‘I’m a primary school teacher – having more SEND pupils is an impossible task’ ...Middle East

Primary school teacher Beverley Alderson has nearly 40 years of classroom experience, but even she thinks teaching more children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in mainstream schools is an “impossible task”.

The Devon-based teacher said the last few years have already seen a rise in children with more severe needs in mainstream classrooms, coupled with pressure on school budgets leading to staff redundancies.

“We’ve got a perfect storm of more need coming into school and fewer staff,” she warned, adding that increasing the number of SEND pupils in mainstream schools would make teaching “impossible” due to the lack of funding and support.

Ms Alderson warned that shifting provision towards mainstream schools could trigger the “mass migration” of teachers at a time when recruitment and retention is already under huge pressure.

It comes as parents and teachers are anticipating a major overhaul to the SEND system, with the Government expected to move more children with additional needs into mainstream schools and reserve specialist provision for the most complex cases.

A white paper outlining the reforms had been due this autumn, but was delayed until January 2026 at the eleventh hour, leaving teachers and parents in limbo.

Teachers aren’t ready for SEND overhaul

New research shows Ms Alderson has good reason to feel anxious about the shift, with just 13 per cent of teacher training organisations saying teachers are ready to meet the Government’s ambition to raise the complexity threshold for pupils with SEND entering mainstream schools.

A survey by the National Association of School-Based Teacher Trainers (NASBTT), shared exclusively with The i Paper, found that a further 65 per cent of initial teacher training (ITT) providers said teachers are not prepared, while 13 per cent said maybe and 8 per cent responded that they did not know.

The survey of 75 providers across England, taken this autumn, also found that over a third said they were not prepared to help trainees meet the needs of more SEND pupils in mainstream classrooms.

Just 39 per cent said they were ready for the policy change, while 36 per cent said they were not, and 25 per cent said they did not know.

NASBTT’s chief executive, Emma Hollis, said there is “too much unknown at the moment” to properly enable teachers and training providers to prepare for the SEND overhaul.

“There isn’t a clear idea of what’s happening, when it’s happening, what the timescales are and exactly what the expectations are. I think possibly the white paper would have given us some of that clarity, and maybe still will,” she said.

“At the moment, we know there is an ambition and an expectation that the complexity threshold will be raised. Beyond that, there’s not a lot of detail to know what that’s going to mean. And therefore, I think that’s where the hesitation in terms of preparedness comes from, because you can’t prepare for something you don’t know.”

Hollis said that in the interim, teacher training organisations have been increasing the focus of SEND in their programmes, particularly by building SEND through every aspect of training rather than treating it as an “afterthought”.

Warning over ‘mass exodus’ of teachers

Part of the wider policy of improving mainstream education, revealed by The i Paper earlier this year, is to bolster classroom training so that all teachers become SEND teachers.

But Ms Alderson, who is also on the National Executive Committee for the NASUWT teachers’ union, said that all teachers have been SEND-qualified for years.

“I’ve never – in my whole career of 36 years – not had special needs pupils in my classroom that are my responsibility,” she said.

The difference now, she said, is that teachers are increasingly having to manage the paperwork that goes alongside SEND, as well as ensuring that pupils with education, health and care plans (EHCPs) hit their targets. These are documents that describe an individual child’s needs and unlock council funding.

But Ms Alderson said teachers are taking on extra responsibility with less help from teaching assistants due to school funding issues, sparking widespread redundancies.

square SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS

SEND reform deadlock 'a threat to children' with talks 'going around in circles'

Ms Alderson welcomed the Government’s plan to invest in SEND units at mainstream schools, which provide specialist teaching and support for small groups of pupils with specific needs. But she warned that shifting provision towards mainstream classrooms would be “impossible” for teachers to manage, with many already teaching around 15 pupils with additional needs.

She said: “I just think there will be a mass exodus of teachers from classrooms because the job is harder and harder. There’s more and more pressure, and SEND pupils dysregulate when they’re unhappy.

“It’s not always bad behaviour…Some pupils are just reacting to an awful situation where their needs are not being met, and they just can’t cope.

“If there’s more and more of those in the classroom, doing that formal curriculum that we have now – doing grammar that is meaningless to them, for example – then that’s not appropriate.”

Delays ‘fuelling anxiety’

Daniel Kebede, general secretary, National Education Union (NEU), said teachers need “clarity” from the Government on what mainstream inclusion means, adding that delaying the reforms is “fuelling anxiety for educators and parents around what the changes will mean”.

Teachers already have a “significant amount” of SEND training, but they are faced with other barriers, such as access to specialists, class sizes, loss of TAs and curriculum pressures, he said.

But Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said the Government has a “Herculean task” ahead of reforming the SEND system, which should involve training on a “huge scale”.

He said: “We have yet to see the Government’s plans, but if it intends to raise the complexity threshold for SEND pupils in mainstream schools, it will clearly need to ensure that all teachers are confident in delivering this provision.

“This will mean that training will be required on a huge scale and that training providers will need to develop suitable programmes and resources. None of this will happen overnight and will require significant investment.”

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Matt Wrack, general secretary of NASUWT, said that teachers in mainstream schools “do not currently get the support they need to accommodate children with more complex needs”.

“The only way to sustainably educate more children with SEND in mainstream settings is to ensure a significant increase in support for schools, both within and beyond each setting,” he said.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “This Government inherited a SEND system on its knees, with thousands of families struggling to get the right support. We’re determined to put that right by improving mainstream inclusion so every child can thrive at their local school.

“We’ve held over 100 listening sessions with families and will continue engaging parents as we deliver reform through the Schools White Paper.

“We’re already making progress – with better training for teachers, £740m for more specialist places, earlier intervention for speech and language needs, and SEND leads in every Best Start Family Hub.”

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