LARGE classes and staffing shortages are hindering support to special educational needs and disabilities (Send) students, teachers warned today.

Only 22 per cent of the 10,311 teachers and 2,996 support staff surveyed by the NEU said they had confidence they could properly accommodate Send pupils.

About nine in 10 (89 per cent) of NEU members who answered the questionnaire blamed a lack of funding and the size of classes for preventing schools from being fully inclusive for students who need special provisions.

The most significant barriers to preventing successful inclusion are an insufficient number of support staff (83 per cent), high workload (74 per cent) and a lack of access to specialist services (69 per cent).

Extra funding to buy physical resources for schools was also an important measure to help with inclusion, as 85 per cent of teachers said this would be positive for Send provisions.

On government plans to offer better support for pupils with special needs, NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede warned that “schools need significantly more resources to allow the government’s ambitions, as set out in the White Paper, to be achievable.

“While the NEU supports many of the principles in the White Paper, this survey of teachers demonstrates that mainstream schools are simply not resourced or staffed to cope with the current level of pupil need.”

The NEU published the survey of teachers and support staff from state schools across England ahead of its annual conference in Brighton, which starts on Monday and runs until Thursday.

About half (51 per cent) of teachers said the curriculum taught in schools is inappropriate and a “significant barrier.”

Primary school teachers said so in higher numbers (61 per cent).