This is a recording of the SEND Conference session, The State of Play: Navigating the Changing Landscape of National SEND Provision and Practice, which took place at the Schools & Academies Show London on 1st May 2024.
The discussion was focused on the following points:
- Best practice guidance for meeting the increasingly complex and high levels of SEND and SEMH (Social, Emotional and Mental Health) needs in mainstream and special schools across the UK.
- The rise of ‘invisible SEND’ and understanding its anticipated impact on future educational outcomes.
- Is SEND a term that has lost its utility? If so, what alternative taxonomies should we be using?
- Proactive, long-term strategic planning during national funding crises and anticipated governmental change.
Panellists include:
- Lorna Beard, Education Director, nasen
- Gary Aubin, Author, 'The Lone SENDCO'
- John Reilly, Principal, Addington Valley Academy
- Samantha Booth, Chief Reporter, Schools Week
- Dr Susana Castro-Kemp, Director, UCL Centre for Inclusive Education
- Kimmy Rihal, Chief Global Strategist, Global Equality Collective
You can watch the panel discussion down below for free!
Transcript
Samantha Booth 0:00
Welcome. I'm Samantha Booth, Chief Reporter at Education Newspaper, Schools Week. Firstly, thank you all for attending the SEND conference today. It's the first time it's taken place alongside the popular Schools & Academies Show. We'd love for you to share your experience and views at the conference using the #SENDConference on social media. Just some housekeeping to start with. Please familiarize yourself with the fire escape routes, and in the event of an emergency, the venue will provide information on the overhead tannoy. But if you just head straight back to the exhibition hall, straight down to the bottom of the corridor, please don't use this lift just here, because that will take you to somewhere completely different. Use the lift at the very end of the corridor - the one that you came up in. The toilets are literally just as you come out here on the left. And if you've got any concerns this morning, please speak to the event organizer, Hannah, who's not here right now, but I'll point out to you in a bit. We have a helpful and thought provoking agenda ahead of us. Today, we'll be hearing from some of the organizations involved in piloting the SEND review changes a year on and from sector specialists on how schools, councils and health services can work together for a more inclusive system. There will also be several chances to ask questions. So please do get thinking of any that you'd like to ask before I share my reflections, I'd like to thank all of our speakers who've agreed to share their expertise with you today, and a big thank you to nasen, SEND Network, and the Global Equality Collective for partnering with us for this event. One of the main themes of today's conference is the future of the SEND sector and the positive and innovative work happening across the country in the face of adversity. But first, I'd like to set the scene of what has happened over the last decade. 2024 marks 10 years since the landmark Children and Families Act overhauled the SEND system. They were coined the biggest education reforms in the generation. I probably don't need to tell this audience what that meant, but just to set out some of the key changes at the time, statements were replaced by education, health and care plans, which also extended statutory support to 16 to 25 year olds. Various legal deadlines came with these such as councils issuing plans within 20 weeks. But while the reforms were widely agreed to be the right course of action, the implementation has been deemed a failure. We now have a system in crisis, and I think I'd need another hour to set out exactly what's happened and where we are now. But here's a flavor. The government's own data shows the number of EHCPs has risen 115% since 2015, while the number of plans issued by councils within that deadline is at its lowest ever. Councils have combined deficits in the high needs budgets of nearly 1.6 billion, with more than half of councils reliant on government financial intervention, and families feel distressed and traumatized, sometimes over council failures in some parts of the country. Special schools are bursting at the seams on tight budgets, while mainstream schools are delivering sense support on stressed resources. Capacity and other services, such as mental health and social care, is just as thin meaning we are often seeing schools picking up the pieces. The government is not ignorant of the issues with the system, having finally published an improvement plan last year which aims to move towards early intervention, and while some of the key reforms are now being tested, such as digitized PHCPs and new national standards, the nationwide rollout could be some time away, but the sector is desperate for change. When we speak to school leaders, the SEND system is often one of the biggest issues they raise, and each one may actually have different solutions to the problem. When interviewing experts earlier this year on how to fix the SEND system, these suggestions ranged from greater accountability to writing off council SEND deficits altogether. Experts also point out there needs to be. Now just to briefly introduce each other, if I could start with you, Gary?
