Making a difference for children with SEND – A Q&A with Georgina Durrant

With the current SEND system failing too many children and young people, how can teachers best support their pupils? Learn how in this Q&A with Georgina Durrant.

Can you please introduce yourself to our readers?

Hi, I’m Georgina Durrant. I’m a speaker, author, podcast host, former teacher and SENDCO. I’m also the founder of the SEN Resources Blog  where I share activities, advice and recommendations for parents and teachers of children with SEND. I’ve written three Special Educational Needs and Disability books: ‘100 Ways Your Child Can Learn Through Play’, ‘How to Boost Reading and Writing Through Play’ and my latest book ‘SEND Strategies for the Primary Years’.

What prompted you to write a book about SEND strategies that focuses on what you can do ‘pre-diagnosis’?

I was fortunate enough to be asked to sit on a Parliamentary round table to discuss the problems with the SEND system and it lit a bit of a fire in me, one that my play-based books were not going to extinguish. It became more and more apparent to me that there are some real problems with the current SEND system and the lack of support for children with SEND in the UK and I wanted to do something about it.

So, on the foundations of frustration with the current SEND system, I wanted to write this book to hopefully make an impact. I really hope that it helps to make a difference to children with SEND in your household or classroom. I have never worked so hard on something in my entire life! I realised that I don’t have the resources to change the system, sort the funding problem, slash the waiting times or build the system that works for every child. However, I can funnel my anger, that many children with SEND in the UK are being let down, into creating a book that can support you as teachers and parents/carers to make a difference to the children with SEND in your care, while we wait (and shout!) and the children for a system that works.

The challenge is not to point out the problems – that’s easy! The challenge is to say how you would do things better.

What are the current challenges with getting a diagnosis for a child?

There are, unfortunately, so many challenges currently in getting a diagnosis for a child. The main one being the ridiculously long waiting times for assessments. Some children can be waiting five years for an autism diagnosis. And I think we forget how long five years is, especially for children. For a ten-year-old, that’s half of their life!

What would be your advice for teachers identifying where a child may need extra support in a particular area of need – what might they notice?

I think one thing we need to so careful with is making sure we don’t, as teachers, make presumptions of a diagnosis, but instead look at their individual areas of need/difficulties. That was one thing I was really careful with when writing my book SEND Strategies for the Primary Years. I initially thought about splitting it into chapters based on diagnoses so ‘ADHD’, ‘Autism’, ‘Dyslexia’ etc., but then I was given some brilliant advice, by someone I really respect, who suggested dividing it up by areas of need/difficulty instead. Otherwise, there was a danger that teachers would either consciously or even unconsciously, ‘diagnose’ a child using the book, when obviously we aren’t qualified to do that.

I think in terms of identifying where a child may need extra support, we need to really look at the ‘whole child’ – their strengths and the things they find difficult – to make sure we haven’t made any assumptions. For example, a child with speech and language difficulties, struggling to communicate effectively in a lesson, may come across as having difficulties with their behaviour – when in fact, their behaviour is a result of their unmet speech and language needs. Another thing I’d suggest is upskilling yourself on the areas of need so that you are able to identify difficulties. So, reading up on literacy difficulties, emotional regulation, concentration and organising etc. so that you can quickly identify when a child finds these things tricky.

And lastly, but actually most importantly, is to speak to the families – they are the genuine experts on their own children. Listen to them and value their input. We learn so much from parents.

Can you talk a bit about ‘masking’? How and why might a child do this and how an adult can notice this?

Masking is where someone consciously or unconsciously hides the way they are feeling in certain situations or environments. Some autistic children, for example, mask. Masking can be exhausting for children, and it also takes a toll on their mental health and wellbeing. If a child is masking at school, there may well be many things that are upsetting them throughout the school day, but it’s not until they are at home in their safe space with their trusted adult, that their response to these various events happens. This could be a meltdown that appears to be triggered by something very minor.

Some people call this the ‘Coke bottle effect’. Imagine the child holding a Coke bottle all day and each time something upsets them their Coke bottle is shaken; once they are at home in their safe place, they open the lid of the Coke bottle and it fires out all over the room (like a release of pent-up emotion). Before unscrewing the lid, you wouldn’t have noticed anything was wrong, as you wouldn’t have known it had been shaken so much.

Because children appear to be OK in school, often the advice is to change something at home, perhaps even to copy the techniques or structure used at school. Whereas in reality, it is likely that the problems are at school but that the child only feels safe to show their authentic self at home. It is really important therefore to listen to parents and carers without judgement, and to try to openly work out the potential triggers at school that could be causing the emotional dysregulation at home.

How did you formulate the strategies to support different areas of need – were the case studies you gathered an important part of this process?

The case studies were absolutely fundamental to the chapters, I’m so grateful to the children and adults with lived experience of these areas of need who contributed. I think they bring the book to life and remind people that this isn’t just theory but real people with real lives. And like how I said families are the experts on their children with SEND, so too are the people with lived experiences. It’s all very well me explaining what dyslexia is from my research and my experience of teaching, but for a 9-year-old to explain (as they did so brilliantly in the Literacy chapter) what it’s actually like being in year 4/5 – in the classroom, day in day out with dyslexia – holds so much more value.

Is there a training gap for SEND and how can we change this? What support would you like to see for educators?

Absolutely, I couldn’t believe some of the figures on the lack of SEND training in schools when I was researching my book.

I initially gained a lot of anecdotal evidence from parents and teachers about the lack of SEND training in schools, which painted a really awful picture. But then when I researched to back up this evidence, I was completely shocked at the data.

For example, Ofsted 2023 reported that only 1/3 of teachers have received SEND training since April 2021 1 – which is terrible. And when I’ve stated this statistic in presentations when I’ve been speaking at schools or conferences, I’ve expected the audience to also be shocked…but a lot of the time they aren’t, because they see this too.

Another one that really upset me was the stats from the National Autistic Society in 2023 that showed 70% of autistic pupils felt their teachers needed to know more about autism. And only 26% of autistic children said they felt happy at school. 2

And most recently, I read the Pearson School report (2024) that showed that more than 8 in 10 educators think students with SEND or additional needs are being ineffectively supported in their aspirations and achievements by the current education system. 3

So, in answer to your question, there is a huge training gap for SEND. I think many schools are starting to address this. And lack of funding in schools is a major barrier. But in short, yes, more SEND training is needed.

How can we involve parents in the conversations around support for their child, particularly pre-diagnosis?

As I said before, parents are the experts on their own children and they need to be valued as such. And these conversations about support and diagnosis and SEND are tricky and delicate – and they mustn’t be the first conversation we are having with them. We need to start early, from day one, building relationships with parents, having an ethos of collaboration and valuing their input, so that when these conversations need to be had (either a parent coming to us with a concern or vice versa), the relationship, support and trust are already there.

For more information, check out our R.I.S.E. review of Georgina Durrant’s book: ‘SEND Strategies for the Primary Years’.

References

1. Ofted (updated 2024) ‘Independent review of teachers’ professional development in schools: phase 1 findings’. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/teachers-professional-development-in-schools/independent-review-of-teachers-professional-development-in-schools-phase-1-findings (Accessed: 18 July 2024)
2. National Autistic Society (2023) ‘Supporting autistic children to stay in mainstream education’ . Available at: https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/professional-practice/supporting-autistic-children-to-stay-in-mainstream (Accessed: 18 July 2024)
3. Pearson (2024)’Person School Report 2023′. Available at: https://www.pearson.com/content/dam/global-store/en-gb/files/Pearson-SchoolReport-2023.pdf (Accessed: 18 July 2023)