Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve the retention of SEND specialist teachers in mainstream schools.

High-quality training is essential to supporting teacher retention, and this starts with Initial Teacher Training (ITT). In addition to the increased special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) content introduced through the Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Framework in September 2025, I am also actively working to strengthen ITT on SEND, and have convened sector experts to identify how we can further embed specialist expertise within initial teacher training to increase capacity in the system. This includes trainee placements in special schools to build greater SEND specialist capacity for new entrants in both mainstream and specialist settings.

The department is investing £200 million in our continuing professional development offer to ensure staff in every nursery, school and college receive training on SEND and inclusion, which will be supported with government-backed training materials and building on existing effective practice.

We are also investing around £1.8 billion over the next three years for local area partnerships to develop a new ‘Experts at Hand’ offer, which is designed to strengthen the capability of mainstream education settings by providing access to support specialists across health and education.