Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (Training in Schools)

1st reading
Tuesday 8th July 2025 Commons Chamber

Motion for leave to bring in a Bill (Standing Order No. 23)

15:38

[Nesil Caliskan (Barking) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the evaluation of training about special educational needs and disabilities in initial teacher education; to require training about special education needs and disabilities for certain persons working in schools as part of their continuing professional development; and for connected purposes.

May I first remark on how touching the tributes we just heard were? Every child deserves an inclusive education in an environment that enables them to thrive. Every child should have teachers and support staff who understand their needs and have the professional capacity and skills to care for and teach each child. I propose this Bill because sadly that is not the experience of many children with special educational needs living in my constituency. Children in Barking and Dagenham have been let down because the national SEND system is broken. Across the country, parents feel hopeless and teachers are overwhelmed.

Last night, my constituency neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Margaret Mullane) secured an important debate in this House on SEND. She highlighted that requests for education, health and care plans in Barking and Dagenham doubled in 2022—an increase that was four times the national average. I know that improving the life chances of children, regardless of their background or needs, is central to the Labour Government’s mission. However, we cannot achieve it without fixing special educational needs support. As my Bill sets out, requiring compulsory SEND training for teachers and teaching staff would provide them with the skills they need to educate our children.

Initial teacher education and continued professional development programmes have no dedicated SEND training. SEND seminars and sessions are woven into the existing curriculum but fail to give teachers the expertise they need to support SEND children. The depth and practical application of existing training is often too variable, and many teachers feel underprepared. Teachers require professional expertise to effectively provide wraparound support for all children, but I am afraid children with SEND are instead forced into an overstretched EHCP process managed by overburdened local authorities because mainstream school support has been stripped away after 14 years of Conservative cuts.

When I visit schools and meet parents in my constituency—I recently held a coffee morning attended by more than 100 people—I hear the same thing over and over again: early help makes a big difference. Early help can happen only with appropriately trained teachers with the skills to identify children in need. The evidence overwhelmingly shows that ensuring a child receives speech and language support, for example, would reduce behavioural issues in children with SEND, making a mainstream setting more successful for many children who might otherwise be excluded from school. SEND children are five times more likely to be excluded and have some of the widest attainment gaps of any demographic, impacting on earning potential and overall life chances. It does not have to be that way.

With more than 50% of students with an EHCP being in mainstream schools, the current system is letting down children who have special educational needs and disabilities. Schools are trying their best, but the truth is that teachers feel ill-equipped to provide support for children with SEND. One teacher in Barking and Dagenham told me about the four-hour training seminar on SEND that they attended, but that was their only training, followed by a “get on with it” attitude from the education sector. The lack of training means that well-meaning teachers inevitably create an exclusive education environment, resulting in nine out of 10 children with SEND being left behind. This is a two-tier education system, working against our children who have the greatest need.

Early intervention must be at the core of the Government’s SEND strategy, but it will not be successful if it is left only to special educational needs co-ordinators and teaching assistants, and this Bill seeks to address that. For most schools, a dedicated SENCO on the school’s senior leadership team is a nice to have, rather than a must have. Parents—certainly those I have met in my constituency—are often left wondering who they can turn to as they fight to get the support that their child deserves. One parent in my constituency told me about the exhausting decade they have had fighting for an EHCP for their son, who has autism. After five years of school becoming too difficult a challenge for her son once he started secondary school, in 2020 her little boy was referred by the NHS to neurology. It took until 2024 for a doctor to confirm that he also had epilepsy, which was causing brain seizures resulting in short absences. The point here, which the little boy’s mother made to me, is that her child was clearly struggling at school for years, finding it difficult to focus. That was apparent before the 10-year fight to secure an EHCP for her son, which she only managed to do towards the end of his time at secondary school. This little boy was in mainstream school for 10 years, being taught by teachers with inadequate SEND training. His mother feels that teachers equipped with better skills and training on SEND would have identified her child’s needs sooner, and could have helped him earlier.

SEND support for children is a complicated picture that requires input from different agencies, and parents must always be at the heart of any discussion or decision about SEND support for their child. That is especially true for the many children who will, and do, fall short of the statutory duty to secure an EHCP. With the lack of specialist support or training for teaching staff in mainstream schools, those children are too often left unsupported. Of course, for some children, access to specialist SEND schools is the most appropriate fit; however, the majority of SEND children are in mainstream schools. We must therefore recognise that our schools should fundamentally shift to being better equipped to support children with SEND, with teachers who are better trained, because SEND children deserve the opportunity to succeed in our mainstream schools.

Being a good teacher, or good at any of the professions that look after and teach our children, takes a special kind of person. The responsibility these people hold is greater than their responsibility to any individual child; they are helping raise and educate the next generation in our communities, and shaping our society—a society in which I want everyone to thrive and to which I want everyone to contribute, including those with SEND. This Bill supports teachers to do their job properly. They deserve adequate training, enabling them to deliver the early help that children with SEND need. I ask hon. Members from across the House for their support for this Bill, so that we can begin to fix the broken SEND system in this country.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Nesil Caliskan, Anna Dixon, Chris Ward, Chris Kane, Mr Clive Betts, Danny Beales, Daniel Francis, Dawn Butler, Jen Craft, Lloyd Hatton and Sarah Hall present the Bill.

Nesil Caliskan accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 12 September, and to be printed (Bill 281).