£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.

We have a lot of autonomy and I think our curriculum is brilliant for everything it offers and it’s flexibility. It’s implementing everything on it successfully and appropriately for each individual that’s the difficult part.

This (the bolded bit) is what’s going to happen though.

Rather than opening more special schools - which this gov’t are dead against - the upcoming SEND white paper will be saying every mainstream school will be having a resourced base.

Who is going to staff these bases, and how much training will they have had, is the key question.

The unions were so useless over Covid, and the cost of living is now so high, that a surprisingly high proportion of teachers are now not unionised (it's not cheap). I switched to Edapt after disappointing experiences with ATL then NEU.

I agree unions should do more. How can they find the LA law breaking over EHCP acceptable?

I find it appalling that much needed special schools have been cancelled AFTER research, feasibility, planning, design - what a waste of public money!

Who is going to staff these bases, and how much training will they have had, is the key question.

It'll be the SENCo in name (ie blame for when it all goes tits up) and cheap TAs in reality,

On the nail posts here.

It will make no real difference and just add to the teachers' stress.
More staff are needed, the millions are being spent in the wrong place.

My experience is that the lack of agreement that a child has sen can be intentional. It was not a lack of understanding or training certainly not for 6 years. By then it had to be obvious.
i raised that dd had adhd at nearly 4. Had a meeting with school nurses at 5. But even on referral via gp the school never said yes adhd though seemed more open to asd.
However even asd was never once said to me it was only when i hit another breaking point.

Ultimately like almost any job teachers want an easier life and its harder if kids have plans and ehcps. I mean obviously teaching is still not an easy job. But my view is also reflected in lack of homework set in primary and re zero marking or feedback at secondary.

The problems with dd - behaviour generally improved but never in line with peers.
But alongside that mh anxiety depression, self harm, suicidal and zero friends and bullying. For what seems milder asd/adhd the kids are reaching a crisis point and cahms are no use. Disturbing for parents teachers and kids.
But the biggest improvement in mainstream for my sen kid is not teacher training its
actual transition to secondary where more effort to put in appropriate class, support to attend clubs, support to make a new friend.
Then action on the everyday bullying because sen kids face more of that with teachers ignoring in class.
some of these are reasons for school avoidance.
Primary wasnt great but secondary will likely lead to lifelong issues.
Eating disorder
ocd (from bullying)

And then the bullying by teachers and others of sen kids. I mean some kids are seriously out of control and perhaps exclusion makes most sense.

And im beyond irate re extra time. I actually feel i may explode!
Mine has needed extra time from before sats but again teachers not bothered to look into.
It ridiculously doesnt even matter that the kid doesnt ever finish anything.

I hate the fact that there is this obsession that all children with " SEN" can cope, all lumped in together in a mainstream school as long as their teacher has endless extra training. Some children need special provision in a specialist environment, staffed by teachers who are not expected to be all things to all children.
Parents should not have to fight for years and spend a fortune to have their child's needs recognised, never mind met. The damage to the child and the family is incalculable. Years in a severely damaging environment for a child with autism can never be undone.
No wonder teachers are leaving the profession in droves.

This is just pissing into the wind.
A complete waste of money. Giving teachers more skills doesn’t fix this, teachers mostly already know what to do but it’s physically impossible to do it.

All pupils should be allowed to learn in an environment that is suitable for them. We need more buildings with teachers in them.
I appreciate that it’s easier to ask for a golden unicorn…

This is just pissing into the wind.

Yes, completely.

And it'll fail thousands more pupils, and tens of thousands more teachers will leave.

There's only so much one person can do with the 30 pupils in front of them (whilst SLT pile on the pressure, Ofsted scrutinise everything they say, do and write) on their own.

The 'trauma perceptive' training our LA dished out before lockdown was all based around stopping schools excluding children. The gist was, 'well, if you've done our training, you should all be trauma aware now and able to meet everyone's needs. If not, that's your own fault.'

I expect this training will be similar. The difference is, the teachers I know now are virtually all on the edge of leaving anyway (this wasn't the case in 2018/19) and the number of high need children in our classes is sky rocketing. I don't think it will take much to tip them over the edge.

There are already teacher and assistant vacancies, with fewer training up than leaving the profession. So where are all these trained staff going to come from for all the extra desired bespoke learning environments?

Extra training might help some a bit, that might be all that can be expected right now. Without teachers it’s not a school just a building with children in it.

Giving this money is a tick box exercise by the government. Existing teachers already struggle to deliver all the expectations from existing legislation.
The amount is not enough to make a meaningful difference. I agree with previous posters who said it will either line the pockets of a "training provider" who will probably issue a 1 hour, one size fits all, possibly online training programme or
Schools will use the money to create an enhanced SLT post. But no one person can do what is required and in reality this will be someone doling out more work to already overloaded classroom teachers and avoiding direct accountability.
The fact is the state school system is broken as regards SEN

Let's just address one misconception:

SEND does not automatically equal badly behaved. SEND does not automatically mean the child shouldn't be in mainstream education.

