Make children with SEND central to all education policy and end “blame” culture, psychologists advise the new government
Dr Cath Lowther (right), general secretary of the Association of Educational Psychologists, and educational psychologist Dr Joanna Stanbridge present the open letter to the DfE this morning.
The new government needs to adopt a “drastically” different approach to the education of children with special educational needs and disabilities to tackle the “crisis” facing provision, educational psychologists are warning today.
Children with SEND need to be considered as central to all education policy rather than as a “bolt-on”, with current arrangements including an overly “rigid” curriculum introduced by the last government and competitive pressures on schools contributing to difficulties.
These conclusions are contained in an open letter to Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, signed by 16 organisations including the Association of Educational Psychologists, Special Needs Jungle and Squarepeg, which was being handed in at the Department for Education today.
The detail
The letter uses an array of statistics to underline how demand for SEND support has been climbing dramatically in recent years. There has been, it states:
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By Warwick Mansell for EDUCATION UNCOVERED
Published: 3 September 2024
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