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Special Education Needs (SEN) professionals are invaluable in schools. They support students with disabilities, learning difficulties, and emotional or behavioural challenges who need unique tools and guidance to learn. These professionals not only provide vital help to the students in their care, they also foster an inclusive learning environment.

However, a survey from revealed that 55% of primary school SEN professionals and 70% of secondary school SEN professionals are not allocated enough time to complete their role effectively. It also showed that more than 25% of SEN professionals left their roles because of high workload.

In 2025, alone have special needs requirements in schools. With the right resources, SEN professionals will be equipped to continue supporting millions of students to thrive.

These are the resources every SEN professional should have in 2025.

Communication-enhancing wearables

Communication is essential for students who may have visual or auditory impairments. that wearable devices give students with disabilities more opportunities to engage with their environment, and to be included in learning to a greater degree.

It’s equally important that SEN professionals can understand and be understood by the students they work with.

Wearable devices are designed to bridge any communication gaps between SEN professionals and students in real time. Many of these devices are discrete too, so students don’t feel singled out, and SEN professionals have a more natural way to interact with individuals.

Examples of communication-enhancing wearables are:

• Smart badges and wristbands
• Clip-on microphones
• Smartphones to provide real-time captions
• Earpieces
• Glasses with built-in visual displays

This equipment often facilitates speech-to-text, text-to-speech, filters out background noise, and translates sign language. For example, a student with restricted verbal capabilities can use a wearable device to convert their written words into speech for a SEN professional. The SEN professional can speak into a connected device that transforms their sounds into captions or visual symbols for the student.

With this technology, exchanges are faster and more intuitive – both SEN professionals and students can express themselves with greater ease. SEN professionals can also build deeper, more meaningful relationships with students, and have a more accurate understanding of the students’ needs and progress. This information can be shared with fellow educators and the students’ family to create a more tailored learning experience for them.

Adaptive AI training

AI has become more and more integrated into education, and represents an opportunity for SEN staff to offer more targeted support. In particular, adaptive AI can assist professionals by recognising patterns in students’ abilities, and adjusting content, pace, and interaction style accordingly. The result is that SEN students get access to teaching that best suits them. It additionally reduces some of the workload for SEN professionals, giving them more time to support students in high priority areas.

For staff who need support in integrating AI into their practice, adaptive AI training could take place in the form of collaborative workshops, in-house training or partnerships with edtech platforms that use adaptive AI. Through the training, SEN professionals could learn to navigate the technology in a way that’s tailored to their students, all while being mindful of potential tech and data biases.

With adaptive AI knowledge, SEN professionals can ensure that their students have access to modern, impactful solutions to their unique learning challenges.

Collaborative care platforms

SEN professionals are constantly trying to maintain consistency in student support at school and at home. Collaborative care platforms offer a digital space to bring together SEN professionals, educators, family, and healthcare providers to coordinate support for individuals.

These platforms could include a calendar showing the students’ medical appointments, their grades at schools, any notes about achievements or incidents, and have a chat functionality for all parties to communicate. This provides shared visibility for everyone to give updates and recommendations that contribute to more consistency for each student. Plus, it helps to keep strategies aligned across different environments (e.g. health, education, social).

Using collaborative care platforms allows SEN professionals to document their observations and flag any concerns. They can streamline how they talk to educators and students’ families, and don’t have to spend large amounts of time coordinating in-person meetings. The platforms can also host materials to help SEN professionals with a high volume of students, e.g. guidelines about the priorities, communication style, and courses of action for each individual.

Emotional labour tracking

are high among SEN professionals. The job is intellectually, physically, and emotionally demanding. Caring for students with complex needs requires levels of empathy, patience, and personal investment that can lead to emotional burnout.

Emotional labour tracking is a resource for SEN professionals to document how much time they spend on intense tasks, and to give them an overview of their wellbeing before burnout happens. Emotional labour tracking can include, but is not limited to:

• Logging emotionally demanding tasks – e.g., supporting distressed students for extended periods of time, having difficult conversations with families, managing behavioural incidents.
• Recording the time and frequency of emotionally intensive work – tasks that are outside the scope of standard lesson planning or support duties.
• Monitoring signs of emotional fatigue – being aware of, and documenting, early symptoms of burnout, compassion fatigue or detachment.

This tracking can take place on digital platforms, through in-person meetings with managers or as seasonal reports/surveys. The idea is that SEN professionals take a regular, clear-eyed look at where and how they are investing emotional energy in their role. They should then work with a supervisor to agree on healthy boundaries and flag when those boundaries are being crossed.

Alongside tracking, SEN professionals need access to comprehensive mental health resources which can support them in the type of work they are doing. For example, if a professional is spending a significant portion of their day de-escalating behavioural crises, they should have an option of debriefing sessions and trauma-informed counselling.

Taking care of caretakers

The people who look after others, need looking after themselves too. SEN professionals are an essential part of the education system, and they must have resources that protect their health and careers. The resources above are only a baseline for SEN professionals. Every school should have its own strategy to safeguard their SEN staff.

Further reading

Get more tips to support staff and diverse student needs in your school. Read How to recognise and support ADHD students in the classroom, How AI in education can improve your school accessibility, and learn about ɫèAV’s wellbeing courses and resources for educators.

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