Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate he has made of the current vacancy rate for teaching assistants for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in (a) primary schools and (b) secondary schools.
Schools have the freedom to recruit teaching assistants according to their own circumstances. Schools have recruited an additional 10,000 teaching assistants in the last two years, according to the school workforce census. There are now 275,812 teaching assistants which is the highest on record. The Department does not collect vacancy numbers as part of the census.
The Department committed to help schools with their recruitment, use and training of teaching assistants in the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Green Paper, and refresh of the school resource management guidance. The Department will work with schools to understand how best the Government can help.