Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of amending the SEND and alternative provision improvement plan, published on 2 March 2023, to include a commitment to provide staff training in assistive technologies to all schools.

High-quality teaching is central to ensuring that pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) are given the best possible opportunity to achieve in their education. The SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan outlines the department’s approach to building the capacity to achieve the behaviours and the culture required for the successful implementation of these policy reforms.

To support all teachers, the department is implementing a ‘golden thread’ of teacher training reforms which begins with initial teacher training and continues into early career teaching, through to middle and senior leadership. These reforms are designed to ensure teachers have the skills to support all pupils to succeed, including those with SEND.

The department is expanding training to increase school staff confidence in using assistive technology (AT). Following the promising results of the initial pilot, we are extending assistive technology training to a further 150 maintained schools. The extension, known as the ‘AT Test and Learn’ programme, will teach mainstream school staff how to use AT effectively, with a focus on the technology schools already have available or can easily obtain, such as text-to-speech tools.

The department wants to build on the learnings from last year’s pilot, where participants reported improved awareness, understanding and confidence in using AT and assessing its effectiveness. By running the AT Test and Learn training over 6 months and commissioning a comprehensive impact evaluation, we will gain a more thorough picture of how AT training can support wider SEND training.