Do SENCO's get trained on ADHD?

[ADHDDDDDDDBOOM]

Because it sure as fuck feels like ours hasn't.

Does anyone know?

You are right in the first but but not the second. Gove curriculum focuses very strongly on underpinning skills and applying them AND a hugely dense curriculum. There is almost zero regurgitation of facts (which is why in part it causes anxiety to ND autistic learners).

Teachers have an incredibly rough deal. They have to ensure an entire class of children make expected progress, all the while managing behaviour and trying to cater to the needs of a minority with additional needs. Within a system that is underfunded. Without enough support staff. Without enough wider community funding eg the waiting lists for camhs is 4 years. Teachers and sencos are doing their bests. Direct your fury towards a government that pushed inclusion and rinsed out the professionals that were experienced.

Most sencos work extremely hard, but to be fair your final paragraph is just the law, not something they "even" do: all children with SEN or possible SEN should have their needs met, regardless of diagnosis.

The expectation for SEN students is that they have a requirement for something additional to, or different from, the universal provision to meet their needs.

As a primary class teacher, it’s normal to have about a quarter of children with some kind of SEN, all different. Imagine a SENCo trying to be an expert on every single one over the entire school?

Absolutely! Whilst trying to teach their own class.

Every time I make the decision to stop working, sit down in the staff room at lunchtime and take a bite into my sandwich, I get a teacher saying, ‘whilst I’ve got you-I want you to tell me what to do with X’ and I’m still trying to process what happened in my own class that morning and what I’m doing in the afternoon.

As pp said, there is no legal requirement for a SENCO to have extra or special training.

Reading total crap like this is so depressing and just makes me want to throw in the towel. Then that’ll be one less experienced SENCo out of the job and please believe me…nobody else is lining up to do it.

I must have dreamt the mandatory year long, in person, masters level course I did.

Are there guildelines for how many hours SENCo time a school should have. Some small schools seem to have half a day or a day.

There was a study done via Bath university, I think with recommendations but if schools don’t have the money, the release time just won’t happen.

Lots of schools don’t even have the money to pay any sort of TLR/SEN Allowance for their SENCo so there no extra money for doing it.

Its recommended in the CoP that it should be a leadership role, but again, this isn’t enforced, so often sencos have no whole-school logistical role, and are expected to work miracles with no budget, authority or time!

I don't think that parents are aware of the state of our schools.

I'm a senco in a school with a high level of SEND.

The NASENCO award has little training for specific needs.

I can't get medical specialists in to advise me on children with rare generic conditions. If I am lucky they send a covering letter with a leaflet to let me know about the condition but most of the time the parents are expected to tell me about the condition.
Nobody would give us advice about a child with possibly fatal allergies.

Local waiting lists are years. Two years just to get an assessment with speech therapy. At least three years for an ASC or ADHD diagnosis.

The local authority is so stretched and SEND so underfunded that it's almost impossible to get a specialist into school to see a child. Instead, I have hub insulations where I go and describe a child that they have never met and then have to relay the advice back to parents and teachers/TAs. Never mind that I may have missed something really important in my description that a specialist would have seen straight away and that it could have completely changed the advice.

Where I can get a specialist in, their advice just can't be implemented with the adults available and there is not enough funding for more adults.

Referral forms are ridiculously long and feel purposefully obstructive.

Local authorities make up their own criteria for accepting EHCP assessment requests meaning that I am constantly fighting the bureaucracy.

I research, I phone other sencos and specialist schools to ask for advice.
I've even attended weekend training courses.
I have my own class and all of the responsibility that comes with that.
I'm paid about £2,500 a year for the additional responsibility.
I get a whopping 1hour 45 minutes a week out of class to complete all of the referrals, monitoring, paperwork, meetings, reviews etc related to the senco role.
Half of the time this is interrupted because a child has a crisis and I am needed to support them.
The system is completely broken and is is completely unfair for the pupils, the parents and the staff.

I am leaving at the end of the year. I can't cope with constantly feeling like a failure any longer.

Consultations not insulations

@Redlocks30

That sound's tough but would you like to discuss what masters my school Senco has? Because she's utterly useless and out of of her depth and clueless and didn't even have an understanding of basic equipment to help dc in maths.

They have no stragety to help any dc in there school with even very mild sen like my dd and spews out misinformation about ehcp.

@Treasureboxkey

Make sure your mp knows all this. And cc in education secretary

It would be impossible.
Do you know how many different disabilities and areas of sen exist?

