Multi-academy trusts should create a “director of SEND” role to help inclusion, with trusts’ “full potential” to support pupils with additional needs “still to be unlocked”, a new report has found.
Interviews with 19 MATs by the National Foundation of Education Research found trust SEND leaders play a “pivotal role” by centralising work and providing support to individual schools.
NFER said these leaders tend not to mandate particular approaches but provide a framework across the trust’s schools and help SEND co-ordinators (SENCOs), who warned of soaring workload.
Researchers recommended “where feasible” MATs should consider creating a director of SEND role, or similar, to take “responsibility for providing strategic direction and to facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing”.
They warned some limitations – such as geographical distribution of schools and workload – did mean the “full potential of the MAT model for SEND provision is still to be unlocked”.