Gary Aubin 6:02
Yeah, good morning everyone. It's really lovely to be here. I feel enormous sense of imposter syndrome sitting in a room full of people who do so much to make schools right for our children and young people in SEND. My background is as a secondary teacher, I've been a secondary and primary SENCO and then led SEND provision for Multi Academy Trust in London and Hertfordshire. For a number of years, I worked with the EEF on their SEN in mainstream guidance report, trying to support school leaders to think about, okay, research evidence is lovely, but actually, what does it mean in practice? How do we, you know, bring that research, academic research, into practice? And I work now with Whole Education, a national network of schools and school leaders trying to support work across MATs and local authorities in relation to SEND Thanks. Nice to be here.
Samantha Booth 6:48
Thank you. Lorna?
Lorna Beard 6:49
Okay, I'm Lorna Beard, and he talks about imposter syndrome, I'm sat next to Gary Aubin! So, my name is Lorna Beard. I'm Strategic Director of Education for nasen and have been since September last year, so fairly new to the post and new to the other side of the coin. Before that was in MAT leadership and school leadership, working in the the East Midlands, developing SEND and inclusive practice across a group of seven schools.
Samantha Booth 7:19
Thank you. John?
John Reilly 7:21
Good morning everyone. And I'm going to extend the theme of imposter syndrome and say I'm just a head teacher. These colleagues around me, in terms of sort of national views and perspectives, are certainly much more learned than I am. My name is John Riley. I'm Principal at Addington Valley Academy. It's a special school in Croydon in South London. The school was opened in 2020 to support young people with a diagnosis of autism and associated severe and complex needs. The school is part of Orchard Hill colleges and academies trust. We are a family of schools, 14 schools, eight college centers, all supporting young people with SEND. It's been an amazing couple of years working at Addington Valley. We won in 2022 national school building of the year. Really blessed to have a school that was purpose built for young people with SEND. And I think our young people have benefited from that. My background before joining Addington Valley was that I've been head teacher of three other special schools in London. And yeah, just very much enjoy and looking forward to the debate this afternoon or this morning.
Samantha Booth 8:32
And Susana.
Dr Susana Castro-Kemp 8:34
Hello, everyone. I think there's a common thread in this panel around imposter syndrome. I'm just an academic. I don't have as much experience of the real world, as most of you in this room, and certainly in the panel, as well the real world of education in schools. I'm the director of the UCL Center for Inclusive Education, which does mostly research and knowledge exchange in all aspects related to SEND inclusion and neurodiversity. I have a background in psychology. I've been a researcher for 20 years now. The first 10 years, pretty much all over the world, in many different places. In the last 10 years in the UK.
Samantha Booth 9:13
Brilliant. Thank you. Just to say to anybody standing at the back, there is plenty of room down the front here, so don't feel rude at all walking down if you'd like to take a seat, that's absolutely fine. Great. Thank you so much, everybody. So first of all, I just want to explore in your lines of work, what have you found are the best ways to meet what we've seen as increasingly complex and high levels of SEND as well as SEMH needs as well in both mainstream and special schools, perhaps Gary, if you'd be happy to start on this?
