It usually happens in a corridor. The manager catches you between rooms, mentions that Priya is leaving at the end of term, and asks whether you’d consider taking on the SENDCO role from September. You say you’ll think about it. Then you spend the Easter break wondering what you’ve half agreed to.
With the spring term wrapping up and settings planning staffing for the year ahead, we see a wave of practitioners stepping into SEN coordination around now. So here’s an honest look at what the role involves, and how to walk into it prepared rather than hoping for the best.
The job is coordination, not superhero work
A common misunderstanding: the SENDCO is not the person who single-handedly supports every child with special educational needs. If that were the job, nobody could do it. The SENDCO leads SEN provision. The clue is in the title: coordination.
In practice that means working through other people. Helping the practitioner in the toddler room sharpen her observations of a child she’s worried about. Sitting with parents who are somewhere between denial and despair and finding the useful next step. Chasing the speech and language service, again. Making sure the setting’s approach to inclusion is something every member of staff owns, rather than a folder with your name on it.
Collaboration is most of the job, and it’s the part that training often underserves. Knowing the conditions matters; knowing how to get a room leader, a parent and an external professional pointing in the same direction matters more.
What you actually need to know
That said, the knowledge base is real, and it’s broader than people expect. A grounding in the range of needs you’ll meet, including autism, ADHD, sensory differences, and behavioural, emotional and social difficulties. Your statutory obligations towards children with SEN, so you know what your setting must do rather than what it’s always done. Approaches to personalised learning. And the discipline that quietly underpins the whole role: tracking progress, keeping detailed records, and using them to spot where an intervention is needed.
Records deserve a special mention. When outside agencies get involved, or when funding is being discussed, the setting’s evidence carries enormous weight. A SENDCO who can show what was tried, when, and what changed as a result gives every child a stronger case. A SENDCO working from memory gives them a weaker one.
Educational theory earns its place too, not as academic garnish but because the approaches you champion across the setting need reasons behind them. When a parent or an inspector asks why you support children the way you do, “because it works” lands far better with the thinking attached.
This is the ground our Special Educational Needs SENDCO (Level 4) course covers. It’s built within EYFS guidelines for practising and aspiring early years SENCOs, and the guided duration is around four hours, spread across sessions however suits you, which makes it realistic to complete before a September start.
Managers, this one’s for you too
One more thing we’d say to managers reading this. The settings where SEN provision genuinely works are the ones where the manager understands the SENDCO role well enough to back it: protecting time for observations and meetings, taking record keeping seriously, treating inclusion as a whole-setting standard. Several managers have taken this course themselves for exactly that reason, with no intention of holding the role. They tell us it changed how they lead.
Step into the SENDCO role knowing what you’re doing
Level 4 training covering SEN conditions, statutory obligations, personalised learning and the record keeping that evidences support, with an NFAQ-accredited completion certificate for your CPD.
If that corridor conversation has happened to you this term, take it as a compliment: someone thinks you can lead. Then do the thing that separates a good SENDCO from an overwhelmed one, and get trained before the role starts, not six months into it.