Professional Development Needs for Leaders in Special Education

Abstract

This article reports on a small-scale survey of the professional development experiences and perceived needs of teachers with leadership responsibility who work in special education within the Midlands (United Kingdom), both in special and mainstream schools. The study reveals that issues around leadership and management are central to the concerns of many professionals in special education and they would welcome more opportunity for professional development in this area, especially around issues of performance management. Furthermore, there is a perceived high need for their continuing professional development in leadership and management. Secondly, local short-term training and longer-term professional development through postgraduate study is enabling many Special Educational Needs (SEN) professionals to engage with their own learning needs, but targeted and government funded training is either not attracting them or is not targeted at them. Thirdly, respondents to this survey wanted training for the positions they were in, rather than training for promotion