For SEND students, reliable technology doesn’t just help them complete tasks – it changes how they see themselves as learners. New research reveals why consistency matters more than features, training, or even cost.
Ask a secondary teacher what their biggest technology worry is for SEND students and the answer isn’t cost, or training, or device shortages. It’s simpler than that: the technology that’s supposed to help doesn’t always work. And when it doesn’t, the students who pay the heaviest price are the ones who can least afford to.
That’s the central finding of a new research report, Building Confidence, Enabling Success, commissioned by ASUS Education and based on a survey of 800 secondary teachers across the UK. It’s a study that starts with a deceptively practical question – how does device reliability affect SEND students? – and arrives somewhere more uncomfortable.
Device reliability, it turns out, isn’t a technical problem. It’s an equity problem.
That conclusion carries particular weight in the wake of this spring’s schools White Paper, Every Child Achieving and Thriving. Among its commitments: a statutory duty for digital Individual Support Plans for every child with identified SEND, backed by £1.6bn for a new Inclusive Mainstream Fund. Schools will be expected to do more for SEND students, and much of that will be delivered digitally. Whether the devices already in classrooms are reliable enough is a question the White Paper doesn’t answer. This research does.
A hidden dependency
More than 1.7 million pupils in England now receive some form of SEND support. Over 482,000 hold Education, Health and Care Plans – twice the number a decade ago. In the classrooms where the teachers surveyed work every day, nearly two-thirds teach students with dyslexia, three-fifths work with pupils on the autism spectrum, and half teach students with ADHD or anxiety disorders.
For most of these students, technology has become quietly essential. Not specialist assistive technology requiring expensive procurement decisions – basic digital tools. A word processor. A digital planner. A keyboard instead of a pen. These are the accommodations that make classroom participation possible for many SEND pupils, and they depend entirely on one condition: the device works.
PULL QUOTE When the device fails, the accommodation disappears. There's no partial workaround when the text-to-speech software crashes
What actually happens
The statistics in the report are worth sitting with. More than half of teachers say that when technology fails, their SEND students become frustrated or anxious about using it again. Over half observe disruption to established learning routines. Nearly two in five watch pupils lose confidence in their ability to complete the task at hand. Three in ten see students fall behind lesson objectives – not because of their SEND needs, but because the tool designed to address those needs stopped working.
Over time, something more serious develops. Two in five teachers report SEND students starting to avoid technology-based tasks, and 13% describe a clear pattern of withdrawal. This matters because the direction of travel is towards more digital integration, not less. Homework, assessments and resources increasingly arrive online. A student who has learned to distrust classroom technology is, quietly, being shut out.
The contrast with mainstream students is telling. When a device crashes mid-essay, a student without SEND needs can pick up a pen and carry on. A student with dysgraphia cannot. A student with working memory difficulties may lose their train of thought in the delay. A student with anxiety may find the disruption enough to derail the rest of the lesson. The same failure lands very differently depending on who it happens to.
The cost that doesn’t appear on any budget
The report also documents what this costs teachers. In a typical week, secondary staff spend an additional two hours and twenty minutes troubleshooting technology for SEND students – time not spent teaching, planning or marking, but resolving tech problems. In a school with a hundred SEND students spread across multiple teachers, that adds up to hundreds of hours a year.
And the effects reach further into lesson planning than most school leaders probably realise. Four in ten teachers maintain backup plans specifically for anticipated technology failures. One in ten report regularly modifying or abandoning lessons because they’re not confident the required technology will hold up. Only 13% plan lessons on the straightforward assumption that the devices will work.
That last figure deserves a pause. Fewer than one in eight secondary teachers plans their SEND provision assuming the technology will simply work.
What changes when it works
Almost all teachers – 97% – report seeing SEND student confidence grow when pupils have reliable digital tools. Two-thirds say students with dyslexia, dyspraxia or ADHD perform better academically when they can depend on those tools working every time. More classroom participation, better homework completion, less anxiety about academic tasks. These are the outcomes inclusive education is designed to achieve. Reliability, it turns out, is what unlocks them.
When asked what they prioritise when choosing devices for SEND students, 63% of teachers put consistent, reliable performance first. Accessibility software pre-installed and ease of repair each came in at 42%. Only 13% prioritised lowest cost. These aren’t the priorities of people indifferent to budgets – they’re the priorities of professionals who’ve learned from experience what actually makes a difference.
The procurement question schools are avoiding
There is an uncomfortable implication for any school that selects devices primarily on upfront cost. A device that fails regularly may appear affordable at purchase. But the hidden costs – in teacher time, in anxiety, in lost learning, in the slow erosion of a SEND student's willingness to try – may outweigh any saving. Schools are, in effect, buying a problem and paying for it in a currency that doesn’t show up on a balance sheet.
It's no coincidence that ASUS commissioned this research. Its devices are engineered around precisely the priorities teachers in this survey identified. Rugged, durable construction that handles the everyday realities of school life. Scratch-resistant, spill-resistant, tamper-resistant designs built for shared classroom use. All-day battery life that doesn't require charging between lessons. Fast boot-up and consistent performance that means the device is ready when the student is. Built-in security, pre-installed accessibility software and modular components that make repair straightforward rather than a procurement headache. Reliability, in other words, treated as a design principle rather than an afterthought.
When choosing technology for SEND provision, the question to ask isn’t “what does it cost?” It’s “will it work every time a SEND student needs it?” If the answer is uncertain, that uncertainty has a price – and it’s paid by the students who can least afford it.
Key findings: Building Confidence, Enabling Success
54% of teachers see SEND students’ learning disrupted by technology failures at least two to three times a month.
55% report frustration or anxiety in SEND students following device failures and 38% observe a loss of confidence.
Teachers spend an average of 2 hours 20 minutes per week troubleshooting technology for SEND students beyond mainstream needs.
97% of teachers report seeing SEND student confidence grow when they have reliable access to digital tools.
63% of teachers rank consistent, reliable performance as their top priority when choosing devices for SEND students. Only 13% prioritise lowest cost.
Download the full report
Building Confidence, Enabling Success – How device reliability shapes SEND student outcomes in secondary schools is available to download free of charge.
Scan the QR code on this page to access the full report, including all survey data, findings by SEND condition and practical guidance for school procurement decisions.
Visit ASUS Education on stand L6, to find out how more.