News

Keep up to date with all of the latest news, headlines and features from across the SEND sector.

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News listing

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PMLD intensive support trial recruiting

INTERACT is exploring intensive interaction to support communication skills in children and young people with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD).

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UNESCO calls for global ban on mobile phones in classrooms

UNESCO, the culture, science and education arm of the UN, has called for smartphones to be banned from the classroom to improve learning and protect children from online bullying.

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Government rejects call for support on young people with SEND accessing Child Trust Funds

Tens of thousands of young people with SEND are facing being locked out of their own savings accounts, with calls from parents and advocates resulting in seemingly no action.

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nasen Awards 2023 - shortlist announced

Thank you to all of those who sent in their nominations for the nasen Awards 2023. We were hit with an incredible amount of inspiring provisions and individuals this year for our 16 categories. Our shortlist is now published.

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Call for evidence on use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in Education

The Department for Education has launched a consultation on the use of generative AI tools in education settings in England.

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Children with SEN accessing Early Years rises to all time high

The percentage of children registered for the 15-hour and 30-hour entitlements who have SEN has increased across all age groups, with the latest figures being the highest in each series.

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Staff shortages highlighted by BBC report

The BBC has reported that special school pupils around the country are not getting the education they are entitled to due to national recruitment shortages.

Free NHS eye tests will be available to special schools from April 2024

Following campaigning from SeeAbility and a pilot ‘proof-of-concept programme’ by NHS England, the government has committed £10m to ensure that all pupils in special schools will have access to sight tests in their setting.

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2022-23 SEN data released

The government have issued the latest full set of data relating to Special Education needs in England.

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New episode of youth-led podcast “Our Turn to Talk”

“Our Turn to Talk” is the National Children’s Bureau’s (NCB) youth-led podcast programme. All episodes are developed and directed by young people and focus on topics that are important to them.

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Research on cyberbullying recruitment opportunity

The National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) are looking for professionals and practitioners who have experience of working with children and young people to take part in their research on cyberbullying among children and young people in the UK.

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Workforce statistics present bleak picture

The Department for Education released the workforce statistics last week and this proved interesting reading when considering the current issue of a recruitment and retention crisis.

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National Co-Production Week 3rd July

National Co-Production Week is back for its eighth year celebrating the benefits of co-production and sharing good practice.

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Commtap launches resource packs for children with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN)

A new set of 60 resource packs are being made freely available for SLTs, schools and parents between now and August 2023 to support early progress with speech, language and communication targets.

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British Sign Language GCSE one step closer

Students will soon be able to study British Sign Language (BSL) as a GCSE following a consultation into the course content.

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Call for evidence around the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Education

The Department for Education has launched a call for evidence on generative artificial intelligence use in education to the sector.

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New report on Assistive Technology calls for more awareness in mainstream society

The ATech Policy Lab has published a report into the awareness and use of ATech across frontline workers in public service.

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The unmissable nasen Live 2023 SEND CPD conference is back!

With just three weeks to go until the return of our unmissable annual SEND conference, nasen Live, we wanted to give you a little taste of what’s in store for 2023! 

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Ofsted Review Calls for evidence from the sector

Parliament’s Education Committee has launched an inquiry into Ofsted’s work with schools.

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Free assistive technology online sessions

CENMAC (Centre for Micro-Assisted Communication) is continuing to host their Thursday Thirty Online Training through the summer term.