Challenges Faced by SEN Teachers and Teaching Assistants
Updated 05/03/2024
Challenges Faced by SEN Teachers and Teaching Assistants.
It’s that time of year again where the long holiday is over, the children are back to school, and we go again. For many educators this is a time of excitement and familiarity, for others it’s new and nerve wracking, but for some it’s a reminder of the challenges that come with working in a special school environment.
Teaching staff show patience, resilience, and passion, constantly. However, such attributes are being knocked significantly by the increasing challenges that educators are facing in schools today. Worryingly, 40,000 teachers left their jobs in academic year 2021-2022 which is the highest since data for the recent records from the 2010-2011 census began.
Although there are a great many things about working in special education that makes the job fulfilling, we believe in addressing and meeting these challenges head on so you can be as prepared as possible to embrace them with a positive mindset.
Here are some common challenges Special Education workers must manage:
1. Collaboration and Communication
Research suggests that one of the biggest reasons that special education teachers leave the industry is because they often feel unappreciated. Communication breakdowns between staff and parents can exacerbate this.
Due to the level of arrangements and accommodations required to support SEN children in schools, teachers must communicate easily with parents. However, if parents do not return phone calls, respond to emails, or answer written notes sent home with their child, then the teacher's ability to make meaningful changes and provide the best support possible for the student is seriously disrupted. Equally, if parents have unrealistic expectations for their child, or find it difficult to accept their needs, then communication can end up in a stalemate. For a child to progress, parents and teachers need to work together, but if parents are disinterested in supporting the teacher's strategies for learning, then little progress will be made.
Ensuring effective communication and coordination among all parties involved in a student's education can be challenging and time-consuming and if efforts to collaborate are largely unrecognised and unsupported, the purpose and pride in what the educator does, begins to fade away.
2. Paperwork, administration and dealing with large amounts of data
Data collection is an essential but incredibly taxing element of special education. Teachers need to validate and explain everything they have done to support a child with SEN, making sure the data meets the targets of the student's plan and the progress levels projected by the school. To do this, teaching staff must always keep track of the data and react to and monitor it so that good progress can be made, or solutions found. Class data is also used to measure overall student success or difficulties for a whole class or year group, and once again, teachers need to make sure this data is accurate so that if any conclusions are drawn, they have evidence to explain them. Special education teachers and SENCOs are responsible for extensive paperwork, such as documenting progress, writing plans, attending meetings, and completing assessments. The administrative workload can be overwhelming and detract from valuable teaching time.
3. Meeting Individual Needs
Special education teachers and teaching assistants work with students who have a wide range of disabilities and learning difficulties. In both mainstream and special schools, each student with a special educational need will have a plan in place tailored to their specific needs. Designing and implementing effective strategies to meet the diverse needs of students can be challenging. The plan for each child will be updated regularly throughout the year according to progress made. Plans for each child can be between 4 and 20 pages, sometimes more, and must be written with great consideration by teachers because they are shared with, and used by, many different stakeholders. Although incredibly important and helpful for supporting a pupil's progression, if teachers must write multiple plans along with creating lessons plans and reporting, then staff can feel increasingly overwhelmed which can lead to burn out.
4. Behaviour Management
Students with special needs may exhibit challenging behaviours, such as aggression, tantrums, or noncompliance which is a result of an unmet need and is a form of communication. Managing and addressing these behaviours effectively while maintaining a positive and inclusive classroom environment can be a significant challenge for special education teachers and teaching assistants.
Handling difficult and emotional situations is an expectation when working with children who have special needs, since their abilities can often leave them feeling frustrated or aggressive, or isolated and depressed. Trying to support the children to overcome or understand these problems can take up a lot of teaching time and energy, leaving staff physically and emotionally drained. Also, throughout all of this, such strong bonds are created with the children that if there are any cases of serious illness, or of death, then teachers must adapt and be resilient despite their own emotional devastation.
5. Funding Problems
Another common issue amongst many schools is funding. Depending on where a school is located, children receive varying amounts of funding, and as such what a teacher can plan for and how they want to push the children further is vulnerable to change and limited scope. All this comes as expectations for what the children can achieve remains high, and so teachers are understandably struggling to make lessons the best they can be for their students. Due to funding restrictions across the sector, children may have limited access to assistive technology, teaching materials, specialised training, and support staff, which can make it difficult to provide optimal support to students.
6. Lack of Professional Development Opportunities
Currently, a big problem within special education is that applicants for prospective roles do not always feel they have had enough experience and training to confidently support a class. Research spanning the last ten years suggests that new or trainee teachers do not feel knowledgeable, or comfortable, to enter the field after completing their training course. This lack of training could impact the high turn-over of staff that the sector already faces, and again reduces the support special education teachers feel they are receiving on a day-to-day basis.
Special education practices and strategies are continually evolving. Staying updated on research-based practices and implementing them effectively can be a challenge without adequate training and support.
Any one of these challenges makes the working day of a special education teacher incredibly complex, but when faced altogether can cause serious mental and emotional strain. However, we hope that this list will help anyone looking to go into the sector feel more prepared, and for those already employed we hope that it will open discussions about raising awareness and empower people to find solutions to these issues.
Despite the challenges mentioned above, special education remains a stable and long-term career path. Check our blog on the top 5 reasons to work in special education to find out more!
If you are looking for a job in special education, where you can support children and young people to achieve positive outcomes, take a look at Senploy.
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