On reading the proposed SEND reforms, I couldn’t help but think yet again of the frog in boiling water analogy – you slowly turn up the heat and the frog doesn’t realise it’s being cooked.
The reforms are symptomatic of the way more responsibility and accountability have been heaped on the education system.
Although you’d be hard pressed to find someone who believes the current system works well, you’ll also find lots of people nervous to see what may come next – especially parents.
What we have now isn’t sustainable. The growth in education health and care plans (EHCPs) and support costs have pushed things (including council budgets) to breaking point.
We must approach the reforms with an open and positive mind. But it’s hard not to think they are about saving money and displacing responsibility and accountability onto our education system.
A legal duty on schools and colleges to produce new individual support plans (ISPs) for SEND learners will create lots of work, and become yet another thing for regulators to scrutinise for compliance and quality.
Consider the workload created in recent years through the increase in exam access arrangements. How far will the new £1.6 billion of funding to support inclusion go when the education sector – not least colleges – is already creaking?
Current thinking seems to be that these reforms represent bigger implications for schools than colleges.
An intended consequence is that by having less EHCPs, more children will remain in mainstream school settings and receive support through targeted or targeted plus tiers
Conversely in colleges, learners with EHCPs accessing “mainstream” provision are already the norm rather than the exception.
There is a wonderful phrase in the newly published consultation which states “we will build an education system where inclusion and high standards are two sides of the same coin.” Many FE colleges are already very close to achieving that aspiration, if not already there.
However, colleges are inclusive partly because of the lack of alternatives in post-16 settings. For many in specialist provision pre-16, transitioning to a general FE college after key stage 4 is the right thing. Equally, for many it is not, but the paucity of provision means it’s the only solution.
A key element of these reforms will be on transition, but that must not lose sight of a focus on the right setting for each individual.
Along with the aspiration to keep more students in mainstream settings is the intention to make every teacher a teacher of SEND, supported through £200 million of CPD investment over three years.
Again, it’s a great sentiment and something we’d already started to push at TSCG.
However, we need caution. In recent years we’ve asked more and more of FE teachers – embed maths and English, act as counsellors, become digital experts, turn your learners into oven-ready employees etc. Let’s not underestimate the task of becoming a teacher of SEND, given everything else that’s asked of them.
Which brings me back to the frog in the pan. Often, FE colleges are the default organisations to take ownership of complex safeguarding matters (reduction in social services); we continue to be at the brunt of the mental health crisis (pressure on health services); we have the statutory duty to meet local skills needs (but other parts of the education system do not).
The intended strength of EHCPs was the multi-agency approach (care and health along with education) with the local authority at the centre as the convener and statutory body. It hasn’t worked.
I genuinely believe the government is committed to getting the very best for every child and young person. Yet, by pushing much of the responsibility and accountability onto the education system, yet again we’re picking up the tab for failings elsewhere.
I can only agree with the views and opinion of the author on this subject. After 20 years of teaching in FE, I retired 2 years ago, in part, due to the increasing pressure and responsibilities piled on the teachers, which had started to claim its toll on my own mental health. A teacher, come educator (and no, they are not the same), counsellor, social worker…
Twenty two years ago, I was mostly concerned with making sure the students would understand how maths fits in their lives and could use it to solve everyday problems. Twenty years later, I used to walk in the classoom like an entertainer walks on a stage, trying to keep 20 teenagers engaged with the world and their own education while keeping an eye and dealing with any signs of anxieties, misbehaviour, welfare concerns, etc.
I was fortunate enough to be part of an extraordinary group of like minded individuals with a variety of backgrounds and skills who supported each other through our own individual crises, personal and professional.
The fact remains that we continue to pile up pressure on a system that is at breaking point and relies on the good will of the people working in it, and here is where I disagree with James, the frog knows it is being cooked, but it is the hope that their effort will have an impact, and the temperature will cool down soon, that keeps them in the pot.