The SENCO as a leader of professional learning for inclusive practice

This chapter explores the theory and practice of professional development for inclusive practice. It defines practice inquiry for transformational teacher development towards inclusion. In order to theorise about the role of the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators (SENCO) as a leader of professional learning for inclusive practice, it is important to begin with some clarification of terms. Epistemology is the study of knowledge, what knowledge is, what it means to ‘know,’ how people know and how people can come to know more. A positivist epistemology emerges from an ontologically objectivist position. The challenge for SENCOs here is not underestimated because deep professional learning for inclusion demands a shift from the workshop or inset approach to understanding special educational needs and disabilities (SENDs) to one of situated learning synchronous with the core business of the school during a school day.