long as it's correct.”
The moment the board says one thing and the timetable says another, we've handed the child a map to the wrong place. And then, if it goes wrong, we call it the behaviour.
He read the board. The board was wrong.
Names are always changed. Schools are never identified. Everything else is as observed.
— Steph Reed
Take This Into Your Classroom
- • Ensure one person is responsible for the now-and-next board each day. If it's everyone's job, it's no one's.
- • Keep all necessary visual supports close to hand for easy change over. A zip wallet on the back of a now-and-next board can be a good place for finished visuals.
- • If a child looks lost, check what the visuals are currently telling them. Read the room from where they're standing, not from the front. Sometimes the symbols we use can look very abstract or could mean something different to a child.
- • Real can beat verbal. Sometimes the fastest, calmest correction isn't a verbal sentence, it's showing the child the thing (the class in PE kit, the actual next activity) rather than explaining it.
Resources Worth Sharing
There has been a flood of new guidance on inclusion recently, from the UK government and from the EEF, most of it inside a fortnight. Some of it really matters.
And every school in England now has to publish an inclusion strategy before the end of the year, so this isn't optional reading anymore.
Here's what's worth your time, and why.
- • EEF: Inclusive teaching. The one I'd read first: published on 6 July for leaders, teachers, SENCos and TAs, built on a two-part model of universal classroom teaching plus targeted support, with a sharp, welcome warning that some well-meaning "adaptations" quietly lower expectations instead of removing the barrier. View doc →
- • DfE: Inclusion bases in schools. The government's first proper blueprint for how inclusion bases should run: it says bases should be led by qualified teachers and never used as a sanction, and it's built around six principles aimed to support children in mainstream classes as much as possible. View doc →
- • DfE: Inclusive Mainstream Fund support for school leaders. The practical one for leaders: it explains how to build the inclusion strategy you now have to publish, and how to spend the Inclusive Mainstream Fund on a whole-school approach rather than bolt-ons. View doc →
That's this week. One boy at a lunch counter, and a stack of new guidance worth your time. It comes back to something simple. A child's needs don't always announce themselves, they are not always obvious. They may however, show up in the seemingly ‘small things’ like a board that wasn't updated, communication that was cut off before it finished, the moment before it all tips over. Meet the needs in those moments and you will less likely be managing dysregulation.
That's what all of this is for. Support that actually fits the child in front of you.
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Meet the Author
Steph Reed is an autism and SEND specialist with twenty years in special needs education, including six years leading classrooms across London. She now consults in schools and runs the online training platform Autism for Teachers. She's neurodivergent herself, and her own experience of school is a big part of why she does this work. The School Visit is where she shares what she notices in real classrooms, with practical strategies you can use straight away.
