£200m to train teachers in SEND

[twinkletoesimnot]

Whilst I would acknowledge, as I am sure most teachers would, that the training we receive during our PGCE / QTS training is not enough, this is not going to help.
For a start, I bet most of this money will go to some dodgy training provider who wins the contract to implement it.
Furthermore, due to working in a high needs, inclusive school, I have already accessed a lot of training, either myself or through my school.
Autism awareness and teaching strategies, dyslexia friendly strategies and interventions, sensory profiling and adaptation, PECS, cochlear implant training, sensory circuits, trauma, PDA, etc
All very helpful and very interesting.
But I cannot implement a lot of what I want to / should be doing because I am only one person.
In my class, with multiple (often conflicting) EHCPs, SEN plans and children who have additional needs but have not currently got a plan I cannot give all of them what they need individually and also teach the rest of my class.
How do I keep a quiet and calm environment when we have to evacuate the room regularly due to outbursts from a dysregulated child?
How do 4 children all get ‘a high level of adult support’ from one teacher when the rest of the class need me too?
Train me all you want (added to my to do list in my own time no doubt) but it will make no difference to what I am able to do - it will just let the government wash their hands of the children and say it’ll be fine because we are all trained now.
Please don’t fall for Bridget’s nonsense.

You are absolutely right (and I quite like this govt.). It is insulting to both teachers and children.

Having come back to teaching after many years, and been utterly flabbergasted at what is going on, I’ve thought a lot about this.

I don’t think we can expect more from parents of SEN children, they spend their lives, and their money, fighting for their children. And they shouldn’t have to.

But I really think the time has come for parents of non SEN to start campaigning for their children to be able to learn in a calm and structured way without the constant disruption from children who are visibly suffering in mainstream. Parents really need to understand that pupil violence, and having to evacuate classrooms, is not as uncommon as they may think. And I can only talk about primary.

And I’ve said it before on here but where are the bloody unions? If teachers, 20 years ago, had to put up with the conditions they have to now (many of which you have listed) there would have been mass industrial action.

Forty thousand teachers leave the profession every year (not including retirees or deaths), which means people like me get the pick of supply work, but ‘training’ teachers to do more and more is pointless.

(Sorry, OP, that was a bit of a rant!)

They need to plough that money in to opening up a raft of specialist schools for all sorts of different needs. My child was that child that disrupted everyone, classes evacuated, violent, angry, over stimulated and hated by everyone. We were told he would NEVER EVER reach the threshold for specialist as he was so bright and he ‘could’ behave when we wanted to 🙄.

He got an autism specialist school place and the last 8 years have been amazing. He’s a totally different child and is happy and thriving and ready for MS college equipped with the skills to manage. It wasn’t just the training the teachers have at that school. It’s that the environment and ethos are SO far removed from mainstream. More children deserve this. They don’t deserve to keeping failing to fit the mould of MS schooling.

The problem is, not all disruptive students have SEND, and not all SEND students are disruptive.

We can't make one size fit all, it is failing more than it helps. We need specialised schools and lots of them. Money spent now will save so much more in the future. This funding is not being spent wisely imo.

The reality is that until resources are used differently with a mainstream school taking the 40% of SEN pupils who can’t cope and don’t flourish in mainstream into an appropriate environment. A class of 8 only, specialist well paid teachers, support staff, a sensory room, play based learning, occupational therapy breaks on demand, resources in rooms to do this. Different seating, different tables. I don’t think 1000’s of schools will pop up but we could split current schools in a radical way to allow classes of 30 same stage children who can cope with traditional teaching and school experience and small groups of 8 with similar needs in adapted rooms. That could happen now.

£20 million between 500,000 teachers in England is £40 per teacher. It isn’t going to go far. I agree the issue isn’t the lack of knowledge amoung teachers. Teacher are educated professionals if they need to know some thing they will seek out the info.

I agree with most of what you say. Its so true. Especially the private company making money.

There are some schools and some teachers which need a little upskilling. I work in a trust that knows some schools need a little help to improve.

But the reality is the well trained teachers, in schools doing an amazing job, cant do it as the issue is numbers of staff to deliver it all and for some children the environment is wrong so no training can change that.

Whilst that is an adorable little sound bite that could have come straight from the DfEE marketing dept, how does it address the OP’s point that she’s got to manage 4 conflicting EHCP’s in one classroom, or, indeed, any of the other points?

we could split current schools in a radical way to allow classes of 30 same stage children who can cope with traditional teaching and school experience and small groups of 8 with similar needs in adapted rooms. That could happen now.

no it can’t; there’s not enough physical classroom space. Even if you said 1 class of 32 per year group gets broken into classes of 8 then that’s an extra 3 classes per year group (assuming the initial 32 would have a classroom if together). Year 7-11 that’s 15 classes. At my school we simply don’t have 15 empty classroom for every lesson. So you need to build 15 classrooms before you even think about it. It’s not simple.

I’m a teacher myself. It definitely didn’t come straight from the D of E! But people are posting as if SEND and disruptive behaviour are synonymous and they aren’t.

To be honest the majority of disruption in my lessons is ‘low level’ but it sure doesn’t feel low level, especially when you’re powerless to do a thing about it.

I know it’s different in different settings though, especially primary.

Yes, it feels like the government never even speaks to teachers working in the classrooms who are nearly all saying the same thing. I have 5 friends who trained to be teachers at University...4 have already left the profession 15 years later and I don't blame them one bit. We're heading towards a staffing crisis...if we aren't already in one. Soon there won't be any teachers left to teach.

