Can Relationships with Professionals in Mainstream Education Be Improved? Insights from Parent Carers of Children with Learning Disabilities Emma Foley, BA, MA, MBACP.   Introduction As debates about the inadequacies of SEND provision and funding continue, especially in the wake of a general election, this blog focuses on an important aspect: the relationships […]

What an analysis of the party manifestos says about SEN/disability and inclusion? by Professor Brahm Norwich   This blog discusses from a SEN/disability and inclusive education perspective the Education Policy Institute / Nuffield Foundation’s manifesto analysis by Jon Andrews, Shruti Khandekar, and Robbie Cruikshanks – General Election 2024 An analysis of manifesto plans […]

How to fix a broken system: Starting points for an equitable and inclusive education system in England under a new government. Francesca Peruzzo, Research Fellow in Education Policy and Equity Education Equity Initiative – University of Birmingham   With elections approaching, in this blog post I suggest three starting points for the new […]

Fair funding for pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disability in England? School funding formulas have been applied across a number of countries for at least the last 50 years. A national funding formula (NFF) was introduced in England in 2018 with the aim to provide a platform for fair funding across the country. […]

Could a new government mark the end a decade of disruption and dysfunction in SEND? Rob Webster In England, SEND policy has tended to be written in the idiom of what the sociologist, Sally Tomlinson, calls ‘benevolent humanitarianism’. The words may be warm and well-meaning, but they mask, often unsuccessfully, understrength and incomplete […]

We would like to invite you to contribute research informed blog posts relating to the forthcoming UK General Election, taking place on 4 July 2024. The SEND system is in crisis. The Government has responded by putting in place the SEND & AP Improvement plan, currently being tested in nine different Change Programme […]

You are warmly invited to our next free SEN Policy Research Forum Seminar Re-engaging with education: The causes, risks and implications of disengagement from education, and how we might do things differently. Our speakers are: Ellie Costello, Director, Square Peg Dr Ian Thompson, Co-Principal Investigator: Excluded Lives: The Political Economies of School Exclusion, […]

National policy framework for SEND and inclusion   Many commentators are currently arguing that SEND policy is in crisis. This is in spite of the reforms that were supposed to improve children’s and families’ experience of the system, and in which so much time and effort was invested in the early years of […]

Enhancing Public Dialogue about Inclusion in School Education: a Citizens’ Panel Pilot (UKRI-RSA Rethinking Public Dialogue Programme) Brahm Norwich and Rob Webster Public dialogue gives members of the public opportunities to learn about and debate important issues in a safe and respectful space. The discussions produce practical recommendations to share with the people […]

By Peter Imray This short response paper concentrates specifically on children, young people and adults (CYPA) with complex learning disabilities (CLD), a fairly new ‘category’ of LD marking those who are on the severe end of severe learning disabilities. The ‘label’ itself does not carry any special significance, other than being an indication […]

What is the consequence of more children being sent to private special schools? Gary Thomas, University of Birmingham There have been large increases in the number of children sent to non-maintained special schools in recent years. To assess the extent of this trend and its probable consequences, I and my colleagues sent Freedom […]

by Dr. Lila Kossyvaki, University of Birmingham, a.kossyvaki@bham.ac.uk   In January 2022, DfE published The reading framework: Teaching the foundations of literacy in which it was stated that Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) (p. 56): ‘provide children with moderate to severe and complex needs the best opportunity to gain functional literacy’. The document also […]

Enhancing Public Dialogue About Inclusion in School Education: involving young people with special educational needs Organisations: University of Exeter. University of Portsmouth Partners: SEN Policy Research Forum, Sortition Foundation, Involve Background information: This public dialogue project asks how English schools can be made more inclusive for children and young people with special educational needs […]

UKRI-RSA Rethinking Public Dialogue pilot projects: Enhancing the participation of young people with SEN/D in public dialogue about inclusion in school education: a citizen jury pilot. This innovative pilot will focus on the inclusive engagement of young people (YP) with SEN/disabilities (SEND) in a Citizen Jury (CJ) process on the topic of a […]

‘Inclusion is not a place you commute to’. Why accountability measures must reflect inclusion’s relative dimension. Rob Webster Reader in Education & Director of the Education Research, Innovation and Consultancy Unit, University of Portsmouth There is a seemingly contradictory model of inclusion that seems prevalent in English mainstream schools. A longitudinal study I […]