Best Practice

Secondary SEN: Learning lessons from primary school practice

SENCOs
Primary teacher Sara Alston has been working as a secondary school SENCO during the past year. She reflects here on the nuanced differences in the SEND experience, how these might negatively affect SEND students – and what we can do about it


Though I am a primary school teacher, I am lucky enough to have worked regularly in and with secondary schools. However, during the last academic year, I got the chance to work in a secondary school on a weekly basis covering a small segment of a fellow SENCO’s maternity leave.

It was a very peculiar year. Due to Covid restrictions, I only met many of my colleagues online and there were parts of the school site that I have never visited.

At the same time, the experience focused my mind on the differences between primary and secondary (and the consequences of these differences for children with SEND).

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