Gilbert: Teachers need to have more confidence

Christine Gilbert, Ofsted’s chief inspector, comments on the Ofsted report into special educational needs to the Today programme:

“Although we saw some excellent support for children with special educational needs, and a huge investment of resources, overall there needs to be a shift in direction.

“We felt that schools and teachers were well intentioned but they were over-diagnosing the problems – teachers in the classroom weren’t confident they could deal with the problems.

“We feel teachers and schools need to have more confidence themselves about looking at what are barriers to learning.”