Raising educational outcomes for pupils with SEN and disabilities

This project will investigate different interventions to support the learning of pupils with special education needs and disabilities.

The number of pupils identified as having Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) has been steadily rising. In 2020/21, national statistics showed that 12% of pupils in mainstream classrooms had SEND. The SEND code of practice divides pupils with SEND into four categories of primary needs:

• communication and interaction
• cognition and learning
• social, emotional, and mental health difficulties
• and physical and/or sensory needs.

However, it is unclear which interventions work best with different needs, contexts (mainstream or specialist schools), or phases of education.

To address this knowledge gap, the research team will conduct a systematic review aimed at synthesising existing evidence on the effectiveness of different interventions. Subsequently, conducting a meta-analysis on effect sizes for the different interventions and how these are mediated by the type of SEND need, educational context, phase of education, study outcomes, and characteristics. In-depth interviews with education professionals will focus on how targeted interventions are currently used and barriers to implementing the types of effective strategies outlined in the meta-analysis.

The research team have identified several desired outcomes:

1. Providing insight into whether support should be specific or whether it can be generalised across different groups of SEND needs, so that practitioners can improve the effectiveness of support for pupils with SEND.
2. Producing knowledge of what works for groups of SEND needs, and in which contexts, should provide insight into cognitive mechanisms that are important to improving educational outcomes in different SEND groups, and can therefore inform the development of new targeted interventions.
3. Exploring how targeted interventions are selected and identifying perceived barriers to implementation, to help inform approaches to intervention selection and practitioners’ training requirements.

The key stakeholders for this research are academics, educational professionals, school leadership, parents and policymakers. A practitioner’s toolkit will be developed to share workable evidence-based solutions. This will include a database of interventions and outcomes, infographic to summarise findings, evidence gap map, briefing paper, video tutorial, summary report, and a podcast.