The government wants to see a “ladder of support” for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities facilitated by mainstream and special schools working more closely together, the schools minister has said.
Georgia Gould also told Vlog that teachers want more training and support and can feel alone in supporting pupils with SEND.
And she said that support from health services for schools was not working as well as it could in some areas.
The minister was speaking in Darlington today at one of the government’s final public engagement events on its planned SEND reforms, which are set to be part of a wider schools White Paper, due to be published in the coming months.
Training for teachers in SEND
Ms Gould said: “The things we hear from teachers are that they want more training and more support, more partnership with the specialist sector around the strategies that work, and more support around identifying needs.
“I think the thing I hear most often from schools is that sometimes they feel kind of alone in trying to support children, and actually some of the interventions and support they need are speech and language interventions or mental health support, and they want to feel that wraparound partnership.”
She said the government’s SEND reforms will be about “really equipping schools to be able to support children with special educational needs and disabilities”.
The minister added that partnership with health services was not always working as well as it could, but that she had seen examples where it has been “brilliant”.
The minister, who earlier today visited the Education Village Academy Trust, in Darlington, which has two mainstream schools and a special school in the same buildings, also talked about the importance of the phases working together.
“We want to see much more of a ladder of support [with] every classroom really set up for children with special educational needs,” she said.
Ms Gould said this would involve “really thinking about our universal provision” but it was also about the work of specialist support within mainstream and special schools.
And she told Vlog she wanted to see mainstream and special schools “working together to make sure that expertise is shared in the system”.
When asked about the future of education, health and care plans (EHCPs), Ms Gould said that the government will set out its policies in the White Paper.
She added that there will “always be a legal basis for additional support in education”. She also told Vlog that she had in her mind “the voices of parents who want to ensure that there is accountability and want to ensure that their children are getting the support they need”.
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