nasen is to receive £3.4 million over 2 years from the Department for Education as part of their recent success in a bid to support the workforce in SEND.

Working alongside strategic partner, University College London’s (UCL) Centre for Inclusive Education, and other the exciting new project will seek to:

  1. drive education institutions to prioritise SEND within their continuing professional development and school improvement plans including facilitating greater links between mainstream and special schools.
  2. equip schools to identify and meet their training needs, so that they can go on to deliver high quality teaching in SEND.
  3. build the skills of teachers working in mainstream and special schools and of SENCOs and teachers of classes of children and young people with sensory impairments by promoting best practice.
  4. identify and respond to any gaps in the training and resources available to schools.

This project will build on existing work undertaken by the Whole School SEND Consortium to train over 500 practitioners in the use of the SEND Review and will see a number of school improvements and specialist organisations come together to build on an existing community of practice of more than 4000 schools, which aims to reach at least 10,000 schools over the next two years through the creation of eight school-led regional hubs across England. The hubs will work to bring together local SEND networks to support school improvement within their region.