Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what guidance or advice her Department provides in relation to autism and SEND training for non-teaching, school-based staff and school governors.

The department has funded the Autism Education Trust (AET) since 2012 to deliver autism awareness training for early years, school and post-16 education staff. To date, the AET has provided training, through sub-contracted ‘hubs’, for more than 150,000 education staff. The training is available not just for head teachers, teachers and teaching assistants, but also for school governors and support staff such as receptionists, dining hall staff and caretakers, encouraging a ‘whole school’ approach to supporting pupils with autism. The Trust has also published national autism standards for educational settings and a competency framework for those working with children and young people with autism.

In addition to our work with the AET, the Department for Education has also supported a number of initiatives to support schools in meeting the needs of pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). We have funded the Whole School SEND consortium to develop a range of resources to support education practitioners in identifying and addressing weaknesses in provision for pupils with SEND, including a guide on the effective deployment of Teaching Assistants http://www.tareview.com/. The Whole School SEND consortium is also training SEND reviewers and is developing models of good practice in SEND provision for strategic leaders and for school governors, which will be available early next year. We have recently published a review of the research evidence and an interactive ‘what works’ resource to help schools in supporting those with SEND. These materials are freely available on the nasen’s SEND Gateway and the Education & Training Foundation Excellence Gateway.