There are kids in class who are badly behaved because they want to be for whatever reason. There are also kids in class like DD2 who is beautifully behaved (consistently one of the top among the whole school for positive behaviour points), able to achieve academically on par with her peers - but who still has multiple SEN issues meaning that she needs a bit of tolerance, slight adjustments in terms of how things are explained and generally a bit of support when she starts to flounder socially (she has speech intelligibility issues, coordination issues, autism, inattentive ADHD but there's a bloody sharp brain in there and she's so conscientious about trying to make sure everyone's happy and cared for). Mainstream is definitely the right place for her - with minimal support really - she knows learning support is there if she's floundering on break times or whatever and she needs teachers who aren't absolute arseholes to her (we've had a couple who just tried to break her over the years). Laptop to reduce her handwriting load at points, quieter room to reduce her distractions for SATs and you've got an absolute sweetheart in your class who'll keep her head down and get on with stuff.

And yes, if school aren't providing those very very basic, teacher-hassle-minimal (I used to be one - I don't ask for ridiculous stuff and I know she's one of 30 - but she's MY one of the 30) adjustments - I'll call them out on it because she only gets one shot at being a kid.

Just throwing that out there cos I get sick of the misconceptions that go around about how it's all these SEN kids who are causing the disruptions in class and she definitely isn't. Sometimes the brutal truth is that winding yer mate up and talking is much more fun than quadratic equations and kids will push boundaries.

Schools will use the money to create an enhanced SLT post

I doubt schools will see any of this money directly. It will be siphoned directly into a provider-Capita, OUP, Oak National, maybe even a company owned by Ruth Miskin (!) who will mass produce some dreadful webinars that teachers will be expected to watch in their own time.

Or even worse, like with the mental health champion training, they will have a list of 'approved' providers who can deliver the training and schools can then choose which provider they want to buy it with, pay for it themselves and then they apply to the government to have the money paid back to them (in 60-90 working days). Like the state sanctioned list of approved phonic scheme providers, they will probably change yearly so if you sign up to one training provider that's subsequently removed from the approved list, you're screwed!

They will probably be like the old DFEE National Literacy strategy training videos from the 90s, where they'd film teachers doing a model lesson with a class of 6!

Am I being too cynical? Maybe it will be fine.

I’d rather hope educational psychologists will be delivering the training, rather than private providers.

I doubt that very much!

In our LA, they are running at 70 weeks timescales for the statutory 20 week EHCP process off as they can't get any EPs to do the assessments. If they divert them to writing and delivering training, the delays will be even worse!

Unless of course, they scrap EHCPs as many think they will in the white paper, then the EPs will just be sitting about twiddling their thumbs...

I agree - SEND doesn’t = bad behaviour and vice versa.
You could also say that no (or very little) behaviour is bad.
I have a little girl that sounds so similar to your DD in my class. She cannot however always get the help she needs and deserves because the ones that ‘shout the loudest’ demand more of my attention.
It’s not fair / right and even my HT says leave them to it and work with others more but every time I try to they cause so much disruption that no one gets anything done and the carefully prepared and resourced lesson descends into chaos.
Noone is saying a child ‘shouldn’t be in mainstream,’ but if they are going to be there then we need the funding to be able to support them adequately.
Training isn’t going to cut it.

I have absolutely the same situation but with teenagers and I honestly cannot think what training could help. I have 15 years of experience and lots of SEND knowledge and strategies, having a rather challenging SEND child myself. What I need is a second adult to give warnings, remove persistent trouble makers and deal with toilet passes and those about to dissolve into tears, while I do a bit of teaching!

Some teachers are dreadful. (Rare) Many lack training and experience. Some are just not experienced enough and don't have good SLT to guide them. Most are overworked and can't do much with the knowledge without concrete resources. (Another adult or time) Sometimes the school culture is really bad for send children and they won't do free things that don't particularly impact the school, or couldn't recognise a meltdown at all. If they are not willing to use parent expertise in the child it doesn't help.

A really good teacher, often experienced or those willing to listen, can make a huge difference. (Mr " DC doesn't always concentrate in class but it's my job to remind DC to get back on task" )

Good training at the start would help.( Inculcating good practice and good understanding and practical advice)
In service training is good too if it is of good quality and about attitudes to Sen, easy to implement strategies, offers a range of classroom management ideas that can be tried to see if they work with particular children. (Had some good training once)
SLT backup. (No fucking use if a dysregulated child needs to be taken out at that point but there's nowhere to go or no-one to take them. I could tell them at what point mine needed to leave as too dysregulated to learn and stopping others learning. Or teachers unwilling to use because it triggers discipline instead of help for the child. Ie they recognise it as disabled behaviour and don't want kid in trouble because school response to disabled behaviour is punishment rather than support. Such as sending to SEN area to regulate ready for next lesson.)

A good HoY or HoH, a good Sendco, a good scattering of experienced teachers (not all NQTs) a few good TAs and a culture in school that supports kids (firm but fair) rather than punishes disability or is too rigid, all help.

Unless government provide money for TAs and improve retention of teachers and ensure schools implement the sendcop that we have it's only going to be a sticking plaster on a gaping wound