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<p>The Department has contracted with the Autism Education Trust since 2012 to deliver
autism training to education staff. To date, the Trust has trained over 90,000 education
staff. This training will continue to be funded in 2016-2017 to a value of £750,000.
The contract extension with the Autism Education Trust will build on previous grant
funding from the Department for two other projects (2013-16): a project by the National
Autistic Society to provide information and advice to parents and professionals on
exclusions and a project by Ambitious about Autism on strategies for supporting transition
from school to college.</p><p> </p><p>Our support also includes the National Association
for Special Educational Needs’ Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Gateway
(www.sendgateway.org.uk).This offers education professionals free, easy access to
high quality information, resources and training for meeting the needs of children
with SEND, including those with autism. The Department has also funded National Association
for Special Educational Needs (2015-16) to develop a free universal offer of SEND
Continuous Professional Development for teachers.</p><p> </p><p>The National College
for Teaching and Leadership has produced a series of specialist online courses, one
of which focuses on autism. The training materials are designed to support teachers
in mainstream schools who want to improve their skills in teaching pupils with SEND.
The training materials can be found at: <a href="http://www.education.gov.uk/lamb"
target="_blank">www.education.gov.uk/lamb</a>.</p><p> </p><p>In order to be awarded
qualified teacher status, trainees must satisfy the Teachers’ Standards, which include
a requirement that they have a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils, including
those with SEND, and are able to use and evaluate distinctive teaching approaches
to engage and support them.</p><p> </p><p>Following Sir Andrew Carter’s independent
review of the quality and effectiveness of Initial Teacher Training (ITT) courses,
the Secretary of State appointed an independent working group made up of expert representatives
from the sector to develop a framework of core ITT content. The working group includes
two SEND experts and will consider Sir Andrew’s recommendations on the SEND content
of the proposed framework. The group is expected to report to DfE in spring 2016.</p>
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