Senior officials have been warned that cash-strapped heads areappointing teaching assistants with no relevant experience as specialeducational needs co-ordinators. The officials have discussed the issuewith the National Association of Special Educational Needs and asked itschief executive Lorraine Peterson to establish the number of schoolsinvolved.
Peterson said: "We already know of many schools that have high-levelteaching assistants who are now doing that role. We've hadcorrespondence from teachers who have lost their posts as co-ordinatorsand they have gone to a teaching assistant who does not have theexperience or training. The DfES is also aware of this happening andasked us to get statistics on it. They clearly see the need for therebeing a person in every mainstream school who is championing specialeducational needs and is trained to deal with the issues."
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