“I've heard reports of parents who’re having to fight to get support for their children”

In this interview, she shares the experiences that sparked her passion for educational psychology and what she thinks is needed to make the SEND system work better for children and their families. 

What inspired you to pursue becoming an educational psychologist? 

I was always fascinated with psychology and I'm passionate about the education system in general. I've also had some really good experience working with people with special educational needs and disabilities. 

I studied psychology at university, and I knew that it was an area that I wanted to pursue in my career. My passion for the education system comes from my own experiences. I was diagnosed with dyslexia when I was really young, and I found things like reading and writing at school a bit tricky. I was lucky that I got the support I needed because my parents really pushed for it. I went to a pretty average comprehensive secondary state school, but when I moved to a grammar school for sixth form, the change in my education was life-altering. 

It gave me so much ambition and I probably wouldn't be here pursuing educational psychology if I hadn't moved schools. It made clear how broad the disparities are within the education system and made me think about what it must be like for children in SEND education who aren't in the settings that they need to be. 

It sparked my interest in educational psychology and led me to get some experience working with people with SEND. In my second year of university, I volunteered with the charity Mencap on one of their residential summer camps. We did loads of fun activities that people might not ordinarily have had access to. I was working one-to-one with one of the campers who had a learning disability - we went to Drayton Manor, visited farms and did lots of arts and crafts. 

I then went to a summer camp in America to work with children with SEND, which was amazing. My work experience has affirmed that I want to make a difference in people's lives and make education accessible for everybody. 

Can you tell us a bit about your current role? What's your favourite part of your work? 
 
I'm a teaching assistant in a SEN school, working with children aged between 8-11 years old. Although there isn't a typical day in education, normally first thing we'll do morning work with the children which might be reading or maths. It will always be tailored to the child. We give them the support they need, and we'll have lots of breaks throughout the day. In between each lesson, we have movement breaks where we go outside for some running around and play. There are always lots of snacks! 

In the afternoon, we might do art or a music lesson which we have specialist teachers for. Some days we go to the forest school within the school where the children can have some time with nature.  

I think it's going to sound very cliché, but my favourite part of my role is working with the kids and getting to know them. Because I work so many hours with a small number of children, I can see small improvements happening week-on-week and it's exciting. It shows that what you're doing is working and it's all going to be worthwhile. 

You're already spoken passionately about the BPS campaign calling for a linked educational psychologist in every school. From your experience, what do you think the impact would be on a child's education if this was actioned? 

It would have a huge impact. I think having a linked educational psychologist in every school would really help to make the SEND system more accessible and equitable. Educational psychologists are really important because they're the ones who make education, health and care plans. Having these plans in place is essential for children to thrive in life and in their education, but the problem is that there just aren't enough educational psychologists right now. This means that not enough of these plans are being made and the result of that is thousands of children in England aren't getting the support they need. 

The support can also be determined by where they live and if the child is in an area where there are lots of educational psychologists; it can become a postcode lottery. It'd be a lot more accessible if there were more educational psychologists and one linked to every school. 

From your perspective, why do you think early intervention and prevention in the SEND system is so important? 

If there isn't early intervention support, children fall further behind in their learning. If we can help children earlier, we can tackle issues when they're more manageable. These measures also provide relief to the families and guardians of children with SEND. I've heard reports of parents who're having to fight to get support for their children. My parents really pushed for me to get diagnosed with dyslexia, and it was the same for my three siblings who all have dyslexia. Every single time, it was the same process of having to fight to get the diagnosis and the support that we needed. The wait for support inevitably has a negative effect on families and guardians, and this is likely going to harm the child as well. But if we can give children support when the need is identified, it's going to greatly improve lives. 

What do you think would need to happen for the education system to work better for children, families and educational psychologists? 

I think the BPS campaign is right to focus on the shortage of educational psychologists. They've got really high caseloads and there are incredibly long waiting lists to see one. I think this could be tackled by focusing on training more educational psychologists, but right now, there aren't enough training places. It's harmful to the whole system because there's such a high workload placed on practicing educational psychologists. I think it's also right that the campaign calls for improving retention in educational psychology. 

It takes a lot of time to train people, so I think retention is important. From my perspective, as an aspiring educational psychologist, I know that it's a very long path to train. You need to get a degree, then complete work experience for at least another year, but usually ends up being minimum of two or three years. Then you spend another three years on your doctorate. Challenges with this process are that it can be difficult to gain work experience and there aren't enough training places. 

As a recent undergraduate, I watched my friends get onto grad schemes, but these don't exist in educational psychology. Some aspiring educational psychologists even take on honorary roles to gain work experience, but not everyone can afford to do this. 

Other fields, such as clinical psychology, have access schemes which help aspiring clinical psychologists gain paid work experience. I think applying aspects from these types of schemes to educational psychology could be a great way to help people gain the experience to get onto the doctorate course. But then there are issues of limited training places on the doctorate. So even though there are lots of people eligible for the training and want to be educational psychologists, there just aren't enough training places. I think a solution is increased funding for more training places to get more people qualified to a really high standard. Schemes can also be introduced to make the process of getting a place on the course more accessible and equitable. 

Through improving the training and retention of educational psychologists, there will be more of them to help children, young people and families.