BPS responds to National Education Union poll on Send support
The Division of Educational and Child Psychology has said the survey findings are ‘indicative of the challenges facing the workforce’.
05 April 2024
In a survey of its members, National Education Union (NEU) has found had one-in-four teachers does not have access to an educational psychologist or speech and language therapist.
It also found that one-in-three teachers does not have a behaviour support team for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) and the poll paints a bleak picture of the provision available to support Send students in England and Wales.
More than half of respondents to the NEU survey said that they are not confident that referrals for a Send assessment, diagnosis, or support leads to that pupil getting the help that they need.
Reacting to the findings, along with the wider issues within the educational psychology workforce, Dr Gavin Morgan, chair of the BPS's Division of Educational and Child Psychology, said:
"As educational psychologists we are seeing the number of pupils requiring an Educational, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) continue to grow, and the current workforce simply cannot deliver for them all.
"Schools have to decide how to use their limited budgets, and with the current model seeing schools having to 'buy' the time of educational psychologists from local authorities, spending on educational psychologists is often low down in the list of school spending priorities.
"Unsurprisingly, we are also seeing many educational psychologists move into private practice due to more attractive pay and working conditions.
"This can leave us playing catch-up and unable to make the early intervention which is often needed to deliver the best outcomes for young people.
"That the NEU survey of teachers indicates that they feel unable to access educational psychology and other support for pupils who need it is a tragedy for those individuals, but sadly not surprising and are indicative of the huge challenges facing the educational psychology workforce."
Responding to the survey results, the Department for Education said that it is, "investing over £2m to train 400 more educational psychologists from this year", however this represents a continuation of what each new tender has delivered in recent years and will not provide any additional educational psychologists above what has always been planned for.