Struggling in the school system? Meet The SEN Expert

Claire Walley made an unexpected career of helping families find their way in the special education needs space with compassion, creativity and clear-cut advice.

All trained up as an art teacher, on the very first day of her new job, a woman walked into a London school, raring to break out the paints and brushes, only to be told: “You’re not going to be teaching art. You are going to have this tutor group for 25 hours a week – and they’ve all got complex additional needs.”

This was Claire Walley’s introduction to the arena of special educational needs (SEN), a space where, in 2021, she would launch her own education consultancy firm,The SEN Expert.

Reflecting on that fateful, first day of her teaching career, Claire says she walked into that class of kids “and loved them”.

“They were fantastic – but their range of needs was huge. It wasn’t very forward-thinking to have all of these children in this one classroom, as if it was a primary school classroom. It was my first-ever day as a teacher and I was told something like, ‘You’re arty, so just do something creative with them’,” Claire recalls.

“I became their advocate – their cheerleader. I learned so much about their different needs and I also learned about the systems that are meant to be supporting them.”

The following 15 years saw Claire working as a deputy headteacher, assistant headteacher, consultant and special educational needs coordinator in both state and private schools in the UK and USA, supporting children and families and setting up successful and inclusive SEN systems.

On becoming a mother herself – of now three-year-old Cleo and Spike, who’s almost one – Claire sought out more flexible work and founded The SEN Expert, a fast-growing team offering mentorship, diagnosis support and resources. This year alone, they’ve worked with over 250 families, organisations, schools and professionals.

“I wanted to set up an independent firm that could offer really honest, frank advice that comes from a compassionate standpoint, but also a creative one,” says Claire. “Often parents are fighting this bureaucracy of ‘we don’t do it that way’, or ‘we’ve got to follow this policy’. I think it’s important to bring a bit of creativity and nuance to the journey that these families are on.”

As Claire explains, she and her team are working toward a world where parents don’t need to ask for accommodations to be made for their child. “You’ll just walk into a place and it’s already done,” she says. “We just want inclusion to become part and parcel of the day-to-day fabric of life. The world is diverse and different – and that’s a good thing.”

Here, Claire shares some advice on getting the right educational support for our kids.

What’s the biggest thing you’re currently seeing SEN families battling against?

The bureaucracy of the system and different stakeholders in the system. So in the UK, your main stakeholders are the local authority, schools, and professionals that are offering guidance or assessing children. I think the biggest challenge is that sometimes, these stakeholders don’t see this as, “we need to help this child”. Instead, they’re saying, “we can’t do that because we haven’t got enough funding” or “we haven’t followed that policy”.

In some cases there are policies in place at a local authority level that actually contradict what is written in law. So you have parents who are battling a local authority that’s saying, “no, we can't help you”. And then the minute they go to appeal, the judge says “well, what does the law say?” And then the parents get what they’re asking for.

It’s like these stakeholders are reading off different hymn sheets and you just end up, as a parent, being totally confused. There isn’t a clear-cut process of how to get help and there’s been a lot of miscommunication – almost like urban myths – around how to get support.

How can parents avoid this confusion and get the information they need?

Ultimately we’re following theSEND [special education needs and disability] Code of Practice. That’s the current law that lists all of the ways that we should be supporting children with additional needs – and that’s what we should be looking at.

If you google “the SEND Code of Practice 2014” it’s all there. But it’s meaty, you know? I try to focus on different elements of it onThe SEN Expert Instagram account, breaking sections down into a few points. If there are certain areas that parents are interested in, they can just drop us a message and we’ll be able to give a nice, short explanation.

What we’re trying to do at The SEN Expert is show families, this is what you should do. Here are the logical steps to get to where you want to be. Because my gosh, you’re walking through mud, a lot of the time, just to try and get clear on what the process is and what your child should be entitled to.

What advice do you have for families who are new to the SEN system?

Be mindful of what information you are looking at and taking as fact. Everyone loves sharing a negative story when things haven’t gone particularly well but there are so, so many positive stories where the system has worked. Children aren’t just surviving in schools – they’re thriving. But you don’t hear about those on a Mumsnet thread at two in the morning when you're having a panic.

Lots of children have EHCPs [education and Health Care Plans] in place that are well written and heavily resourced. Through that additional support, they’re able to go to a school that can meet their needs and they’re able to succeed and become successful young people.

Yes, there are loads of people out there that are fighting the system and it’s a real slog. But there are also people out there that have got really, really positive stories because, in essence, the SEND Code of Practice – the whole system around EHCPs – is really great. We just need to get it to work. And getting it to work isn’t scrapping the whole thing and starting again. It’s about the government suitably funding local authorities, local authorities knowing how to act in a compassionate way – and schools being fully funded to be able to help these kids thrive and grow.

Visit The SEN Expert website and follow Claire and the team on Instagram .

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