Three in four headteachers don’t believe that rating schools on how well their school supports SEND pupils in league tables would improve provision, a survey suggests.
It follows a report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), which is influential in Labour circles, calling for performance tables to give “greater weight” to how well schools work alone and in partnership to support pupils with additional needs.
Researchers said inclusion should be measured “as rigorously as other aspects of schooling and use wider measures of success that give a fair reflection of what a school does”.
However, 57 per cent of nearly 5,000 respondents to a Teacher Tapp poll said this would “probably not” or “definitely not” improve special educational needs and disabilities provision in their school.
This rose to 75 per cent for headteachers. Just nine per cent of heads said “definitely”, and 11 per cent said “possibly”.
Special educational needs coordinators and classroom teachers were more positive about the proposal, with a third saying definitely or possibly. But more than half were opposed to the idea.
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the ASCL school leaders’ union, said the adverse reaction was “likely to be a result of educators facing major resourcing issues in delivering SEND provision and feeling that dealing with this should be the priority”.
He said: “The government’s SEND reforms cannot rely on accountability measures in order to be successful, and must be supported with sufficient investment, training, and access to specialist staff.”
The previous government shelved plans to use performance league tables to reveal how inclusive mainstream schools were.
The proposal followed concerns that some schools were not doing enough for these children.
The Department for Education said the proposal had “mixed feedback,” with concerns it could “risk generating perverse incentives”.
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