Lenehan: Pupils labelled ‘early’ when needs could be poverty-driven

Some children are being labelled with special needs “early” when their needs could be driven by experiences of poverty, the government’s strategic SEND adviser has suggested.

Christine Lenehan told the National Network of Special Schools in Liverpool how government is “worried” the current system is “not good at understanding” poverty and deprivation, as well as how culture and race interact with disability.

Lenehan said she had thought it was an “urban myth” that children arrive at school not knowing how to use a book.

“I went into a special school not long ago and watched them try to swipe a book to get it to move. So in terms of the stuff we’ve got behind us, we are labelling some children early, when actually we are not understanding poverty, deprivation.”

She also told delegates the Department for Education are “trying to do something about race and culture” but did not explicitly say whether this was research or guidance.

Lenehan said disability and cultural identity “are really strong factors in how communities live and what communities do, both in terms of always representing children’s families and displaying communities across behaviours”.

‘Really poor evidence base’

She also suggested that many children, such as those fleeing war-torn countries, were displaying needs based on “trauma” from these experiences.

While Lenehan did not say how the DfE were looking at intersectionality and SEND, she said it currently has “a really, really poor evidence base”.

Lenehan has previously said how she heard regional differences during the DfE’s national “listening” SEND conversation.

She said earlier this year: “One of the really strong feels in Leeds was the stuff around vulnerable children from socio-economically difficult backgrounds, the whole stuff about [pupils who were] previously known to social care.

“This is a whole school thing, it’s not a SEND thing anymore.”

Kiran Gill, chief executive at charity The Difference, told Schools Week how “listening campaigns” are key to “get under the hood” of pupils’ specific challenges.

It helps to understand “how their identities and needs are playing out in the context of the teaching and learning strategies and peer group.

“For instance, I remember one school we worked with looked at the data point of children leaving lessons. They realised looking at identify and need markers, that children with ADHD and autism were much more likely [to leave], and then on hearing their experiences, realised ‘cold calling’ was causing a lot of anxiety.

“An edit to practice saw those children given a discreet question from the teacher and return when they were ready,” she said, which @gave them the same learning as everyone else but without the anxiety”.

Admin support to free up SENCOs

Meanwhile, extra administrative support in schools could help free up special educational needs co-ordinator’s time so they can be more “strategic”, the schools minister has said.

In its schools white paper reforms, the government hopes the school SENCO role will focus on “strategic leadership” and developing “high quality practice”, making it less administrative.

For instance, new digital processes and improving access to specialist support could reduce routine admin.

Georgia Gould, schools minister, told a webinar on the SEND reforms this week how SENCOs felt they needed to “get their fighting gloves and go and fight for support for children”.

“By building a system that hopefully gives more resource and agency to schools to respond to need, [it] reduces some of that bureaucracy and form filling that SENCOs have to do in all these different contexts,” Gould said.

She added: “There’s something about how we set out the responsibility for the whole school to support inclusion so it doesn’t all just sit on the SENCO but it’s something that everyone has a role in.

“As we hopefully put more resource in, some schools might choose to put some more administrative support in in order to free up the SENCO to take that coordinated strategic role.”

MPs ‘concerned’ on report delay  

It comes as MPs demanded answers on why it has taken government seven months to respond to its 95-recommendation SEND inquiry report. Usually, government responds in two months.

The education committee had previous accepted the DfE’s explanation of a short, interim response before the white paper was published in February.

But Helen Hayes, the committee chair, said in a letter to education secretary Bridget Phillipson she was “concerned at the long delay” for the full response.

She said “it should not be the case that the timing of a response is dictated by the convenience of the government”.

Hayes also posed a series of pressing questions to Gould on the SEND reform proposals.

She warned the DfE if it didn’t have “broader expert input” such as special and language therapists when creating the new national inclusion standards, there “is a risk that the new reforms could replicate existing shortcomings within the SEND system”.

Schools can’t manage complaints

Gould was also warned many schools may “lack the capacity” to manage complaints relating to the proposed individual support plans for pupils with SEND.

The committee had recommended powers for the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman to cover complaints relating to the delivery of education, health and care plans, SEN support and inclusive education across schools, trusts and other settings.

But government did not include this in its white paper.

Hayes said: “The committee heard clear support for this recommendation during the one-off evidence session and we strongly urge the department to reconsider this as an important means of strengthening accountability within the reformed SEND system.”

The DfE was approached for comment.