Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to promote the recruitment of special educational needs and disability support staff in schools.

The department is committed to enabling the potential of every pupil through maintaining a high-quality teaching workforce. Over 37,000 new trainee teachers were recruited to start training in the academic year 2021/22. We are enhancing the appeal of teaching by raising the starting salary for teachers to £30,000 to ensure teaching remains a popular graduate option.

All teachers are teachers of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). It is a requirement for Teachers’ Standards to be fully incorporated into Initial Teacher Training courses. Before Qualified Teacher Status is gained, trainee teachers must be able to understand and respond to the needs of all pupils, including pupils with SEND.

Through our contract with the National Association for Special Educational Needs, we fund the Whole School SEND (WSS) consortium to equip staff in mainstream and special schools to deliver high quality teaching to all pupils with SEND. A further £2 million of funding is being provided in the 2021/22 financial year for WSS to continue this work.