Come with me as we journey through the misty realm of unrealistic expectations and the valley of forgotten purpose.

The mythical creature that is the SENDCo is possibly the most misunderstood of all the teaching fairy tale characters.

I talk about it in this way because rather than being the hero of the tale, the SENDCo is often interpreted as the annoying and repetitive troll under the bridge, constantly asking for more and more of the travel-fatigued teacher.

Don’t get me wrong, I acknowledge that I am somewhat biased in this perspective, given that I have taken on the role of the elusive SENDCo. But let me be frank, when I was but a mere mortal, foraging the forest of education, I received several of those dreaded Round Robin requests and it was just another admin task in the ever-looming dark that is teacher admin. I hated getting them, I didn’t see the point, I already filled in the attainment data and spoke to parents on Parents Evening so why did I need to give the SENDCo extra information about that too. I mean they barely even taught; they had plenty of free time to do this pointless exercise themselves – I bet they didn’t even read it. They got up in front of staff once a year, talked about the new intake and gave sparse information about how to support kids with X, Y and/or Z. I asked if a kid was autistic because the traits were there in my opinion, and I was told that they couldn’t diagnose autism. Was it that they couldn’t or was it that they wouldn’t because they didn’t want to do the paperwork?

Oh, how naïve a novice I was; something only hindsight (what a beautifully frustrating thing) would teach me.

Let’s rewind a little to the beginning of this tale, the day I started as a brand new, eager to make a change SENDCo, armed with my SENDCo notebook (literally a notebook that had ‘SENDCo Notebook’ on the front – how bloody pointless), ready to face the battle with the dragonish beast that is SEND.

I was not prepared for just how little I knew and just how little plain-and-simple information there was to read out there. My first heroic battle was to get to grips with what SEND was, so I could support others in understanding and supporting their innocent and bright-eyed flock of students. I turned down the path of the SEND Code of Practice, believing it to be the least nightmarish of the two, I mean it was literally my handbook, right? Let me ask you this, have you ever read a 292-page government document and thought, oh how insightful yet straightforward, what practical solutions to my problems? Yeah, me neither. But diligently I read, and I read, until I could read no more. Until I became tangled in the vines of technical lingo and statutory requirements.

Within days of the post, I felt as though I had misstepped into the lair of an evil so treacherous that I would never get to the end of my heroine’s journey. There was so much to read, so much to learn and so much to understand. I felt like a fraud, like a sheep dressed up in wolf’s clothing. How could I possibly tell staff how to support SEND when I had tangled myself up in my very own spider’s web, lost and confused.

I mean, what in shining armour’s name is moderate learning difficulties, how can you have average learning difficulties, is it like a bit of SEND but not SEND at the same time?

But at least I had all that free time afforded to a SENDCo right? Oh, how foolish. Time for a SENDCo is not your time, it belongs to everyone else. Your time comes later, when the last candle in the school is blown out and that moment of delicious silence is yours. It is in this time you begin to gather your weapons, polish your armour and ask the magic mirror who is the most inclusive of them all. Desperately, praying that it is in fact you.

It was about a month in that I realised how disgustingly ill-informed I was about the role but thanks to my supportive school and Trust, I began to map out my journey once more, avoiding the deep dark forest of Google. Yet the road to the castle of inclusivity would be a long and tiresome one. Something I am beginning to realise will always be this way. There is no completion of the mission when it comes to the SENDCo role, there is always another ADHD screening to fill in, another unheard request to change an EHCP to make it fit for purpose. The kingdom of SEND, much to the bafflement of heroic SENDCos everywhere, will most likely remain a broken system until the Kings and Queens of education carefully consider the implications of this limping state of affairs.

Anyway, I digress, as Winter retreated and the first dew of Spring broke, my ever-growing stomach became heavy and low with the weight of my little princess and the ever-green pastures of maternity leave were calling to me. The toil of hard work and determination had started to pay off and finally a filing system was in place to ensure the inventory of our labour was apt and effective; the mist of despair had begun to clear, and the swamp of burdensome knowledge seeped into the distance.

But a new dragon rose from the ashes of my imposter syndrome; the fear of the unknown. Would all my hard work be for nothing, would the systems become a long-forgotten tale, would the fort be held in my absence? The battles I had won may now be lost. Yet, the time came, unexpectedly sooner than intended, that I had to hang up my sword and shield, let it gather dust, and build a village of my own for a few months (and I do mean a few, having left to give birth early at the end of March, I returned at the end of July).

Again, in my ever-naïve head, I thought I would return from my journey into motherhood, to a lesser to do list, still believing in the fairy tale of completion. What I discovered, now I had returned, less the haze of a pregnancy cloud, was that the real work would begin.

The tale of the coordinator, not the labourer is where the sequel commenced. The damsel in distress my work-life balance. Valiantly, I fought to bring about the story of ‘everyone is responsible for SEND’ – a fable we had not yet conquered. It was here at this juncture that I reflected upon my time before SENDCo, and I realised that once upon a time, I too believed that the responsibility of SEND lay solely with the SENDCo, I mean that’s literally in their job title. As I held up this mirror, I realised that it did not reflect the thoughts of my colleagues but instead the broken government system that failed to provide us with the means to defend ourselves against the deep dark forest and instead allowed us to flounder in the ever-poisoned apple of workload.

But how do you change a deep-rooted story of stock characters and fantastic fables? How do you rewrite the journey you have already taken? Knowledge. The power of knowledge is the potion for all ailments over time. It was possible, that if I unveil the secrets of the SENDCo, if I gave them the power, I poses to understand the processes then surely, I could build an army of inclusivity.

Little by little, I pulled out the thorns of misgiving and SEND myths and found that equipped with the why of the paperwork, the prophecies of failure if inaction should prevail, staff became more vigilant, their efforts doubled and redoubled, until we found the path of least resistance. Our damsel is not yet saved, but we have certainly found the means with which we will save her.

This is indeed a cautionary tale; one I do not take lightly and completely acknowledge the luck which has been bestowed upon me in finding myself in a school that is eager to improve the process and genuinely do the best for staff and students alike. A school that when they claim family values, they mean it. A place that truly comes together in times of strength and hardship, a place that has built a community within itself and well as outside its castle walls.

But should we not strive to be the hero of the SENDCo story, the fairy tale cannot exist. All fairy tales must come with their own time of turmoil, of challenges to overcome, how else would the damsel be rid of their distress? It is in the journey where we find strength, it is where we find our camaraderie, it is where we find the innate beauty in our purpose as educators of SEND students.