Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to ensure that School Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators have enough (a) time and (b) resources to provide support to every child.

We recognise the pivotal role that Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators (SENCOs) play in schools supporting children and young people with special education needs and disabilities (SEND). We are committed to work with unions, teachers and Ofsted to challenge and remove unnecessary workload.

We are currently developing resources specifically to support SENCOs. We are funding the Whole School Send Consortium to develop a SENCO Deployment Guide for school leaders which will include top tips and tools to help address SENCO workload challenges. This will be supported by an induction pack for new SENCOs.

Every mainstream school and academy must have a SENCO who is a qualified teacher. On 28 January 2019, we published the Teacher Recruitment and Retention Strategy and launched the Early Career Framework, which provides the starting point for a review of Initial Teacher Training content guidance. We are also reviewing the learning outcomes of the mandatory Masters level National Award in SEN Coordination to ensure the qualification reflects the changing needs of the educational system.