SEND reforms must allow heads to address the needs of children they know best, without having to wait for someone who doesn’t know them to tell them what to do, writes Cathie Paine.
For years, parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities have been frustrated and anxious.
At the same time, staff in schools have been going above and beyond to cope with the growing challenges. Rising need, increasing complexity, stretched specialist resources, and an unsustainable system that’s struggling to keep pace with what’s best for children.
So it’s absolutely right that the government wrestles with all of this and that everyone involved in education gets to reimagine what truly inclusive practice looks like.
We don’t know all the detail yet but based on what we do know from the media briefings so far, it looks really encouraging.
The outcomes aren’t good
When a child is struggling, we currently have to wait to prove that child has failed before we can access funding for them.
Even when the system does support the children who need it, sadly, the outcomes for children with SEND are not good at all.
At the end of primary school, only 24 per cent of children who have special educational needs reach the expected standard in reading, writing and maths. This is compared to 74 per cent of those without SEND.
There has been much talk recently about the number of young people aged 16 to 24 who are not in education, employment or training.
Nearly half of those young people have some kind of diagnosed disability. This is really sobering data, and we can’t sit back and ignore it.
What we can do differently
So, if we accept we cannot carry on as before, what should we do?
First things first, we need to help children earlier on and rid ourselves of the ridiculous maze of red tape.
Second, set aside funding specifically for specialist intervention and support.
Third, allow headteachers to address the needs of children they know best, without having to wait for someone who doesn’t know the children to tell them what to do.
And whilst we obviously still need to see the detail, what we’re hearing so far sounds like it’s heading in the right direction.
The single most important thing the heads I work with have said is that if we can give them the resources to be flexible in meeting children’s needs, then they will.
After all, along with the parents, they are the ones who really know these children best.
Lessons from our inclusion work
We’ve been doing some work like this in our trust.
Our vision has been able to provide specialist learning spaces within our mainstream schools.
At Riverside Academy in Rugby, graded ‘outstanding’ in all areas, here staff have created designated inclusive spaces where the children spend around half of the day working on their individual targets.
We think this is similar to what looks set to be called an individual support plan.
Then for the other half of the day, pupils work in mainstream classrooms, studying those subjects in the curriculum that are more accessible to them, along with their friends.
We’ve had these specialist units set up for some time now in 13 of our schools. Over the last fortnight, we asked parents who have children in these specialist spaces what they thought about how it all works.
The results are very, very positive. Eighty-five per cent said staff met their child’s specific needs. Eighty-six per cent said the support compared very favourably with their previous experiences.
Clearly this isn’t a huge, representative sample, but it certainly gives an indication that where heads in schools are given the opportunity to think creatively, send money upstream to the point of need and work flexibly, the impact can be very promising.
Reaching children sooner and closer
This is not about withdrawing support from children. It’s about changing the way that support is offered.
Once the detail becomes clearer, we should see less bureaucracy, less conflict for families, less frustration and stress for school staff and less waiting for funding to come.
Instead, we should see support and resources reaching the children and the young people sooner, and in their own communities.
The intent for a truly inclusive system, in which every child thrives and achieves is clear. And it seems this is being backed up by a significant funding commitment.
And if we combine all of that with the additional £200 million of training that has been promised, we should see more confidence in our mainstream school staff.
With support from our colleagues in the specialist sector, we should see these mainstream school staff better trained and better equipped to meet all but the most complex needs. Because great teachers are great teachers of all children.
There is clearly a lot of detail still to digest but I’m yet to speak to anyone who wouldn’t really welcome a system with better support at a lower cost. That’s the change we need to get behind.
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