Without a shadow of a doubt it's the right move.
It will hopefully remove all the awful disabilitlist language that parents see , however I totally agree anyone trying to do it on their own are on a hiding to nothing

It’s not simple but it’s a lot cheaper and immediately impactful to repurpose a current building and make some extensions to meet the needs of the cohort than moaning on for years about building new SEND schools which is not feasible. In a small school near me with 9 mainstream classes there are also 6 small SEND classes. It’s not the norm and still not adequate for the needs but the children in those SEND classes are taught by specialists, accessing a different looking and feeling day and academic results are very good. It’s a change in thinking that’s needed and listening to the professionals who are experienced in delivering a specialist provision. If you work in a primary school you’ll be sadly too aware of the levels of violence, constant disruption, toileting needs, little dignity for those SEND children and constant lack of self regulation. Some interim changes could be made now without rebuilding schools from the ground up.

I completely agree. Whilst I do not doubt that many teachers would benefit from more training on SEND it is pointless unless the key issue is addressed, which is too many demands on teachers and not enough support.
I know how to meet the needs of the vast majority of my SEND children, but there is only one of me in a class of 30, with numerous needs, individual plans and an increasingly crammed curriculum.
My concern about more training without additional support is it will tip some teachers over the edge. I am an experienced teacher and realistic with what I can do, with myself, SLT and parents. I watch some of my younger colleagues get crushed under the unrealistic demands, feeling like they are failing.

I completely agree. They're doing it because it's cheaper than doing something that will work, but it's just missing the point.

Even if that one class teacher in the room is amazing and has done all of the training going, they are still only one person and there’s only so many plates they can spin in the air on their own, before they just break/leave! They can’t cope with teaching to the jam-packed national curriculum and being held accountable for all children making progress, whilst meeting 30 very individual needs and keeping Ofsted happy whilst they’re at it.

We need some extra people in schools and we need some flexibility (and enjoyment) in the curriculum!

Also, the cynic in my thinks that the SEN training-which will be ‘flexible’ so as to allow teachers to fit it in within their busy schedule-will just be webinars you’ll be expected to watch in your own time! Probably 'delivered' by some company the government have paid a fortune to, to come up with it.

In a small school near me with 9 mainstream classes there are also 6 small SEND classes. It’s not the norm and still not adequate for the needs but the children in those SEND classes are taught by specialists,

That not the norm round here. Just about every school has had to set up some sort of SEN base in the last 18 months as they had so many pupils with ASD/non verbal/GD/in nappies/very physical, but not one has a qualified teacher in it, it's all LSAs who are paid a pittance

Would investing in TAs by employing more, training them well and paying them fairly be a better solution?

Let me guess. The senco will attend a 1 day training course and will then impart the info to teachers after school or during inset. Or maybe the teacher will attend after school training in their own time online or with a cluster of other schools so they have to travel to get there. The unqualified low paid support staff wont attend any of this and the teachers wont have time to pass the information on (because they will be too busy filling out endless reams of paperwork related to SEND.

And to add, yes, some private providers will get nice and rich from this. I wonder who they are.

I don't think paying TAs more will ever be on the cards, sadly!

Amen. It's a capacity issue. Special schools have higher staff ratios. All this talk of training is just promising a quick fix. Teachers know what to do, they dont have the capacity to do it for 30 children at once. If we keep asking school staff to do more and more impossible things, they will leave faster than they already are.

Someone that government big wigs have links to/shares in the company, I expect!

Expect lots of SEN Edu-consultancy companies to rear their head and sniff around hoping for some extra cash! People that taught for a year in 2014 and have not had a class since but like the sound of their own voice. Saying crap like 'all behaviour is communication' and you just need to be 'trauma informed'.

Basically, teachers will now just be told, you've done the training, why aren't you making it work in your classroom?' and more of them will leave.

I couldn’t agree more OP. Someone needs to show Bridget your post.

I work in a special school. We have expertise and training coming out of our ears. Even our unqualified staff who earn barely more than minimum wage are (mostly) highly skilled and well trained. We obviously have a lot more funding that mainstream schools, but in recent years, our experience is becoming more and more like that of mainstream colleagues.

More children with SEN mean that more children are forced into our setting because they can’t cope in mainstream and they deserve a specialist education, but our capacity has remained the same. Once upon a time it felt like we could do an amazing job of meeting each individual child”s needs, but not any more. We might have higher staff to children ratios but when too many children are in a classroom that isn’t big enough for that many people, and children’s needs often completely opposes each others it is impossible to provide the specific learning environment that each child needs. We have higher staff to children ratios, but when you have four children in a class that often require 2:1 support, four others that need 1:1 and six staff, the numbers still don’t add up and children’s needs still go unmet. We have some lovely pieces of sensory equipment both in and outdoors and offer all sorts of therapies, but nowhere near enough capacity to allow every child to access them.

More money for training will do fuck all. We need more staff, classrooms, therapy rooms and resources in general. We already know what needs to be done, we just don’t have the capacity to do it well enough.

I spoke to the head of our most local special school recently. She said that she was attending 2 tribunals a week (which was obviously taking massive amounts of time out of her working week) and every single one was a parent wanting their school and they were nearly all being named, despite having no capacity. It's crazy.

Can I ask how much autonomy you have within a special school for following an appropriate curriculum for your children? That's one major issue for mainstream teachers-they have a class containing eg 4 children with an EHCP plus 5 more K students all with varying needs, yet are still being expected to teach to the packed Year 2 curriculum of fronted adverbials of time, division and the Celts.

I think if there was more flexibility in the curriculum for mainstream that would help, but probably no government is going to do that and be accused of lowering standards!

@JLou08 in conjunction yes but again unless they want to dramatically increase pay no ta will went to have all these specialisms techniques and students they are actually teaching without something close to an actual teacher salary.