PREMIUM: Lowering expectations for SEND pupils

It's not kind to assume a child is incapable

The question

There is no consensus on the following question:

Is the purpose of SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) support to enable SEND pupils to achieve what they find difficult, or to protect them from having to do what they find difficult?

In cases where the word “disability” is used literally - where a pupil is unable to do what is expected of others - the answer is quite simple. Schools cannot make the deaf hear or the blind see. However, for many, perhaps most, of the pupils identified as having SEND, the answer to the question is far less clear. We don't all agree about whether dyslexic pupils should spend more time practising reading and writing, or spend less time reading and writing than others. We don’t know whether pupils with ADHD should be given support to pay attention (such as extra prompts, or strategies for staying focused) or whether it should be accepted that they won’t be able to pay attention. Disagreements about this are complicated, because it's not always obvious to teachers what a child cannot do; what they find difficult to do, and what they can do but don’t want to do. Without this knowledge, it is hard to know whether a child needs encouragement, practice and advice to meet an expectation, or whether they need to be excused from meeting it.