Make SEND part of the cycle, not a one-off twilight
Build SEND into your whole-school CPD and performance-management cycle for every teacher and TA, not one-off INSET: the SEND Code of Practice (2015) already makes every teacher accountable for SEND pupils in their class. This is the step most schools skip. A single annual twilight treats SEND as a topic to be covered, when the SEND Code of Practice already says the quality of teaching for pupils with SEN should be a core part of the school’s performance-management arrangements and its approach to professional development for all teaching and support staff (para 6.4). In other words, whole-staff SEND training is a leadership decision to run an existing duty well, not an extra the SENCO has to keep justifying.
Rotate the load off the SENCO with role-specific sessions
The second step is to spread delivery across the year and across the staff team, rather than asking the SENCO to teach everyone everything. Short, embedded sessions that are modelled and then followed up in classrooms beat a long twilight that no one acts on. The Code makes the priority content clear: identifying and supporting pupils, and improving teachers’ knowledge of the needs they most often meet (para 6.37). Map who needs what:
| Staff role | What training they need |
|---|---|
| Class and subject teachers | Adaptive teaching, early identification, the graduated approach for their own pupils |
| Teaching assistants | Scaffolding without fostering dependence, specific interventions, feeding back to the teacher |
| Pastoral and behaviour staff | Spotting unmet need behind behaviour, sensory and anxiety triggers, reasonable adjustments |
| Middle and phase leaders | Quality-assuring SEND in their area and coaching their teams |
| Senior leaders and SENCO | Leading and quality-assuring the strategy, not personally delivering every session |
Tap external and national capacity
If you cannot build everything in-house, you do not have to. Draw on a specialist teacher, your educational psychologist or local advisory team, and the free Whole School SEND resources from NASEN. From the 2026/27 academic year a national training package, backed by over £200 million, is being rolled out for education staff to build inclusive practice, ahead of SEND content becoming mandatory in initial teacher training from September 2027 (see the 2026 Schools White Paper). A SENCO who holds the NPQ SENCO should lead and assure this strategy, distributing delivery to phase and subject leads and outside specialists so it scales.
Where the law comes from
- Department for Education / Department of Health, SEND Code of Practice: 0 to 25 years (2015) — paras 6.4, 6.36 and 6.37 on teacher accountability and CPD
- GOV.UK / Department for Education, Schools White Paper to rewire education (23 February 2026) — £200m to make every teacher a teacher of children with SEND
- GOV.UK Education Hub, Schools White Paper: what parents need to know about SEND changes (May 2026) — national training package from 2026/27; SEND content mandatory in ITT from September 2027
- Education Endowment Foundation, Reflections of a SENCO: the importance of a whole-school approach to supporting pupils with SEND (2023)
Related
This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.