Teach Secondary Issue 14.7

INCLUSIVE by design If policymakers and leaders in mainstream settings want to make a real difference for students with SEND, we Special School staff are happy to help, advises Terri Bottriell-Wyse ... I started my career in teaching 23 years ago, as a special needs teacher in a mainstream school. It was a good job, alongside great staff. If asked back then, however, whether ‘every teacher was a teacher of SEND’, I would have said definitely not ... I worked in the SEN department. We were a small group of five special needs teachers, based upstairs in a distant corner of the building. We were accompanied by our little army of amazing TAs, who our SENCo would deploy each day in classrooms across the school. Pupils came to us in groups of 10 for lessons in literacy and numeracy, or for the occasional one-to-one intervention session. We were the teachers of SEND. Tucked away I have fantastic memories from this period inmy career, and I do feel we made a difference. At the time, I believed the school was keen to meet the needs of pupils with SEND – yet when I look back now, I can see just how separate our department was from the rest of the school. As my skills and expertise developed, so too did my career. I went on to become a SENCo myself, again working within a mainstream secondary school. Once more, I found myself tucked away, situated in a department at the topmost corner of the building, with little opportunity for interaction with staff from other departments. One day, out of sheer frustration and a need for some creative thinking around how the school could better address issues of inclusion, the inclusion lead requested that we take a ‘blue sky day’, during which we would prepare and pitch suggestions for senior leadership. We were delighted to be allowed this opportunity – a chance to effect true, whole school impact. We were, however, very disappointed to be told, following our pitches, that they wouldn’t be taking us up on any of our ideas. It was demoralising. Perhaps by way of consolation, though, I was given the chance to provide SEND training to staff during a whole school INSET. Aware of how busy the teachers were, and their struggles at catering to pupils with SEN, I spent hours creating SEN toolkits comprising help sheets and various resources for every teacher. Once again, I was left disappointed during a learning walk a fewweeks later to find that not one teacher was using them. Setting up for failure As a ‘SEN expert’ working in mainstream settings, I’ve often felt that I’m talking a different language, while working to different priorities, approached with a different way of thinking to most other teachers. Things eventually got to the point where I wanted to leave, and so decided to enter the world of the Special School – and what a relief it was. I’d finally found my people, and a place where I belonged. The sad thing, looking back, is that if I felt this way as an advocate for children with SEN navigating the mainstream system, then how on earthmust it have felt for a child with SEND? 15 years later and we find ourselves in the midst of a SEND crisis. Whilst I know that there are many mainstream professionals working extremely hard to meet the needs of students with SEND – having had the privilege of working with a fewmyself – too often, I’ve found myself sat on the edge of conversations betweenmainstream colleagues who feel completely overwhelmed, and are struggling with difficult to meet SEND requirements in their classrooms. Many mainstream headteachers will cite the difficulties associated with SEND as one of the toughest professional challenges they face. The essence of such conversations has been that mainstream schools don’t have the time, tools or budget needed for the task. Quite simply, it looks as thoughmainstream teachers are being made to fit square “The existing system isn’t basedaround inclusion,but exclusion ” pegs into the round hole that is the mainstream education system. And it’s my view that this approach does little more than simply set everyone up for failure. Going over number This challenge isn’t going to go away. A quick Google search will show how, in the UK, we’ve seen an increase in overall SEND prevalence, and a significant rise in the number of Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) being issued. In the Special School sector, we’re being constantly pushed to go over number by local education authorities unable to create enough places to meet demand. The government’s answer to all this will soon be published in a white paper on SENDReform. There’s been muchmedia talk of a desire to reduce families’ reliance on EHCPs, along with government promises to redirect funding towards improved inclusion in mainstream schools. There have also been hints of new 50 teachwire.net/secondary