NASUWT: Ofsted scapegoating teachers
NASUWT: Ofsted scapegoating teachers
Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, the largest teachers’ union, comments on the Ofsted publication Special Educational Needs and Disability Review:
“The Ofsted report raises some important issues about the identification of SEN [special educational needs] within the education system and these merit careful consideration.
“It is unacceptable to scapegoat teachers for the variability in identifying pupils with SEN and ensuring their complex needs are met.
“High quality health and social care services are needed to remove barriers to learning and support pupils with complex and severe special needs.
“However the looming cuts to children’s services, proposed by the coalition government, will drastically affect the ability of children with SEN to receive the support they are entitled to.
“It has long been recognised that pupils with SEN after the age of 16 often do not get the support they need once they have left compulsory education.
“The coalition government’s free-for-all approach to 14-19 education will fracture the system and threatens to reverse the positive steps that had been taken to support this group of particularly vulnerable young people.”
