How to make the SEND system work: our experts by experience share their advice
Too many autistic children and young people are being badly let down by the education system. The government is exploring how to change this and has set up a Neurodivergence Task and Finish Group to advise ministers on the best way to support neurodivergent pupils in mainstream education.
We want to help find the right solutions for autistic young people, so we recently convened a group of experts to participate in a round table discussion to gather evidence about what works.
Our discussion brought together autistic young people, autistic adults and parents, as well as experts from schools and colleges, university academics and charities.
This blog explains some of the key conversations we had and our key recommendations for the government to consider as it plans reforms to education and special educational needs. You can read them in full in our new report.
Key issues identified by our panel
We need to redesign the education system recognising that boosting education standards and supporting young people with SEND are aligned goals.
For too long, boosting education standards while also supporting young people with SEND have been working against each other. Holistic reform of mainstream education is needed, grounded in an understanding of neurodiversity.
Leadership from central government could support culture change.
Our experts identified that leadership from government could set a clear expectation that autistic children are not an ‘add on’ in education. They belong there; it is every teacher's job to teach them and have high aspirations for them.
Including autistic children in education requires action to create a more inclusive workforce, curriculum, environment and policies.
Children, families, schools and colleges currently grapple with a system that has not been designed to include autistic young people. Our education workforce largely lacks the autism competence, capacity and confidence needed to deliver successful autism inclusion.
Improving inclusion requires a step-change in accountability.
Mainstream accountability mechanisms should mean that autistic children are included in education, and schools and local authorities are held to account if they are not.
Moving from a system that waits for children to ‘fail’ to incentivising early support.
Young people and educators talked about early support being locked behind a system of processes, rather than available as and when children might need it to succeed in education.
The need for a range of provision to meet a range of needs, using data to plan.
We heard positive examples of many types of provision – mainstream, resource units, special schools – but that, often, special school places were lacking or poorly planned.
Our key recommendations for government
Lead culture change
Provide national leadership for a culture shift that views excellence in education and inclusion for autistic children (and all children with SEND) as fundamentally the same mission.
Deliver the building blocks of inclusion through the current education reviews
Use the curriculum and teacher training reviews to deliver the building blocks of an education system in which autistic children can be successfully included:
- An inclusive teacher training and education workforce strategy
- An inclusive curriculum and assessment system
- Inclusive education policies
- Inclusive education environments and building design.
Create a range of provision that meets a range of needs
Build on successful examples and use data better to plan provision for the children and young people in our system and joining it, from early years into adulthood.
Ensure a system of resources that means children get support before they hit crisis
Deliver a funding system that incentivises the timely provision of inclusive early support, rather than waiting for children to ‘fail’.
Gear accountability mechanisms towards inclusion
Reform accountability mechanisms – including Ofsted - to reflect expectations of inclusion.
Our principles to guide reform
As the government considers SEND reform, our participants offered some guiding principles for change in education and SEND. They agreed that young people’s and families’ voices should be heard in developing policy and practice. Reforms should be evidence-based and take a whole-child, family and community approach, recognising children are more than just their autism diagnosis, and exist in a wider context that impacts their education. Decision-makers should also use a lifetime approach, requiring policy-making that recognises the long-term costs of failure to support autistic young people to be included and achieve in education. These costs include the mental health impacts, poor employment outcomes, and welfare payments that result from negative experiences of education.
What next?
We’re hugely grateful to our panel of experts who took part in our roundtable. We will be sharing their insights and personal experiences with the Department for Education and those who are advising them. We will look for other opportunities to share our report, as well as engage with others to find the solutions autistic young people need.
About the author
Jolanta Lasota is Chief Executive of Ambitious about Autism.
