If you’re early in your teaching career and you feel underprepared to support learners with SEND, I want to start by taking that weight off your shoulders. It is not a sign that you’re a bad teacher. It’s a sign that the system trained you the way it trains almost everyone, which is to say, not enough. I contributed a chapter on exactly this to Questions on SEND: Developing inclusive practice as an early career teacher (Durrant, ed., 2026), because new teachers deserve honest, practical help rather than being left to work it all out alone.
So here is what I’d say to any early career teacher, based on the research and on years of watching what actually works.
You cannot memorise your way to inclusion
The instinct, when you feel out of your depth, is to try to learn every condition: every definition, every checklist, every acronym. Put that instinct down. You will never memorise a child, and the label was never the point.
Inclusive practice is far less about knowing the textbook profile of dyslexia or ADHD and far more about noticing the pupil in front of you, being curious about what they find hard and what they’re good at, and adjusting. The knowledge helps, and you should keep building it. But a warm, observant teacher who adapts beats an anxious one reciting definitions every time.
Lead with quality-first, adaptive teaching
The best news for a busy new teacher is that most of what supports SEND learners is just good teaching, and it helps the whole class. So you don’t need a separate plan for every pupil on top of everything else you’re juggling.
Keep your resources clear and uncluttered. Chunk your instructions and give them in more than one form. Share soft copies of your slides. Turn on the accessibility tools already built into the software you use. Focus on the small things that can be revolutionary in their impact: a visual timetable, a movement break, coloured paper, a moment to check understanding. I’ve set these out in more detail in integrating dyslexia support into mainstream teaching, and they’re the most efficient place for an ECT to start.
The mindset shift that underpins all of it is from differentiation, which can single a pupil out, to adaptive teaching, which designs one lesson that anticipates a range of needs. It’s a better use of your limited time, and it protects pupils’ sense of belonging.
Remember that needs don’t come in tidy boxes
One thing I’d gently flag early, because it took me longer to appreciate than it should have: a pupil is never just their SEND. Needs intersect with each other and with everything else about a child, including their gender, their background and their circumstances, and those intersections shape how a difficulty shows up and how it’s perceived. I explore this in a chapter on intersectionality in schools (Akinde, ed., 2026). For an ECT, the practical takeaway is simple: stay curious about the whole child, and be wary of assuming one label tells you the whole story.
Use the people and the free resources around you
You are not meant to do this alone, so don’t try to.
Get to know your SENCo early, and treat them as a resource rather than someone you only go to in a crisis. Ask more experienced colleagues how they’d approach a particular pupil. And build your own knowledge with the good, free CPD that’s available through MOOCs, Seneca, Microsoft Learning and similar, at whatever pace your first years allow. If you want something more structured and dyslexia-specific, my courses and guides are written with exactly this in mind.
Look after yourself, too
A quick but serious word. The early years of teaching are demanding, and you cannot be a steady, patient presence for anxious pupils if you’re running on empty yourself. Supporting learners well and looking after your own wellbeing are not in competition. The second makes the first possible. Be as kind to yourself as you’re learning to be to the children in your class.
The honest encouragement
You will not get everything right, and you don’t need to. Inclusive practice is something you grow into across a career, not a standard you’re supposed to have arrived at in your first term. Start with the small, high-impact things, build your knowledge steadily, lean on the people around you, and stay curious about each child. That’s not a lesser version of supporting SEND. In my experience, it’s how the best teachers do it.
If your school would like structured support for its early career teachers around SEND and dyslexia, that’s something I provide through training and consultancy. You’re welcome to get in touch.
Questions people often ask
I feel like I wasn’t trained for this. Is that normal? Unfortunately, yes. SEND input in initial teacher training is inconsistent, and many new teachers feel under-prepared. It’s a system issue, not a personal failing, and it’s very fixable with the right ongoing support.
Where should a new teacher even start? With quality-first, adaptive teaching: clear resources, chunked instructions, soft copies of slides, built-in accessibility tools, and the small everyday adjustments that help the whole class. It’s the most efficient starting point.
Should I learn all the different conditions in depth? Build your knowledge over time, but don’t try to memorise everything at once. Noticing and responding to the actual pupil in front of you matters more than reciting textbook profiles.
Who can help me in school? Your SENCo first, and experienced colleagues. Ask early and often. Combine that with free online CPD and, where useful, more structured dyslexia-specific training.
References and further reading
- Ross, H. (2026) Developing inclusive practice as an early career teacher, in Durrant, G. (ed.) Questions on SEND. Abingdon: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003571414
- Ross, H. (2026) chapter in Akinde, F. (ed.) Exploring Intersectionality in Schools: Voices on Race and SEND for Advocacy and Change. Abingdon: Routledge. See the full list of publications.
- Ross, H. (2021) Speaking and writing quietly into the abyss: SEND and inclusion training for teachers, SEN Magazine, 114, 32-33.
- Ross, H. (2017) An exploration of teachers’ agency and social relationships within dyslexia-support provision in an English secondary school, British Journal of Special Education, 44(2), 186-202. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8578.12174