That sound's tough but would you like to discuss what masters my school Senco has?

That’s impossible for anyone on a forum to tell you. If they’ve been in post for less than 3 years then they could still be working towards it.

Many on here have pointed out that the PGCERT SENCO does not train you in specific areas of SEND. It’s a lot about managing the role and in theory about coordinating support from external agencies. These external agencies are becoming less and less, longer waiting lists, higher thresholds and more expensive.

My PGCERT included a case study in which I studied 1 area of need in detail. At one time my authority delivered free training for many areas of SEND. They don’t anymore.

but would you like to discuss what masters my school Senco has?

No, as I don’t know who your school Senco is. If you’re unhappy, go and talk to the HT.

My local authority doesn't give any free training anymore either.
At one time I could get them in to do staff training too. But not anymore.

My NASENCO also had a case study and there are needs that are more common in my school so I know lots about those but that is because I have given up my own weekends and evenings to learn.
There is a child in my school with a condition that affects less than 1/12,000 but the range of impact that this can have is huge so I needed time to get to know them and understand their needs.
It is impossible for us to be trained in everything and actually it's the class teachers that need to be the authorities on the children in their classes.

Is it any wonder schools can't recruit or retain staff when board like this show people's disgusting attitude toward teachers! SEN is chronically underfunded and parent expectations are often ridiculously high - with an expectation that things are fixed and quick. The assess, plan, do, review approach means that things take time. You have to try something and be sure it isn't going to work. And SENDCos (and all teachers) are not medical professionals they can no diagnose. They can recognise that a child has traits but a medical professional needs to diagnose. SENDCos are almost impossible to recruit. They are highly qualified but often on the receiving end of parents who instantly raise the stakes with 'if you don't do this, I'll complain to the Head, Ofsted, MP'. It's thankless really.

So many people on this thread giving out 'advice' when they clearly have no idea what being a SENCO involves. But yet are being so scathing in their replies. This is why no one wants to do the job.

And why is the OP being advised to apply for an EHCP 'as soon as possible', when they haven't given any indication of their child's difficulties? What has given you the impression that they need one and would qualify??

It's so demoralising.

The SENCo award is required as a start. There’s CPD too, which should be available. I did a post graduate qualification in SPLD, then ASD and had CPD in ADHD and other co morbid conditions, plus training in SLT and minority groups.

As is in the title, the role involves coordinating support from exterior professional, local authorities and school staff. It doesn’t mean being an expert on every condition that presents, although most would seek advice from an expert, particularly if it’s an uncommon one.

Given the budget constraints on SEND as well as everything else, it’s surprising anyone wants to do the role.

It seems like every UK public system is being run into the ground. Can't understand this at all 😞

I'm a SENCO and am currently doing the NASENCO. It is absolutely not just an online course, I have whole day seminars every fortnight with a couple of hours of pre-reading to do before each one. Then there are the two assignments, each of which takes many many many hours of research and writing.

SEND covers an incredibly wide range of needs and interventions.

At one end of the scale you can have a child whose only SEN need is reading support to help them with below-expected literacy and at the opposite end a child with severe, complex needs then in-between every possible variation you can think of.

In my class alone we have a deaf child, speech and language needs, EASL needs, ADHD, ASD, ODD, and some children in need of targeted interventions due to working well below expected standards. There is no possible way the SENCo could be an expert in each and every one of those things.

They get information from various other departments and teams, for example SALT will recommend specific support programmes for us to deliver and then will come into school at specific points in the programme to review progress and make adjustments as needed. A child who gets an ASD diagnosis will (or should have) a report recommending support measures for that individual child, an OT report will recommend equipment, exercises and support programmes and so on.

A SENCo should have a "toolkit" of measures they can implement based on their own experience and knowledge but part of the role is to also facilitate the measures recommended by professionals in the field(s) relevant to an individual child's needs/diagnosis, alongside seeking appropriate professional input when needed.

Like all roles, there will be good SENCos and bad SENCos and you shouldn't judge all of them based on your experiences with one. If your school SENCo isn't meeting your child's needs then I recommend emailing them with a breakdown of what your child needs, whether that need is being met and - if it isn't - what is needed in order to meet it. You should cc in the HT and request a meeting to find a resolution. I would also recommend applying for an EHCP, you don't need the SENCo to do this for you, there are guides online for how to do it yourself. You could also consider involving your MP and making a complaint to the governors as your nuclear option should that not yield any results. If relations have broken down to the point that you no longer have any faith in the schools ability to meet your child's needs then look into moving schools.