This blog covers how our assessment and observation app, Evidence Me, can be used to support SEND schools.

We have covered key benefits as well as shared top tips from one of our current customers on how they make the most out of the resource at their specialist school. Karen Pickles, Head of School at Mowbray has been using Evidence Me for over 8 years and has worked with our team to ensure it meets all of their requirements.

Create your own custom frameworks

You can use Evidence Me with any combination of frameworks that you choose, including your own custom frameworks. We can provide standard frameworks such as Leuven and PMLD as well as help you to add frameworks you have developed yourselves. This means you can ensure your frameworks are specifically relevant to your school and learners.

TOP TIP: Karen and her team have made use of custom frameworks in Evidence Me to “provide evidence of ‘next steps of learning' and a clear sequence of learning in an easy to use and motivating record of pupil progress”. To do this, the staff team have made use of the flexibility of the software, populating it with their own “small steps ‘I can’ statements” and using photo and video evidence to create a robust evidence base.

Collect photo and video evidence

With Evidence Me, staff can easily take a photo, video or write a note and instantly upload their observation to the app whilst on the go. This means the evidence you collect can be flexible to suit particular learners or environments. For example, if a learner finds it easier to communicate their knowledge practically or verbally rather than through written work, this can be facilitated.

TOP TIP: Karen has shared that the above methods of observation can make it easier to ensure “a robust evidence base” as you can “capture progress which is otherwise difficult to evidence”.

Easily share the learning of children with parents and learners

When supporting SEND pupils, it is important that their learning can be shared with parents. This ensures that teachers and families can work together to celebrate progression and encourage learning in areas that need further development. That’s why Evidence Me includes a dedicated parent app which can be used by parents and educators to share information in real time. The teacher has control over what is shared and parents can comment on observations and send their own by adding media and notes.

TOP TIP: As well as sharing work easily with parents, Karen and her staff team also use observations to “enable young people to reflect on their achievements over time, capturing achievements which cannot be recorded in workbooks”. This can help to support learner confidence and a sense of fulfilment throughout the school year.

An ideal platform for use across early years, primary and secondary.

Evidence Me is a flexible resource that can be used to cover all age groups and abilities and enables you to use any frameworks and targets that you have developed yourself. You can use these to gather evidence, track coverage and show progress through recording assessments.

TOP TIP: Karen has found that Evidence Me is particularly useful in her Secondary Department as a reliable method of evidence gathering for a range of exam boards. For example, she shared that “Standards Verifiers from a range of exam boards appreciate Evidence Me as a method of Evidence gathering, due to the ability to comment on the photographs and also ensuring that there is no plagiarising due to as the photos are being personal to each learner. Comments from Verifiers have included the vocabulary ‘excellent’ and ‘outstanding’ when commenting on evidence which we have submitted through Evidence Me”.