Ekins supports Tissot’s view arguing that SEN should not be thought of separately but play a key role in the whole school development of teaching and learning. My is view that a SENCO who is not on the leadership team will inevitably end up with a managerial role and have less ability to shape strategy with regard to SEN. Tissot (2013:39) goes further, claiming that “the lack of SENCOs on leadership teams is stifling the vision of the role as well as its implementation in practise”.

With no clear answer, it is very much left to the subjectivity head teachers to decide the level of SENCO involvement. Layton (2005:57) states that the agent of change in a school is the head teacher, but added “sustained change is only possible when one leader, in this case the head teacher, distributes leadership authority, roles and responsibilities among colleagues such as the SENCO.” From this body of discussion, I believe it would be difficult for a SENCO to aspire to a positional model of leadership without being empowered by the head teacher to be a member of the senior leadership team. And it would be hard for the head teacher to distribute that leadership authority to someone who was not on the leadership team. Perhaps as Rosen and Webb (2011) noted, the increasing formalisation of the role with new SENCOs like myself expected to achieve a national award could be seen as a compromise by government to raise their profile without them being a member of the senior leadership team.