[senco-forum] Role of SENCO and Senior Management/Leadership Team

My great concern is that schools will simply assign the

> My great concern is that schools will simply assign the
> SENCo role to an existing member of the SMT.

I agree Mark - the key wording is that the Government intends that 'the
person with lead responsibility for SEN' should normally be a member of the
school's SLT / SMT.  This form of wording is transparently careful - 'person
with lead responsibility', not 'SENCO'.

This allows schools which don't recognise SEN or inclusion as
core elements of school practice to continue to keep them at the margins.

These will be the same schools that staff SEN provision through the cheapest
means possible and which expect the SENCO to teach timetabled classes for a
majority of their timetable, irrespective of the impact on their ability to
do the SENCO job properly.  Some will be the same schools where the Head
chooses to redirect nominally 'earmarked' delegated SEN funding to other
more favoured projects.

Robbing the school of an appropriately-qualified SENCO, robbing a SENCO of
time to do the job, or robbing identified children of earmarked SEN funding
are all forms of corporate educational embezzlement - following the King
John Redistribution principle.  (And you can quote me, Mary Gill.)

Still, I think that the stated intention to improve training on SEN issues
for SENCOs and teachers in general is positive.

There again, I can recall feeling positive about the assertion - within the
2001 SEN and Disability Act, I think - that OfSTED would henceforth 'inspect
for inclusion'.  But if you take any random sample of OfSTED reports from
the
past few years, you're unlikely to find the words 'inclusion' or 'inclusive'
anywhere within the body of the report.  All too often 'SEN' also seems to
garner only passing references.

As SEN practitioners, I think we've lost some ground in recent years; this
forum has been an important meeting place - somewhere to find support and
gather the strength to dig our heels in.  There is no reason, other than
institutionalised prejudice, for SEN to be under-represented at management
level.

Biff
----- Original Message -----
From: <webmaster at aylesburyvale-sec.bucks.sch.uk>
To: "Christine Taylor" <chris at taylorglenco.freeserve.co.uk>;
<senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 10:11 AM
Subject: Re: [senco-forum] Role of SENCO and Senior Management/Leadership
Team

> From: "Christine Taylor"
> <chris at taylorglenco.freeserve.co.uk>
> > importance and believe that the person taking on the lead
> > responsibility should be a teacher
> >
> > and a member of the senior leadership team in the school.
>
> My great concern is that schools will simply assign the
> SENCo role to an existing member of the SMT.
>
> I know a school which did this a couple of years back. Made
> the SENCo redundant (voluntarily), gave the responsibilities
> to an assistant head (on top of her existing workload) and
> appointed a 'senior TA' to do the 'admin'. After 2 or 3
> years they have recently appointed a proper SENCo as it was
> clear that the change had been disastrous.
>
> How many more schools will try this when the new reg's come
> in?
>
> Mark
>
>
>
> --
> Mark Norwood
> www.avssc.org
> "The e-mail of the species is more deadly than the mail"
> (Stephen Fry)
>
>
>
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