Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will increase funding for the recruitment of specialist SEND teachers.

This government’s ambition is that all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) receive the right support to succeed in their education and as they move into adult life.

There is significant work underway to ensure there is an appropriate training offer in place to support teachers and school leaders to create an inclusive school environment. We have recently reviewed the Initial Teacher Training Core Content Framework and the Early Career Framework which includes significantly more content on adaptive teaching and supporting pupils with SEND.

A review of our National Professional Qualifications is also underway, which includes a key focus on including further best practice for teaching pupils with SEND.

This core offer is supplemented by further SEND-specific training that is easy to access at any point in your career through the Universal SEND Services contract. This programme aims to support the school and further education workforce, particularly in mainstream settings, to identify and meet the needs of children and young people with SEND, including those with autism, earlier and more effectively.

While school leaders have the autonomy and authority to make recruitment decisions, as they are best placed to understand their own context and pupils’ needs, the government is supporting them by increasing the core schools budget by £3.7 billion in 2025/26, meaning it will total £65.3 billion, compared to almost £61.6 billion in 2024/25.

This additional funding provides an above real-terms per pupil increase on the core schools budget, taking per-pupil funding to its highest ever level, enabling us to transform the SEND system.