Narrowing the Gap between ‘Intention and Reality’

Abstract

In England, the governing body of each school has duties in relations to special educational needs (SEN), and these have recently been extended. It is common practice for responsibility for this area to be delegated to an individual governor or subgroup of governors. Clearly, such arrangements are dependent upon an effective relationship between the governing body, and the staff of the school, in particular the special educational needs coordinator (SENCO) who is responsible for coordinating SEN provision. There is a lack of recent relevant research and the perspectives of the SENCOs are under-represented. This research examines those relationships using data gathered via an electronic questionnaire completed by a national sample of SENCOs ( n =191). While examples of good practice exist, the intentions of the national policy are only partly realized in many schools, with a gap existing between policy and reality.