Multi-academy trusts can improve support for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) by avoiding “fighting” with local authorities, and supporting staff to feel less “isolated”, according to a report published today.
The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) has produced a report based on interviews with MAT chiefs, SEND leaders in trusts and Sendcos working in academies.
It warns that MATs and schools face significant challenges recruiting and retaining Sendcos, many of whom say their workload is increasing.
But it also highlights six key ways in which trusts can better support staff and deliver SEND provision:
How MATs can improve SEND provision
1. Appoint MAT-wide SEND leaders
Many trusts have appointed leaders in central teams who oversee SEND across the MAT’s schools and play a pivotal role in improving support, according to the NFER report.
These leaders play “a crucial role in centralising SEND efforts, facilitating collaboration and providing expertise and support to individual schools”, the report says.
Respondents in other roles spoke highly of the recent introduction of MAT-level SEND leaders, the researchers say.
For example, Sendcos said that this has led to greater levels of collaboration and strategic support.
2. Help Sendcos feel less ‘isolated’
The report warns that Sendcos have raised concerns about their rising workload, linked to an increase in administrative tasks associated with education, health and care plans (EHCPs).
The report recommends that trusts and schools should strengthen measures to support the mental health and wellbeing of Sendcos and support staff.
It also says that MAT leaders should recognise the importance that Sendcos place on opportunities for collaboration, both across the MAT and locally.
It says such opportunities “can help to mitigate Sendcos’ feelings of isolation and help foster essential support networks”. The report adds that trusts should empower Sendcos to be “agents of change” within their schools.
During interviews Sendcos spoke about how isolating the role could be. While most reported feeling well supported, they did not always feel that colleagues, including senior leaders, fully understood their role or the pressures they were under.
3. Avoid ‘fighting’ with LAs
The NFER highlights the importance of the relationship between MATs and local education authorities (LAs).
The report says it is “imperative for MATs and LAs to work together in a collaborative and complementary way in order to optimise outcomes for all pupils, but particularly for those with SEND”.
However, interviewees provided many examples of MATs “expending resource on ‘fighting’ with the LA - with many explicitly using similar combative vocabulary”. Some MATs presented themselves as intervening with LAs on behalf of their pupils.
One MAT SEND leader said: “If the local authority are doing something that is not good enough, then I think we have an obligation to push back and challenge. However, that is against a backdrop of, of course, the right thing to do is to work collaboratively and together for the benefit of these children. So you don’t want to damage relationships, but you also don’t want to accept poor practice.”
4. ‘Blend’ SEND and mainstream
The NFER spoke to staff across 19 MATs, six of which included special schools and others incorporated specialist resource bases or AP provision within their mainstream schools.
Its findings provide “tentative evidence for the positive impact of a ‘blended’ MAT approach, where both mainstream and specialist provisions coexist within the same MAT structure”, the report says.
Interviewees said this type of MAT structure provides opportunities for knowledge to be exchanged, training and the sharing of resources between special and mainstream schools.
The report adds: “However, within our sample, this integration appeared to be at an early stage, suggesting this was still a work in progress.”
5. Standardise SEND vision for schools
The NFER found that there was no single blueprint for the role that MATs play in supporting SEND provision.
It found, however, that it was common for MATs to provide a “SEND framework or vision” to set a culture and expectations for schools.
Researchers found that MATs “typically avoided making explicit mandates, emphasising that the MAT’s role was to advise and support schools with SEND”.
The NFER report recommends that MATs develop a standardised suite of templates, forms and data management and monitoring systems for SEND.
It says this can support cross-MAT collaboration and knowledge-sharing between schools, and reduce the administrative workload placed on Sendcos.
6. More research needed
The full potential of the MAT model for SEND provision is still to be unlocked, the report says.
More research is needed to better understand what “effective practice” for SEND pupils looks like within the MAT context
The NFER report is based on interviews with 49 Sendcos, SEND leaders in MATs and MAT CEOs.
Leora Cruddas, chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, said: “Our members are clear that improving support for children with special educational needs is their biggest priority within quality of education, and this report from NFER rightly recognises the powerful work already being done by trust leaders.”
She added that MATs “need more recognition from government and local authorities” of the role of trusts when it comes to SEND.
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