Penny Swain reflects on last week’s Spending Review and what it could mean for SEND support in our schools – and how Supporting Education Group can help.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ recent Spending Review, which sets out government spending plans for the next three years, raised many questions for school leaders.
While the DfE’s budget is set to get a real-terms increase of 1.5%, offering schools a degree of predictability in their budget management, much of that uplift is already accounted for in inflation and specific commitments such as free school meals.
There are also concerns about how budgets will absorb big spending priorities such as SEND.
The big questions and concerns raised by the spending review should be answered more fully in the autumn White Paper, which will set out the government’s approach to SEND reform and, according to some media reports, wider aspects of the education system. I’m sure we will all look forward to that with bated breath.
How Supporting Education Group can help
In the meantime, it’s worth setting out what we can do to support schools and education professionals to more effectively – and cost effectively – address the enormous growth in pupils with SEND needs.
Supporting Education Group is certainly in the forefront of these efforts, with SEND being a central priority for many of our businesses.
Enabling support staff
Support staff have for many years played a central role in supporting the education of children and young people, and with the growth in SEND they have become ever more vital.
Being able to effectively support the social and emotional health (SEMH) of pupils is a pressing need and should be a key part of the toolkit for support staff. Thrive, in partnership with Teaching Personnel, is making this happen.
Understanding behaviour – skills and strategies course
Through this new introductory skills and strategies course, Thrive is creating a growing pool of supply staff ready to support schools from September.
This course, which is now available to all Teaching Personnel educators through its CPD Academy, is designed to equip them to address the social and emotional needs of the children and young people they work with.
Through the course, educators learn about practical, relationship-based strategies that support pupils with their needs, while contributing to happier classrooms and improved engagement.
The impact
Thrive-engaged schools are already seeing the positive impact their training programme is having on the social and emotional needs of their pupils. Interim findings from 1,700 schools using Thrive show that these schools have 27% fewer exclusions than the national average. The hope is that schools using these Thrive-trained teachers and teaching assistants will also see positive results.
Next steps for SEND support
So, while the Spending Review prompted much uncertainty for schools, what’s clear from the work of Supporting Education Group is that there is much we can do to improve the support of SEND in our classrooms.