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Will it make any difference though?

(9 Posts)
MartavTaurus Sat 17-Jan-26 13:12:02

Education.
Yesterday, Bridget Phillipson announced a £200 million investment to train teachers to support children with SEND in schools in England.

I'm 100% behind every child gaining opportunities to help them achieve their best and to thrive.

But, and I think I'm right here, the £200 million is for all class teachers from nursery up to be trained in SEND so they can adapt their teaching to meet the wider range of needs in the classroom.

Not great for class teachers when they're already under so much pressure. Not a great initiative in a class of 30 children. As I see it, it's not the lack of training that's the problem, it's the lack of additional expert teachers in this field.

So why not spend some of that 20%VAT added to school fees to pay for MORE teachers?

JaneJudge Sat 17-Jan-26 13:20:54

or the alternative to train and pay teaching assistants properly?
but is this a way of justifying the removal of EHCPs from pupils with deemed 'lesser' needs? and therefore cutting funding to those classrooms from SEND funding?

Galaxy Sat 17-Jan-26 13:24:45

My gut feel is they are going to make EHCP s more and more difficult.
Some children need to be in specialist settings. Not all, not many, but some, and you can throw all the money at it you want and those children will still be failed.

Lathyrus3 Sat 17-Jan-26 13:34:22

Funnily enough I was only this morning, in an ideal moment, thinking about what we used to call differentiation.

When we used different techniques to respond to children’s individual learning needs .

Before the sausage factory of the National Curriculum, Sats, league tables and the one size fits all philosophy ( and if it doesn’t there’s something wrong with the child not the task)

But I guess this will be about more and better sausages🙄

Lathyrus3 Sat 17-Jan-26 13:34:42

idle moment 🤣🤣🤣

DaisyAnneReturns Sat 17-Jan-26 13:35:10

That’s an interesting point and a favourite "issue to be explored" of mine.

One thing that some Nordic countries do differently is focus on supporting the individual child, but without expecting the class teacher to do it all. In Finland, for example, schools have specialist teachers who work alongside classroom teachers to provide extra support where it’s needed. Class teachers still get training, but the idea is that children with additional needs have access to a team, not just one person.

This model is funded as part of the core education system, rather than as an add-on, which makes it sustainable and ensures that both teachers and children get the support they need.

JaneJudge Sat 17-Jan-26 13:43:02

Quite Galaxy. Inclusion doesn't mean mainstream in loads of cases. It's such a arrow minded, lazy model

Rosie51 Sat 17-Jan-26 13:43:21

I rather fear your gut is right Galaxy. As someone with a grandchild who attends a school which caters exclusively to children with complex, low incidence special educational needs, I saw the immediate improvement a specialist setting can achieve. We're 'lucky' that my grandchild's complex needs were finally acknowledged because mainstream education, even in the 'special unit' wasn't working at all.

Oreo Sat 17-Jan-26 16:02:52

There’s never been even half enough money spent in this field despite all the talk in Parliament from successive governments.
It’s a national disgrace.