Jim Lauder
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mrjlauder.bsky.social
Jim Lauder
@mrjlauder.bsky.social
Dixons Academies. Schools as civic institutions - ensuring our communities have a voice and power. Building place based partnerships. Views my own.

At weekends I post about cooking.
That, and advocate for the families
December 5, 2025 at 8:44 AM
This is how things are too often implicitly seen at the moment, which ain't great
December 4, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Oh yeah, my preferred course of action is way harder to do than opening lots of units.

Trust is the key issue whatever happens
December 4, 2025 at 8:31 AM
I imagine they'll try a bit of both, but doing one creates incentives to do less of the other.

I hope they get the mitigations right and make it work but am wary.
December 4, 2025 at 8:22 AM
My preferred approach is 'more mainstream places in mainstream schools' where mainstream is as inclusive as possible, plus a small but well resourced special sector.
December 4, 2025 at 8:07 AM
Reposted by Jim Lauder
Yup. Expertise in the SEND space is worse than in non-SEND - so we need to keep as many children out of it as we can.
December 4, 2025 at 6:00 AM
This is a brilliantly provocative way of putting it
December 4, 2025 at 7:01 AM
We all want to meet needs, the question is how to do that. As Ben points out, a lot of the approaches to doing this are snake oil - but snake oil that might be convenient for school leaders and attractive to parents.

So there's a real risk additional and different, in practice, means bad.
December 4, 2025 at 7:00 AM
Thanks - I'll have a look
December 4, 2025 at 6:57 AM
Yes. That's another big risk
December 3, 2025 at 10:19 PM
The 'resource base of expertise within school' is a much better concept
December 3, 2025 at 10:04 PM
I hadn't actually considered demand for units might be driven by parents but yes, we might well end up there.

I imagine the safeguards would have to be various bureaucratic bits plus our darling inspectorate, and neither of those is thrilling.
December 3, 2025 at 10:02 PM
These are risks, not inevitabilities. Govt can either shift emphasis (my preference, not hugely likely) or develop robust safeguards (we should all push for this).
December 3, 2025 at 9:25 PM
You might well be right on this - and I hope the schools white paper shifts the accountability incentives and structures in this area
December 1, 2025 at 6:28 PM
And I wonder if this is the case, is that the wrong way around?
December 1, 2025 at 6:20 PM
If only because, as with so many things, if there isn't a settled and functioning consensus on this as we get to whatever government comes next... That would be bad.
November 30, 2025 at 1:30 PM
Reposted by Jim Lauder
Absolutely right @samfr.bsky.social.
I'm this contradiction entirely. I know the system well. It's a binfire. Huge amounts of money are being wasted. But I'll defend my daughters ehcp to the hilt because I have zero faith the system will reform in a way that benefits her fast enough..
November 30, 2025 at 10:26 AM