Page 69 - SEN116 January-February 2022

Petition watch
Require School SENCOs to be fully
qualified for the role
School senco’s to be qualified before they take the role
and they must have done in depth training on special educational needs. The current role can be filled by a person not qualified for the role and they have 3 years to qualify.
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/591092
Government Response:
The Government is determined to improve outcomes for children and young people with SEND and focus on preparing them for adult life. We have established the SEND Review, which aims to improve experiences of the SEND system, with services working in co- production with children, young people and parents, and ensure we target and distribute resources in a way that best ensures children’s needs are met quickly and effectively. Once finalised, proposals will be published for full public consultation.
All maintained schools must have a qualified teacher that is designated as the Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO). In collaboration with the headteacher and governing body, SENCOs play a vital role in determining the strategic development of SEND policy and provision in the school. The SENCO has a key role in ensuring children and young people with SEND get the support they need as early as possible and are able to achieve the best outcomes. That is why ensuring SENCOs are fully qualified for their role is essential.
SENCOS must complete the National Award for Special Educational Needs Coordination (NASENCO) within 3 years of appointment. This must be a postgraduate course accredited by a recognised higher education provider. To ensure that SENCOs receive the training required to meet the needs
of children and young people with SEND, the National College for Teaching and Leadership has worked with providers to develop a set of learning outcomes. To achieve the award, SENCOs must be able to demonstrate to the provider that they are able to achieve the learning outcomes by the end
of the programme. These learning outcomes can be accessed at www.gov.uk.
Through the SEND Review, this Government continues to prioritise the outcomes for children and young people with SEND and focus on preparing them for adult life.
Department of Education
Do not impose any new requirements
on parents who are home educating
The Education Committee has recently recommended introducing a statutory home educated register, and greater assessment of home educated children. These recommendations are in contrast to the views of many parents who home educate.
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/594065
Government Response:
The Education Select Committee is a Parliamentary Committee, independent of Government and its recommendations are not Government policy. Government acknowledges the recently published House of Commons Education Committee report on ‘Strengthening Home Education’ (published on 26 July) and is currently considering its response to the Committee’s recommendations, which we will provide to the Committee in due course. The Department will always consider the views of stakeholders alongside a broad range of evidence when developing elective home education policy.
We fully support the right of parents to educate
their children at home and most who do so educate their children very well, sometimes in challenging circumstances. However, while many home educated children will be receiving a very good education by dedicated parents, who deserve support, there will be others who are deemed to be ‘home educated’ but, in reality, most or entirely all of their education is through attendance at unsuitable settings, such as illegal unregistered independent schools. There is also likely to be a number of children for whom the education being provided is unsuitable, because their parents cannot educate them effectively at home or the child is simply not being educated.
With the interests of these vulnerable children in mind,
we therefore in April 2019 launched a consultation on proposals to introduce local authority registers of children not attending registered independent or state-funded schools, and support for home-educating families (should they want it). This closed on 24 June 2019.
The Government’s intention with these proposals
has always been to ensure that they do not impede those families who are genuinely, and through choice, educating their children at home. The consultation, unlike the Education Select Committee’s report, did not feature any proposals for local authorities to
have explicit monitoring or inspection powers. With increasing numbers of children now being educated outside school there is, however, a greater need for local authorities to be able to identify these children, in order to assure themselves about the education being provided; and to offer support to those home educating parents that would like it.
We remain committed to a registration system for children not in school. A registration system will help local authorities undertake their existing duties, as well as help safeguard all children who are in scope. Further details on this, as well as on proposals for supporting home-educating families, will be in the Government’s response to the children not in school consultation, which we will publish in the coming months.
Department for Education
Create an emergency fund for ASD
(autism) & ADHD assessments
The Government should create an emergency fund to deal with waiting lists for autism & ADHD assessments for children AND adults.
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/589677 Awaiting Government response
senmagazine.co.uk SEN116
69