£200m investment in SEND Training for Teachers

£200 million landmark SEND teacher training programme – GOV.UK

Last week, the Government announced a £200m investment for a teacher training programme in SEND. This initiative is very much needed, given the shockingly small amount of mandatory training teachers receive in SEND, which is, in practice, about half a day.

However, whilst we welcome this news, we cannot be blinded by it and this huge number, and we have to look at it realistically.

This huge seeming number, when broke down by the number of teaching staff in England of 985,754 (as reported in the School Workforce in England Report dated 5 June 2025), equates to £202.89 per member of staff.

This figure will of course vary subject to whom the government intends to provide this training to, which should really be all staff in all education settings, publicly maintained or private.

Either way it is a very small amount of money and the amount of training that this can actually buy is very minimal and will definitely not be enough to teach every member of staff about every area of SEND needs that they may encounter and need to identify and support.

Furthermore, we should not let this cover up the government’s attempts to dilute and erode the legal rights that children currently have for support. These include the right to be assessed for an EHCP to provide them with the right support and provision that they require to flourish and reach their full potential.

Because, no matter how much money the Government puts into SEND training, be it £200m overall or £202.89 per staff member, children will still need specialists trained in individual needs to assess, diagnose and provide intervention, directly or through specific upskilling of staff, and no amount of money invested in general training can replace this.

The government is also not putting any funding into NHS or ordinarily available therapy provisions, like Speech and Language Therapy, to ensure that children will not be needing EHCPs to secure and retain this provision in the future.