Home › Forums › › SENDCO qualification › Reply To: SENDCO qualification
Hi Jacqui, I work for Real Training and each year we train hundreds of education professionals in SEND.
We have been sent an update from the DfE and they say, “We encourage SENCOs who are planning to start the NASENCO in 2023 to do so”. At the moment, we’ve been told that the launch date for the SENCO NPQ is sometime in 2024. If you were to study the NASENCO course this year, you could be qualified within 12-months and wouldn’t be required to undertake the NPQ at a later date, although we assume you could choose to do so. The DfE have said, “SENCOs who have successfully completed the NASENCO are already qualified for the role. They will not be required to undertake the new NPQ.“
It’s worth noting that the Government has not changed the law and the National Award remains the mandatory qualification until the law is updated.
The NASENCO might be the route that you’d like to go down, however there are other options available to you – for instance we have a SEND Masters programme which offers the opportunity to complete one or more modules on SEND topics, depending on your interests and the needs of your setting. NASENCO feeds into our MEd programme (it’s worth 60 Masters-level credits) and we’re hoping you will be able to bring credits in from the new NPQ SEND in our programme too (but this isn’t confirmed yet of course). If you’d like further information, you can read about the content of the NASENCO course on our website, as well as our Masters Programme. If we can help at all, please email us at info@realgroup.co.uk or call us on 01273 358080.