I love leading inclusion at my school. I think it is the most varied and interesting role there is and I have been incredibly lucky to work with the most talented team of professionals, and some truly amazing children. 

As I work in an inner London school, I am also fortunate enough to have a group of professionals around me who are on hand to advise me on almost everything: educational psychologists, speech therapists, play therapists, occupational therapists, peripatetic teachers. We even have our own school social worker. Almost always, someone will have the answers to my questions. But if all these people are the experts, then what does that make me, apart from the person who runs around coordinating everything?

Yet, being the person in charge of coordinating everything isn’t such a bad thing to be. 

Some time ago, I had to go to accident and emergency. As I sat in triage, the triage nurse took my temperature, my blood pressure, wrote down my symptoms and sent me back out to the waiting room. 

That’s when I made the link. That’s me, I thought: I am the triage nurse for when there is a concern or a question around barriers to learning. 

But there is more to my job than just this. I’m also a buyer. When it comes to specific products or advice, for example investing in interventions, I have to secure the ones that are right. 

With this in mind, I started thinking about the skills that both a good triage nurse and a good buyer would need, and to question what that could teach me about my role.

Accept you don’t have all the answers

While I have some knowledge of specific matters in inclusion, the biggest part of my job is to listen, take good notes, observe, think again, ask questions, ask those around me, and then decide what to do next. 

That is not to dismiss the vast amount of knowledge and experience that inclusion coordinators and Sendcos have but, actually, it’s never helpful to assume that you alone have all the answers. No one will believe that; in fact. they may rightly resent it.

Be honest

Say you will come back to people. Say you don’t have time just now. Refer to others. Simply say what you can do next. Good triage nurses do not judge you for attending nor dismiss concerns but they also do not pretend to be able to do more than they can.

Be careful with what you invest in...time included 

No one gets as many products and interventions thrown at them in schools as a Sendco does. Many are free to try, but you will still have to search for the evidence base of suggested interventions, before committing to anything and, crucially, you will need to gather the opinions of your pupils, too. 

Entire units in schools have been set up on hunches and goodwill that have wound up being failed investments with poor outcomes for pupils. Don’t skip crucial consultation procedures.

Heba Al-Jayoosi is assistant headteacher and Sendco at Mayflower Primary School in East London