Gary Aubin 9:43
Yeah, of course. Yeah. So first thing to say is just an acknowledgement that it's incredibly tricky at the moment. I mean, if I, if I ask, you know, in the room, are there more children with SEND, if you work in a mainstream setting, more children with SEND than there were X number of years ago? I imagine a lot of nods and more children with more. Complex needs in all settings. So I don't underestimate the challenge. I see that the government's plan was to open 33 new special schools, and even that, you know, it's been delayed, I believe. But if we think there's, I don't know the exact number, there's about 25,000 schools in England. I think opening 33 special schools feels like scratching the surface, I don't think the answer is, therefore open 5000 special schools. I think the answer is every single school having to operate slightly differently, understanding that being an inclusive school and meeting the needs of their local community is probably a bit different to that which it was 10, 20 years ago. And I think it's very whilst the challenge is absolutely real. And it'd be daft of me not to say things are harder than they were. Very aware of that. I think it's also get it's easy as a SEND leader, as we all are, to get sucked in slightly to the negative narrative around that. So to be sort of going well, there's more. And you know, so how on earth can we and of course, if there are more children with SEND in our mainstream settings, in particular, it's because of many things, but potentially because parents are exercising their legal right to mainstream, and that should be celebrated, because I think there's a growing awareness and acceptance of SEND in society. And so if more families are sending their children into school without sort of you know, don't be different today, or you, I embrace your difference, but not between the hours of nine and three. You know, if we, if actually, more families are saying to schools, actually, my child's a bit different, and it's not, it's not a problem. It's to be embraced clearly, as I say, that brings challenges to schools, or can bring challenges to schools. But that is something to be celebrated, that increased awareness, that potential increased acceptance, so and in special schools and mainstream actually advances in neonatal care, again, potentially meaning that there are children who in the school system who wouldn't have survived full term x number of years ago. So there's reasons to celebrate the increase in need across all our schools and the increase in complexity need, of course, that doesn't come without its challenges.
Samantha Booth 12:00
Thank you. John, do you have any reflections on that?
John Reilly 12:04
Yeah, I think just operationally, having had the opportunity a couple of years ago to set up a brand new school, you know, the reality is, I think there is a real challenge within the system around teacher confidence, in supporting young people with SEND and understanding a range of needs, and understanding how a classroom works for those young people. So we very much put training at the heart of everything that we do. We all know, I think, that colleagues entering the profession, the exposure, the knowledge, the training that they've had as part of initial teacher training really doesn't equip them to support and deal with the vast array of needs within the classroom. I saw a statistic from 2017 that said in a typical, if there is such one, a typical mainstream classroom, six or seven years ago, from a class of 36 children in the class would have special needs, and I suspect it's probably higher now. And certainly some of those needs, as you will know, are undiagnosed, and many of those needs are increasingly complex. So as a school and as a trust, we've built a quite an extensive training platform, so regardless of the member staff joining us as a school, they do not work with children for the first six weeks of their employment, and we do a training package which is around what we would consider evidence based approaches to high Quality Teaching and Learning which allows the staff members to get, I think, valuable, CPD, but CPD which is accredited. So we do work with the National Autistic Society. All members of our staff have teach qualifications. They all have pecs qualifications. We buy in the Gina Davis Foundation, who comes and runs sessions on attention autism and we set the skill up from a training point of view to ensure that before a member of staff engages with the young person, there is an opportunity for them to learn, I suppose, to be prepared to learn the background knowledge and good, high quality training to increase teacher confidence was at the heart of everything that we do.
Samantha Booth 14:22
What do you think of the changes to the ECF and the ITT core content framework, just just briefly on what you're talking about, teacher confidence? Do you think it will help that?
John Reilly 14:34
I don't think it's probably a case of, you know, we we're going to reserve judgment on that. I think it's probably too early to say we do work as a school with St Mary's. We support their teacher training. We go in and we talk about all things SEND and inclusion in a mainstream classroom. And I think we find we go in and we present on on SEND issues and. And we think that we've put something together that's really basic, and teachers are going to say, Well, we know that, but those training to be teachers are saying to us and speaking to us as if what we're presenting is quite revolutionary, and we're we're finding this sort of difference between things that we think should be really common knowledge, really understandable, just part of practice within a classroom that there's not that exposure to and that knowledge off. So I'm not sure is the honest answer, but it's, it is quite, you know, it's illuminating working with with colleagues entering the profession to see, actually, I suppose, what they don't know, and illuminating and also rather worrying.
