Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the statement made in her Department's Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan: Right Support, Right Place, Right Time report, published in March 2023, that the Government intends to replace the NASENCo with a mandatory leadership level SENCo NPQ for SENCos that do not hold the qualification, what steps she has taken to assess the strength of the business case for that policy; on what evidence her Department based its assessment of the likely impact of that change on the ability of SENCos to identify (a) children and young people's needs and (b) appropriate interventions in a timely way; and what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the planned change on the number of children and young people who will require (i) specialist support and (ii) Education and Health Care Plans.

The introduction of a new leadership level SENCO National Professional Qualification (NPQ) to replace the existing mandatory qualification will play a key role in achieving the ambitions of the Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan, by ensuring that special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs) consistently receive high-quality, evidence-based training. Research conducted by University of Plymouth highlighted that, while there is value in SENCOs completing the National Award for SEN Coordination (NASENCO), there are certain weaknesses with the current qualification, including an overemphasis on theory and academic assignment writing.

In the SEND and AP Green Paper, published in March 2022, the department consulted on the introduction of the SENCO NPQ to address these issues. There was general support for the proposal, with 48% (1,278) of respondents agreeing or strongly agreeing with this change and only 20% (529) disagreeing or strongly disagreeing.

NPQs are designed to provide training for education professionals at all levels, using the best available evidence to transform their practice and deliver improved outcomes for children and young people. In the interim evaluation of the 2021 reformed NPQs, early feedback from participants was that the ultimate beneficiaries of the NPQs will be pupils, who they believe will receive higher-quality teaching that results in better outcomes for pupils.