In England, the DfE White Paper (2022a, p. 16), proposes that by 2030 ‘every child will be taught by an excellent teacher trained in the best-evidenced teaching method to help (each) child reach their full potential’. This document also identifies a commitment to training on behaviour management, adaptive teaching, and curriculum design, with the intention of helping every teacher and leader to support all pupils to succeed, including those identified with SEN/D. This is situated in a context where reviewing and evaluating the progress of pupils with SEN/D has been found to be the least developed aspect of schools’ SEN/D support (DfE, 2021), where staff do not always know pupils well enough to take an informed pupil-centred approach when identifying needs and planning provision (Dobson & Douglas, 2020), where schools may be teaching a curriculum to pupils that is not properly sequenced or well matched to their needs, and where questions exist about what ‘success’ looks in terms of supporting children with SEN/D in mainstream school (Ofsted, 2021).

Within this context, consultation around the SEND Review: Right Support, Right Place, Right Time (DfE, 2022b), identifies the need for schools to change their cultures and practices to be more inclusive and better at identifying and supporting needs, and to improve workforce training (NASEN, 2022). However, a significant barrier to implementing the reforms is professional development of the workforce. Whilst training for SENCos in non-statutory school-age settings is being extended, the SEND review (DfE, 2022b) proposes to change mandatory SENCo training from a master’s level post graduate certificate (PGCert) to a National Professional Qualification (NPQ), where project work can be signed off by a school principal. This is relevant to the European context, since broader trends, including SENCo training and retention (Hammerness et al, 2005; Dobson & Douglas, 2020), and leadership in inclusion (Lindqvist & Nilholm, 2014; Fitzgerald & Radford, 2022) apply beyond the UK.

This presentation will report on a small-scale project that captured the experiences, explanations and impacts of students completing the mandatory National Award for Special Education Needs Co-ordination (NASENCo) course at a West Midlands university. The purpose of the research was to identify the impact the NASENCo had on student’s knowledge, skills, confidence and practice, as well as student perceptions of the current course and proposed changes, so as to inform future development and evolvement of courses, be they a more work-based NPQ or Level 7 (L7). The research questions created to drive the study were:

RQ1: What main impacts do NASENCo students identify L7 study has had on their professional practice as SENCos?

RQ2: What are NASENCo students’ experiences of studying at L7 as part of their SENCo training?

RQ3: What are the perceptions of NASENCo students of the possible links between L7 study and outcomes for SEN/D pupils?

The research adopts a post-structuralist approach. Post-structuralism argues that ‘true’ meanings, as derived from the universal systems behind them, including dominant discourses do not exist since language and culture themselves are constructed by humans, meaning they are subject to influence and modification, often based on experience or the impact and interaction of multiple factors present in the settings SENCos work within. This contrasts with structuralism which proposes that rules and approaches are applicable regardless of context and that they are thus ahistorical and non-ideological. Utilising Foucault, educating SENCos is viewed by the researchers as a political and ethical task, conceptualised as ‘a care of the world, the “true life” calling for the advent of an “other world”’ (Gros in Foucault, 2012, p. 355).

Ethical approval was applied for and granted by the Faculty for Education, Health and Wellbeing Ethics Committee in May 2023. Permission to use student pre and post course self-evaluations for the purpose of research had been designed into and secured at the outset of the course. Students from the three most recent NASENCo cohorts (N=41) were also invited to participate in the online questionnaire via an email from the project team. SENCos have a significant workload in addition to the demands NASENCo study places upon them. A mixed methodology study design, incorporating student’s self-evaluation at the beginning and end of the course and an online questionnaire was designed. This meant that once data was collected as part of their course so was not an additional task. Data was collected from three cohorts of students who had completed the recently reaccredited course at the University of Wolverhampton. In the self-evaluation, which was completed by every student before and after studying on the course, students rated each NCTL (National College of Teaching and Learning) NASENCo learning outcome as red, amber or green, providing qualitative data in the form of commentary about how these learning outcomes had been or would be progressed. Codes were assigned to each cohort and student, for example RAG pre_cohort 1_student a) to ensure anonymity. The online questionnaire was built using the University of Wolverhampton’s MS Forms tool and the link was circulated to students in the three most recent cohorts inviting them to participate. The questionnaire contained a mix of open and closed questions, generating numerical and textual data. Participation in the questionnaire was voluntary and anonymous. Data collection has now been completed. Data analysis will be conducted by entering all responses into an excel document. Researchers will work collaboratively to identify significant numerical trends, with non-parametric statistics being applied if appropriate. Commentary in the RAG charts and questionnaires will be analysed using thematic analysis to identify key themes. This will involve codes pre-identified from the literature (a-priori, deductive coding) as well as codes derived from the data itself (a-posteriori, inductive coding) (Saldana, 2016).

Whether the removal of the L7 element will impact on outcomes for SEN/D learners remains to be seen, but where international evidence has shown that master’s level learning for teachers is beneficial (Schleicher, 2011; Woore et al, 2020), this policy move seems to be focused on reducing the time and workload burden for busy SENCos doing postgraduate professional development. This research is therefore interested in exploring the benefits and realities of studying the Level-7 NASENCo course, in the context of SENCo workload and need for advocacy leadership (Done et al, in-press). While as a research team we acknowledge that parity with other NPQ‘s, for example in Leadership, and Headship is desirable for schools and other settings (Hammerness et al, 2005; Kennedy, 2016), we are concerned that the move to remove the L7 element of the award (Thomas, 2016; Woore et al., 2020) is a threat to inclusive education broadly. This is because the demands on SENCos are multiple. They are required to develop learning from a school-wide perspective (Fitzgerald and Radford, 2022). They must be aware of and sometimes challenge the binary between special and mainstream education. They need to be be leaders that change, influence and challenge. This means SENCo CPD must both address managerial aspects (effectiveness, efficiency and policy compliance) and democratic aspects (social justice, fairness and equity, equality) (Liasidou and Svenson, 2014; Kay et al, 2022). These require multiple knowledges and skills, which SENCos must develop alongside their identity and power. Data analysis will be completed early in 2023 and we expect the data to hold some of these themes, and participant detail pertaining to them, as well as additional concepts we have not anticipated. These outcomes will all be presented in this paper.

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