Samantha Booth 15:44
I think, Lorna, I don't suppose you could just reflect on on the best ways to meet increasingly complex and high levels of SEND?
Lorna Beard 15:51
I think what both my colleagues have said runs, runs through my personal belief and my experience, I think we have to put SEND support and SEND practice as a golden thread that runs through the core purpose of the school, which is teaching and learning. And all too often, it's seen as a bit of a bolt on, you know, it almost sits outside with the inclusion kind of services of safeguarding and pastoral support and pupil premium, whereas actually in the schools that do it right, it's that golden thread that runs through the practice that all class teachers understand as their core responsibility in the classrooms, and that allows the capacity then for people like the SENCOs and the support services within the school to then pick up those that are finding things difficult. I think the thing that makes a difference is teamwork. And I know that's a really simple and understated things, but we look at the split across the education sector and historically, you know, primary and secondary, there's a split between them. There's early years and and infants, there's a split between then. There's a difference between special and mainstream and and what we would actually all benefit from is actually all working together to join up the system for our young people, because we can learn so much from each other. So it's that basic teamwork and working looking outside your own context and working outside with other people's experience, and pulling communities of practice together, that, I think, is the key to this, that schools look that look outwards will achieve more than than schools that look inwards. And that culture of inclusion, and that culture that the school is there for every child to succeed is has got to be number one. I think you're right. I think about the training package that we offer, particularly young teachers coming into to the to the workplace. You know, when I was a young teacher, it was very much about the needs of your class and how you meet those now it seems to be about the curriculum and the outcomes and how to achieve the outcomes, and perhaps the child gets lost in that, so we need to put the child back at the center of it, and absolutely setting your school up for the context in which and the community in which you serve has got to be key. Another partner that we really need to get on board is working with parents. The there's a lot of adversity between parents and schools at the moment. You know, we had a chat in the speaker lounge about the tribunal systems and mediation and all of those really scary things that that head teachers like John spend their their life fighting. You know, everyone in this room is here because they're committed to improving the outcomes of SEND pupils, and there's not that that tension. We need to pull parents into that discussion, rather than at a point Sam about, if that's okay, about disempowering teachers, potentially, which someone mentioned earlier about, I think there is a danger when we talk about SEND that we make our teachers feel like it's something they can only meet the needs of children with SEND if they essentially become an educational psychologist, or learn every section F off by heart, or, you know, really learn a new language. And I think that's that's something that I think you know is a self reflection from my own school practice is actually, did I make maybe to bolster my own sense of look at what I know, or for any other maybe because I didn't know sometimes, actually, how are we supporting teachers to go and actually, most of what you need to do is within the realistic workload and skill set of a teacher. No one needs you to go and become. Enormous respect for educational psychologists and these people who play essential roles in the sector. But that doesn't mean that teachers, fundamentally shouldn't be using their craft of teaching and thinking, what do I tweak nuance adjust to meet the needs of an increasingly complex needs of children, rather than I need a different skill set outside of, outside of the skill of a teacher. I think sometimes we give conflicting messages, potentially about about that. And I
think one of the things in that is almost changing that deficit layer. Language, and us as leaders, changing that from a deficit to a you know, you stop using words of in spite of them being autistic, they achieved is in spite of having a hearing loss, they reach this. We have to change that mindset. And that's that's about society. That's not just about educational but we can lead the charge on that.
Samantha Booth 20:23
Thank you. Just want to introduce Kimmy, hi. I hope your journey was okay. Do you want to just briefly introduce yourself for the audience? If that's all right, I think it might already be on. Try speaking.
