IncludEd conference<\/a> at the weekend, Lenehan, a former chief executive of the Council for Disabled Children, said: \u201cWhen we get the white paper, which is soon, you\u2019ll see more of the detail on that, but schools [are] very much at the heart of it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\nShe said that part of her role was \u201cmaking sure we have a language which enables schools to talk to health, to talk to social care, to talk to parents, to talk to pupils\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The government\u2019s ongoing reforms have prompted debate about the term \u201cSEND\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tom Rees, the government\u2019s adviser on inclusion, has previously said he would like to see the term \u201cretired, because we\u2019ve become much more precise in our understanding of different needs\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lenehan said at the conference that SEND was \u201csuch an amorphous context\u2026it means nothing. It\u2019s a word that\u2019s almost meaningless.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘SEND as a concept’<\/h3>\n\n\n\n The National Audit Office has said that about 40 per cent of pupils are identified as having SEND at some point during their time at school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you think we\u2019ve got to a stage where some of the stats give up [to] 40 per cent of children in schools with SEND, they stop being special. What does it mean?\u201d said Lenehan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She had been in \u201cinteresting debates about SEND as a concept. In some ways, I\u2019d almost get rid of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\nChristine Lenehan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\u201cHow did we ever end up in a world where we have children and we have SEND children, as if they themselves are some strange sub-species, when they\u2019re clearly not?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey\u2019re children who have needs, and some of those needs will cross over into poverty, some will cross over into racism and some of them won\u2019t. But they are children in a system and inclusion for me has to be all of it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lenehan said she had heard regional differences during the Department for Education\u2019s national \u201clistening\u201d conversation, which closed this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOne of the really strong feels in Leeds was the stuff around vulnerable children from socio-economically difficult backgrounds, the whole stuff about [pupils who were] previously known to social care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is a whole school thing, it\u2019s not a SEND thing anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
‘Lack of evidence’ on interventions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n Lenehan also said she was \u201creally quite surprised about the lack of evidence on effective interventions and what works\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\nMark Vickers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nMark Vickers, Ofsted\u2019s external adviser for inclusion, told the conference he hoped the new inspection framework\u2019s focus on inclusion helped schools \u201cto really feel as if your work is being acknowledge, understood and recognised \u2026 because it gives you the opportunity to describe the work you\u2019re doing on a daily basis\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another key element of the government\u2019s white paper is expected to involve more training for staff on how to support pupils with SEND.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It comes after Schools Week<\/em> documented how special educational needs\u2019 co-ordinators in schools were \u201cburnt out and isolated\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\nThe number of teaching vacancies mentioning \u201cSENCO\u201d or related terms soared from 37,737 in 2018-19 to 76,633 in 2023-24, SchoolDash analysis commissioned by Schools Week<\/em> showed.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSpeaking at IncludEd, Pepe Di\u2019Iasio, the general secretary at the Association of School and College Leaders, called for the sector to \u201ccherish your SENCO\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe need to wrap our arms around them and we need to make sure that we give them everything that we possibly can do, because\u2026 if you don\u2019t know they are the most important person in the school, then you should do. And the new Ofsted and new accountability framework is shining a massive light on them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\u2019s an intensity on them, a level of interrogation on them that is greater than it ever was a year ago.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dame Christine Lenehan says reforms look at ‘changing nature’ between schools and local authorities<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311127,"featured_media":240253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"post-theme":[],"class_list":["post-240400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t
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