The Education Secretary has laid out her plans for the SEND system…we explore what she’s proposing and give our views on if it’s enough.
Last week, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson gave a speech outlining her plans for improving the SEND system, which she says is ‘neglected to the point of crisis’ a sentiment we can all agree on! This is a system which is failing in every aspect, led by Local Authority’s who have no money and seemingly no desire to meet the needs of the most vulnerable children.
Just another bold reform?
The Education Secretary’s plans, which she calls a bold reform, centre around boosting inclusion in mainstream schools for children with SEN by ‘improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream education settings.’
In our opinion, this speech didn’t really tell us much about the fundamentals of what she is actually going to do to improve the system, although it is good to hear that she is aware of quite how bad the problems are.
A huge task ahead
Many of us who have watched our children suffer in an unsuitable mainstream school setting know that there is an incredibly long way to go to get mainstream settings to become a suitable, inclusive environment which sufficiently meets need.
Our Head of Advocacy Kelly Jarvis said, “This takes significant investment, as simply popping up identikit resources bases which aren’t specialised enough will not solve the problem. You need specific things such as a speech and language unit where the staff are actually trained in recent, relevant SLT issues – not just a one size fits all approach. And ALL resource bases should do away with any stipulation that the children who access them have to attend a set proportion of time in the mainstream environment. It must be child-led and staffed accordingly.”
Our Education Consultant, Lindsay Galley agrees that small fixes aren’t going to be enough and that a big overhaul is needed: “Bridget Phillipson needs a full primary curriculum review. Primaries are being run like little secondary schools with learning presented too formally, reducing amounts of play and meaning that children as young as 4 spend large proportions of their days sat in front of Powerpoint teaching! This is due to the amount of content and that there’s no time to revisit before moving on.”
Focussing on wellbeing rather than academics
Bridget Phillipson did highlight the current attendance issues being faced across the country and called it “an absence epidemic [which] is the canary in the coal mine for belonging in our country” and added that she wants to move away from a focus on academic achievements to one which focuses more on wellbeing. This is something we completely agree with as Kelly explains: “Attendance is a happy by-product of met needs and positive well-being. We are living in a changing world within which the education system has not caught up. We can only learn, achieve academically and attend consistently if we are well within ourselves. We need to know precisely how this focus on well-being is going to be achieved because if the Government are simultaneously plugging the fines and punitive approaches to attendance, this is literally the opposite of well-being.”
We’ll be watching and waiting to see how these initial declarations transform into actual policy changes and fixes for SEND children.
Getting support from those who understand
If you are struggling in a mainstream school setting or dealing with the issue of school refusal, Sunshine Academy has a huge range of resources which can help. There are 100’s of courses and webinars available for you to watch in your own time covering many of the topics which you might be facing.
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