Kimmy Rihal 20:35
Hi. Hi everyone. Just the joys of the Northern line for those of you who have experienced delays on that, so first and foremost, apologies and Hello. I'm Kimmy Rihal, the Chief Global Strategist at the Global Equality Collective. Wonderful to join you all here today.
Samantha Booth 20:52
Thank you. Thanks so much. The next question I want to ask about whether there's been a rise in invisible SEND and what that means for the front line, and also the impact on outcomes. I don't know who wants to take this first Gary or Susana? Did you have any...
Dr Susana Castro-Kemp 21:08
I just have two thoughts about the previous question. Absolutely want to build on what was said before and bring to the table what the research evidence says about these things, and one of them definitely is the issue of teamwork that Lorna mentioned. But what research shows is that the clear evidence that cross disciplinary work across sectors actually makes a difference, and there's different ways of doing cross disciplinary work you can in research. We call it multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, or transdisciplinary. So if you really want to make a difference and collaborate with other sectors, and we're talking about health, education and social care, that actually requires that you do some role, release, that you actually pass on your skills to other professionals and have a true collaboration. Research evidence also shows that investments in early intervention are absolutely fundamental pardon to positive long term outcomes. We often refer to the Heckman curve, which shows that the earlier we invest, the better the outcomes will be in the long run. And this is in terms of health, it's in terms of education. It's in terms of school exclusions and dropouts, for example, but also in terms of economic benefits. So those are my thoughts in relation to the first question. In relation to the second question. I think if we were to do the exercise here in the room of of trying to describe what invisible SEND is, we would probably find out that it's not that invisible. We can describe it. We're probably just not have been looking at the right place. And one of the things that I think needs to be discussed a bit more is the use of terminology and the use of SEND classifications. I know you're going to probably ask us a bit more about that later, so I'll leave it there for now. But I think that's a really important issue.
John Reilly 23:15
Just picking up on the previous question, and I think a point from Gary, which I would agree with, around the knowledge of the classroom teachers to meet the needs of all of their young people. I wholeheartedly agree with that. But just to be different, I think what happens is that in too many cases, the mainstream classroom is a really frightening on the helpful environment for young people with SEND classrooms are not set up in a way that welcomes them, accommodates their needs and supports their learning. And what you see in mainstream as a result of that, and quite often it's led by a sensory overload, is a spike in behaviors. And if you speak to mainstream classic teachers, the number one thing that all teachers rail about is behavior. So as soon as you see a young person in the classroom who's struggling, they'll communicate that struggle through their behavior to you, and then the school's response is quite often, well, they can't be in that classroom, or we start down a path of exclusion. And we all know that, you know, the awful stats behind young people exclude it, and the huge number of people, young people who have SEND who fall into that so I do think there is a real emphasis and an onus on us now to take ownership of how we do things and change the narrative around they're poorly behaved. They're misbehaving. What are we going to do with them? And look at ways we can actively accommodate and support and I think I do take the point that special schools have a job to do to. In and work with mainstream schools, but sometimes there's a massive I find reluctance. We're often seen as telling people what to do. And you know, I get the pressures that mainstream head teachers are under. I SENCO as many if you are, I think that you will understand that there can be attention. Sometimes you go to your leadership team, if you're not on it, and you ask for something and you're told no, or there's a sort of a frown. I think there are a lot of pressures to sort of to counter. I'm not sure about the rise of invisible SEND because we're supporting some very complex and very vulnerable young people. But what we are saying, and what we do know, is that the pressure on places is just immense. It's huge. As a school, we get somewhere upwards of 2530, 35 consults for every place that we have at our school and that system is, is wrong. I spend 345, days a month in tribunals putting arguments forward why we can't meet need. And quite often, you know, the parental success rate at tribunals is very high. We're directed to take the child, and you sort of think, well, at what point is enough enough? You know, at what point is this system that we just cannot provide a high quality of education for all. Yeah, I don't know if that's helpful or not. That's just the reality on the ground. I think at times...
