Introduce Specific SEND Teacher Training Pathway and Recognition

There is a consistent shortage of teachers, both in certain geographical areas and for certain subjects. The impact of this shortage means that government departments are now turning to the idea of allowing primary school teachers to work in secondary schools and vice versa. There also is an ever increasing need for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) provision, but currently there is not enough teachers available to meet the demand for mainstream teachers, let alone SEND teachers. Introducing a specific SEND teacher training pathway would be a great way to alleviate this issue in.

Children and young people have a wide range of needs and deserve access to the most suitable educational supports possible. If they are not offered the necessary supports, these pupils are far more likely to experience educational disadvantage, limited career prospects and lower life satisfaction compared to their peers. If unaddressed, their additional needs could also result in them experiencing physical, mental and emotional health challenges. Despite the fact that so many pupils face these challenges, which have such a huge impact both on their lives and on their potential in the classroom, current teacher training programmes do not cover much content about SEND provision. This makes it hard for teachers to cater for their pupils’ increasingly complex needs.

There are pupils of all backgrounds and abilities with varied personal interests in schools across the country, which is very encouraging to see and makes it easier for pupils to find peers who they can relate to. Unfortunately, this diversity is rarely reflected in Irish staffrooms. The cost of university, the high entry requirements and the time it takes, deters many people from undertaking teacher training. Of course there needs to be high entry standards so that the students go on to become competent and professional educators. However, this intense training system edges out people who have the potential to be great teachers. 

Having high exam results does not automatically mean that someone would make a great teacher, nor do low exam results automatically mean that someone would not be a great teacher. There is more to education than just grades, which pupils struggling with the demands of the school curriculum would be glad to hear.

People often want to have a career where they can give something back and help people as an appreciation for the help they got in their own lives. For SEND pupils, they might like to become a SEND teacher themselves, especially as they would have a great understanding of their future pupils’ needs since they have been through the special education system themselves. It can be very comforting for pupils to know that that the person who is there to help you has experienced similar challenges so totally understands how you feel. However, these SEND pupils are often the pupils who might find it difficult to get into teacher training due to the challenges they face, so are not able to fulfil their wish of helping pupils in similar circumstances to them. 

Even if they did not receive special education themselves, some future teachers know before they start teaching that they would like to work in special education rather than in a mainstream classroom environment, but currently there is no option to go directly into SEND teacher training, which might discourage them from going into teaching at all.

Opening up a teacher training pathway so that trainees could specialise in SEND from the start would be a great option for the following reasons;

It would help to address the teacher shortage, both at primary and secondary school levels, as it would allow people with an interest in the area to train and work directly in SEND, rather than schools struggling to fill SEND teaching roles with non-SEND teachers due to a lack of SEND specific teachers.
It would be a great way to attract potential teachers to the sector who might not like the idea of working in a typical classroom environment so therefore might opt to avoid teaching altogether.
It would open up teacher training to more people, especially those who do not meet the usual teacher training entry requirements (for example if they did not do Irish in school due to specific learning difficulties or not having been raised in the Irish education system). 
It will allow for a greater diversity of teachers, which will more accurately represent the ever increasing diversity of pupils with all different backgrounds, abilities and interests in our schools.
It would give people who have experienced SEND provision (either directly themselves or from seeing the positive effect it has had on other people in their lives) more opportunities to give back to the system that they have benefitted from themselves.
It would improve the quality of SEND provision in schools, as current traditional teaching programs cover very little about SEND provision, so having people trained specifically in this area would help to counteract that.
It might help to reduce the demand and points for traditional teacher training courses, which would give more people the opportunity to pursue typical teaching courses, helping to alleviate the teacher shortage even further. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this, hopefully it will result in the introduction of SEND teacher training pathways in the near future!

 

Amy Reynolds*

*I am a qualified Special Needs Assistant (SNA), Teaching Assistant (TA) and Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) teacher. I am passionate about education, particularly inclusive education, and the benefits it brings, especially for pupils with SEND. I myself have not been able to reach my dream of becoming a teacher due to limited entry pathways and high entry requirements for teacher training course. I now work in pharmacy and am completing an apprenticeship pharmacy technician style course. I would like my future work to combine education and pharmacy / healthcare*