Andy Burnham, the new prime minister is right to champion technical and vocational education.
For too long, our education system has treated practical and technical excellence as somehow secondary to academic achievement, despite the fact that our economy depends upon both.
Somewhere over the past thirty years, we have lost sight of one of the great traditions of British education.
Schools were once judged not simply by the grades they produced, but by the young adults they developed.
Character mattered. Practical skills mattered. Enterprise mattered. Preparing young people for work mattered.
Today, too many schools have become exam factories.
League tables, Progress 8 and accountability measures have steadily narrowed our definition of success until educational achievement has become almost synonymous with examination performance.
We celebrate grades, but too rarely ask whether a young person is genuinely prepared for adult life.
For young people with SEND, the consequences have been profound.
Too many apprenticeship programmes are designed around a traditional learner
I have spent more than 26 years working with children whose talents rarely fit neatly inside an examination paper.
They are exceptional problem-solvers, entrepreneurs, engineers, designers, carers and creators.
Yet too often they leave education believing they have somehow fallen short because we have judged them almost exclusively against a measure that was never designed to capture their strengths.
That is why I welcome Burnham’s ambition to place technical and vocational education on an equal footing with academic learning.
But let’s not kid ourselves that changing the curriculum alone will solve the problem.
Special schools understand the task
Because specialist schools already understand the importance of vocational education.
Across our schools in London, preparing young people with SEND for adulthood is not an optional extra that begins in Year 11. It is woven into everyday life.
Some (pictured) have done work experience with a construction company.
Students at our North West London School gain real workplace experience through our on-site coffee shop, developing the confidence and professional skills that employers tell us they want.
At our East London School, pupils have raised more than £1,100 through an enterprise project and are now working towards launching their own mobile coffee business, learning first-hand about customer service, marketing, budgeting and running a business.
We don’t do this because it looks good in a prospectus. We do it because this is education.
Helping young people discover their strengths, solve problems, work as a team, serve customers, manage money, overcome setbacks and build confidence is every bit as important as helping them pass examinations.
Uncomfortable conversations
Yet despite all of that preparation, one obstacle continues to frustrate specialist schools across the country.
Finding employers and apprenticeship providers willing to give our young people a genuine opportunity.
This is where the conversation becomes uncomfortable.
We hear constant commitments to inclusion. Businesses proudly publish diversity strategies.
Apprenticeship providers talk about widening participation.
Yet when specialist schools seek meaningful placements for young people with SEND, the reality is often very different.
Too many doors remain closed. Too many assumptions are made before a young person has even walked through the door.
Too many apprenticeship programmes are designed around a traditional learner rather than the diverse workforce employers themselves say they want to build.
If vocational education is genuinely to enjoy parity with academic education, then industry must demonstrate that parity too.
Employers must step up
Specialist schools are doing their part. We are investing in employability. We are building confidence.
We are creating enterprise opportunities. We are preparing young people for work. The question is whether employers are equally prepared for them.
The uncomfortable truth is that the disproportionate number of young people with SEND who become NEET cannot simply be explained by their additional needs.
We also need to examine the opportunities that are, or more accurately, are not available to them once they leave education.
Burnham has started an important conversation about restoring the value of vocational education. I hope it becomes the catalyst for something even bigger.
Because if we truly believe technical education deserves equal status, then we must stop treating apprenticeships for young people with SEND as acts of corporate goodwill and start recognising them as investments in talent.
The success of these reforms will not be measured by the number of vocational qualifications awarded.
It will be measured by whether more young people with SEND leave school and enter sustained employment, apprenticeships and fulfilling careers.
Until employers and apprenticeship providers step up, we will continue producing young people who are ready for work, but too often denied the opportunity to prove it.