Samantha Booth 26:30
Sorry, go on as briefly, because I'm just going to move on to the next one, if that's all right. Thank you.
Lorna Beard 26:34
Okay. I don't think it's so much invisible, but what I think it is is that a multi layered children have multi layered needs so often it presents as an SEMH need, but actually it could, because there's a lack of diagnosis, or there's a lack of provision around a need before that, that has meant that that child has then started to exhibit SEMH. And actually that goes back to that point. The early the intervention, the better, because then you see the true picture and the true profile of the child, and it stops it escalating into something else.
Samantha Booth 27:07
Thank you. Susana, I just wanted to talk about the term SEND and whether it's lost its utility and other other taxonomies that we should be using.
Dr Susana Castro-Kemp 27:15
Thank you. In my work, in in academic research, we do a lot of research with other countries. We try to learn from the evidence available in other countries. And what we do know is that in many other places, there are currently looking at policy level to alternative terms for cents. So the short answer to that is yes, there that discussion is being held. And for example, Finland and Norway have recently changed their policy, their policy and the their classifications for what we call SEND are slightly different, as in, they're not focused on the child, they're more focused on the environment, so they have different levels of support from the environment that children may or may not need, and that applies to all children. So they are shifting from talking about children with different types of needs to different types of support that may be needed in different situations. And I think, you know, I'm not sure that is the solution. That's not what I am suggesting. But certainly, I think there are things to be learned from from this exercise, from my point of view and my own research, and the last 10 years I've been this is, has been my focus. Really, there are some other classification systems around the world. One of them has actually been endorsed by the World Health Organization. It's the ICF, which stands for International Classification of functioning Disability and Health I'm not going to go into much detail about that, but what I can tell you is that their system has been endorsed by law in many other countries, and the main difference is that it focuses on participation and engagement in everyday life. So what some other countries have done is that they look at how children participate in everyday life, in their daily routines, and they look at clusters of participation. And this relates to, you know, everyday life demands like dressing, playing, reading, doing domestic chores, but also aspects of the environment, the support of the family, the support of the school, etc. And there's a proper taxonomy to describe all these issues and children are allocated to different support services depending on their pattern of participation, need or strength, because it highlights the strengths as well, which I think is quite powerful, rather than on a specific diagnosis. And I just want to end with this. Diagnosis can is really important, and can be really important, particularly for identity issues, but often is not sufficient. And all of us who have worked with children with special educational needs know that there are coexisting needs most of the times, and that children have multiple diagnosis most of the times, and that there is a large group of children who actually we cannot diagnose because the needs are so complex and so and there's so many layers and so for intervention purposes, what the evidence shows, and I'm just talking from an evidence point of view, focusing on the type of need within the child, slash label, slash diagnosis may not be very helpful. So I think this is a discussion that we need to continue to have, and these classifications are also lend themselves better to cross disciplinary work, and we are currently trialing that with a with one local authority, and hopefully we'll be able to share some results soon.
Samantha Booth 31:04
Thank you. Kimmy, I just wanted to ask about looking forward. How can services plan for the long term, at the moment, in the kind of Versailles situation that we're in, and also with a potential change in government, possibly later this year?
Kimmy Rihal 31:20
Can everyone hear me? Okay, yes, great. I think one thing I really want to focus on is kind of strategic alliances, and how important it really is to involve, you know, not just possibly other other school leaders, but actually thinking about whether that's charity, that's kind of social enterprises, and actually how they can become more involved us here at the Global Equality collective and been collecting surveys, and also kind of really thinking about the kind of culture, the belonging, but also something around, kind of the self identification now, of SEND as well, which I guess adds further complexities. So really I just think for us, it's thinking about, actually, how else can we partner with others? And and think kind of quite creatively. And that doesn't necessarily need to be kind of funding related, as we know, there's such a strain at the moment.
