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Inspections of special schools are not always being carried out by “specialist” inspectors, a headteachers’ union has told MPs.

Speaking to the Commons Education Committee today, Nic Crossley, the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) representative at the Association of School and College Leaders, also said there was a need to “upskill inspectors” and for there to be “greater consistency”.

And Ms Crossley, who is also chief executive of Liberty multi-academy trust, added: “We do need to have a real focus on SEN by SEN practitioners, and it’s not enough to just leave it to the [SEND] area inspections and then say that SEN has been covered.”

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She said that inspections needed to be “conducted by people that come from the sector”, and to avoid being “tokenistic”.

MPs on the committee were also told that the current approach to SEND knowledge in teacher training was “minimalistic in the extreme”, and “not sufficient”.

The comments came as part of a non-inquiry session held on SEND this morning.

Addressing her issues with inspection, Ms Crossley said that when special schools are inspected “they don’t always get that specialist inspector who has come from an SEN background”.

“I do think that Ofsted are cognisant of this and that they are recognising that, as with anybody, we’re all suffering around capacity and staffing,” she added.

“So there is a need to upskill inspectors, there needs to be that greater consistency. And I think that, from what we’ve noticed, particularly around the revisions to the area inspections, we do need to have a real focus on SEN by SEN practitioners, and it’s not enough to just leave it to the areas inspections and then say SEN has been covered.

“We do need to make sure that in normal day-to-day operations of school inspections, it does have a really targeted focus on SEN that is not tokenistic and really delves into the detail, but it’s also undertaken and conducted by people that come from the sector.”

Warning on ITT approach to SEND

Initial teacher training (ITT), and the provision of SEND knowledge within this, was another topic covered during the session.

Dr Daniel Stavrou, assistant director for education at the Council for Disabled Children, highlighted how Department for Education data showed that a large portion of teachers did not believe there was sufficient training on SEND on the ITT core curriculum framework.

“I took the trouble to look at [this] again a couple of days ago. The approach to SEND knowledge is minimalistic in the extreme and surely is not sufficient,” he added.

Ian Mearns MP, standing in as chair of the committee in the absence of Robin Walker, said that it appeared to him that “if we spent a little bit more time in initial teacher training, you might get more teachers that’ve decided to go into special educational needs as a specialism”.

Ms Crossley concurred, adding: “Sometimes in the sector, we’re relying on the goodwill of people to step up and do that role rather than seeing it as a real career choice. So, yes.”

‘Welcome step back’ on SEND review journey

Tim Nicholls, head of influencing and research at the National Autistic Society, said he had been looking at the progression of the SEND review and had seen “a bit of a scaling back of the ambition over the time”.

He said that in some cases, this had been “welcome”, as it showed that concerns from parents were being listened to.

“Mandatory mediation was one of the biggest ones there that we thought could be absolutely catastrophic because the power dynamics in that situation are already heavily skewed against families.”

One of the proposals in the SEND Green Paper was for mandatory mediation before parents could register an appeal at a tribunal.

This was then pushed back in the SEND improvement plan, with the document saying: “We remain committed to delivering a tailored list of placements and proposals for mandatory mediation, as well as developing a national system of funding bands and tariffs.

“However, we recognise the challenges and risks involved in such a move, and will review and test these policies carefully through the change programme to ensure that they work and do not create unintended consequences for families.”