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I'm the SENCo in a medium sized city primary with a high number of SEN and EAL children. It's considered by both the school and Ofsted that our SEN work is excellent and I have enjoyed the last 4 years I've spent in the post. This year I've been doing 'Aspiring Heads' (the pre-NPQH course) and intend to start NPQH in September if accepted. So far so good. However, I recently applied for a Snr Mgmt post at my school and didn't get it as they decided they wanted a 'class teacher' in the post. I've been advised to apply for deputy headships in my area but keep coming up against parts of the person specification that a SENCo just can't tick - eg having responsibility for a core curriculum area eg Lit/Num....or being responsible for monitoring teaching and learning across a key stage. Have any other SENCos out there managed to make the move upwards...and how did you do it?! I feel completely trapped at the moment - the school say 'keep on with your fantastic work' but won't let me spread my wings into any non-SEN parts of the school. Any advice would be welcome.
What about Inclusion manager or Assistant headship in charge of inclusion? I see these advertisng quite a lot. You have the SEN experience.
I was a SENCo in a small secondary school and included on SLT. I worked in primary initially, but then became an advisory teacher for literacy support and later, behaviour support. That was useful experience for liaising with outside agencies, working with SLTs etc.
I would think it would be difficult to get a DH without recent whole school experience, but what about LA posts? It is possible to get into advisory work and then back into school, but the academies might have changed all that now.
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