Samantha Booth 32:09
Thank you. I'm just going to open up to Q and A now, if that's all right, we've got 10 minutes left, so if you could just please put your hands up. Hannah has got a mic, and she will bring it over. And please only ask the question once you've got the mic, if you just go to this gentleman down here first, I'm going to take two at a time, if that's all right, so keep your hand raised if you do have a question.
Audience Member 1 32:28
Hello. I'm chair of governors of a small infant school in Derbyshire, but I also work with on my professional role with all types of schools across the area. One of the things which, and part of this may well be terminology. But actually, even with the special schools I've worked with, a large number of people who are working with our Sen kids are not professional teachers. They are teaching assistants. And if I look at the teaching assistants in my infant school, a lot of them were appointed to help put up signage in the classroom, etc, and tidy up after the tip. They didn't have the skills initially to work with some of our most severe and I'm looking at in I'm sure what you've seen is behaviors which we used to only see in secondary schools, is now happening in primary schools and even in our infant school. You sort of think there's behaviors there which we wouldn't have expected to see in this infant school. And I look at some of the Ask teaching assistants who are off sick because of the stress of handling some of the kids they've been and training and development is all but you sort of look and think in our schools, yes, we've got a lot of money coming in question mark, but by definition, we're tending to put our lowest cost resource to meet those needs.
Gary Aubin 34:15
I think that challenge is very familiar to probably all of us, and certainly to me around actually, firstly, sort of credit to those TAs, as I appreciate his implied in what you're saying for being some of the most caring, resilient, hardworking and lowest paid staff in our schools. So as I appreciate his implied in what you're saying, but was worth stating, but actually it's an issue if the children with the greatest need are getting the least time, attention interactions with their teacher, as previous research from UCL and others have suggested they do.
Lorna Beard 34:46
It's a big problem, I agree. And the change in role for the TA that has gone from a teaching teachers assistant to a teaching assistant, and that that's a very subtle change, but a big change on the ground, means. That we need to be really investing in those as and professionalizing those roles again. And there was a move pre covid to professionalize with ta standards came in, and that seems to have been lost again. We at Mason, we have our largest contract is with the DfE, and is the whole school SEND contract. And I can see and she would kill me if she didn't point it. She's there, and we've got to stand here today, so go and find them. Okay, but that is incredibly powerful for upskilling some of those TAs. It was a workforce development program, but it was primarily set at teachers, but we're finding more and more use for it now, with support staff. So the other thing that I would say is there are funded, funded offers out there for school staff and for schools make the most of it, because that funding is there. It is your right. It's your staff's right. Go and go and use them. And those might help. It's not going to change the problem, but it's a free offer that might help a funded offer.
Samantha Booth 36:06
So just going to quickly take one more question, then we can come back to that definitely. I just want to make sure we're getting as many in.
Audience Member 2 36:09
Good morning everyone Diana, senior vice principal in SENCO as well in secondary school, just wanted to share. Obviously, it was very interesting to hear your comments and also say from public here, when you talked about issues in Addington school, we all relate to that. What I've noticed is that where we have got success stories is where parenting is working, and where we don't and we're absolutely stuck is where parenting is not working. We also know the agencies that should be supporting schools in working with parents are not always there with their capacity or even knowledge, I find sometimes. So I just wonder, perhaps from academia, if there's any research that we can tap into, or any training, or indeed, anything to help us working with parents, to help us working with their children. Thank you.
Dr Susana Castro-Kemp 36:59
That's a really good point, and certainly work with parents is very, very important, and the research shows that, over and over again, obviously having a supportive family is a protective factor, and so children generally, with all the wonderful exceptions, generally, if children have that supportive environment, they are more likely to do better. But what the research shows as well. And this is clear evidence from large scale quantitative studies that at primary school level and pre adolescence, sort of face the number one predictor of school belonging, which is a great indicator of academic success, is actually the teacher child relationship. And I think this is incredibly powerful, because if we actually manage to get that right, and if we have an effective early childhood intervention system in place, which we don't, but if we have that, teachers can actually make a massive difference in those crucial years, but we are in a situation where, especially now, many children can't even access proper early childhood education, let alone early childhood intervention, which is a much wider and complex and holistic set of services that should be in place for young children. We do have offer some training at UCL, but I don't think, I mean that's, that's, that's a quick fix.
