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Special educational needs training: Needs must

The National Association for Special Educational Needs has called for better training for classroom support staff. Judith Napier reports

A national organisation for special needs education is concerned that Britain's most vulnerable children are sometimes being looked after in the classroom by our least qualified and experienced staff.

The personnel to whom the National Association for Special Educational Needs (NASEN) is referring are teachers' assistants, who can be qualified - as in the case of nursery nurses - or unqualified, as in the case of many classroom assistants, and have various titles depending on which local education authority they work for. Just to confuse matters, NASEN refers to them as learning support assistants.

Whatever their names, it appears that they are often left to look after individual SEN children and implement increasing SEN legislation without adequate training, consequently feeling out of their depth.

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