ARC Chair Update - January 2026

I hope all the ARC community had an enjoyable and relaxing festive season, and I wish you all the very best for 2026.

ARC has been a range of discussions to help inform the DfE around the SEND review, particularly children and young people with SEMH. We continue to connect other ‘parties’ across the wider ‘system’ with DfE colleagues, as well as signposting them to relevant research. I am delighted to share with the ARC community an excellent article from Margaret Mulholland (ASCL SEND & Inclusion policy Specialist) entitled Why we should be optimistic about SEND in 2026?. This is very thought provoking around the national focus on Inclusion and the SEND cohort.

ARC also continues to be active in the Initial Teacher Training arena. The ARC HE/Research National Group meet up to six times a year. They have the overview for adding current research to the ARC website, which is currently undergoing a refinement to support our members search facility. This group will be celebrated in the February newsletter and added to our website. One current focus area is to build on the ITT document , with a view to update to meet the current landscape. This will look at the direction of government policy alongside existing ITT/ECF documents, the Curriculum Review and the forthcoming SEND White Paper. I am pleased to share with you a paper from Margaret Mulholland Do we need better initial teacher training on SEND? which helps to provide a further dimension to this work.

I am delighted to see how we have been able to extend the invitation for nominations from schools in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland this year. The quality and quantity of nominations continues to grow and I look forward to recognising schools either as regional winners, regional commendations and national winners.

Finally, I would like to encourage both individuals and schools to contact me to share any exciting work or developments they are having. Remember ARC is OUR community, it is YOUR community, ARC is a LEARNING Community.

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