Gary Aubin 38:28
I think, can I add, if that's alright, about it's very we all know how life can be quite hard sometimes for parents and families of children with SEND. I don't think that sense of empathy is always felt by every staff member, not looking to sort of Vi anyone, everyone's working under great stress, but actually us not walking past comments that are about sort of easy, blaming of families, not suggesting for a moment, you're doing that, by the way, but, but, you know, actually calling out colleagues when we're saying, Actually, we don't know what that home life is like for that child. Actually, let's assume the best. Let's assume those families are doing the best with the resources and skills and support that they have around them, and think about our own place in that that's really hard, clearly, but I think that's our one of our duties, to advocate for the families that we don't see what life's like at home.
John Reilly 39:14
I, can I just add to that, I think, experience over the last couple of years with setting up a new school showed that we put a huge amount of time and emphasis and training into the school. We set the school up, we trained the staff, we got the curriculum, we thought we were okay, and actually, after about two years, we started going, we're not going to make a difference unless we can work with families, unless we can develop relationships in the home, and get parents part of their child's education and a real active part in that. And we had to develop our own family strategy around that, as a policy, as a principle, and when you start scratching the surface of that and what. Really means it is also quite frightening at times, as well, of of the experiences in the family home and the knowledge and the support that families can give or don't give, as a really good example of that, we we have a family support team. We're out in homes we're putting beds up, putting locks on doors. We're really trying to support our families, to support their child, but we also found that in doing that, the levels and I work in South London, but the levels of social economic deprivation of families is frightening. We had to set up as a school. We set up a food stop as a school. And I thought, you know, I've been a teacher a long time. What type of society allows that to happen? And you know, we have now got nearly 50% of our parents requesting parcels on a weekly basis. And when you understand the pressures that families are under, you know, supporting a child with very complex needs, but also just dealing with life, it's really, really tough, and unless you can build that culture of support and positivity with your parents and understand that this isn't about blaming anybody having a go at anybody, but this is just about genuinely helping. I think you're not on to try to transform lives. You know that you really do need to put that as a big emphasis. And you know, we, we, I think we learned that the hard way after two years of thinking, actually, you know, sitting back and thinking, actually, our school's pretty good, but you know, we, we were just not doing enough.
Samantha Booth 41:38
There is also - sorry - I'm just gonna sorry to ensure I'm just gonna go for one last question. But please, question, but please yeah, really quickly. Thank you.
Audience Member 3 41:45
Yes. My name is Mark. I'm a SENCO secondary, secondary SENCO in Chester, quick question for the panel, what are your thoughts on the role of progress, eight in creating a results driven schism in many secondary school leadership between attainment and provision. Does this need addressing at a higher level?
Samantha Booth 42:04
Thank you, and sorry I missed a lady over there earlier, but please do come up at the end and ask your question. Does anybody really quickly want to address that?
Gary Aubin 42:15
Give me three. I'll do one sentence that's alright, which is, I think it's better to remember the old CD borderline. Let's just chase the C's progress means we should be chasing every grade. But I think in terms of what curricular choices we give our children, we have to, you know, head teachers, understandably, working within the system, are putting pupils on courses that maybe aren't always in their best interest, because performance tables very real pressure. Don't blame heads. It's a, it's a, it's not a purpose system by any means, clearly brilliant.
Samantha Booth 42:41
Any other questions, please do come and ask the panelists. I'm sure they'd be happy to chat afterwards that way. Yeah, if we could just give a big round of applause say thank you to our panelists today.
