International Journal of Humanities and Social ScienceVol. 8 • No. 3 • March 2018

doi:10.30845/ijhss.v9n3p3

Teachers’ Expectation to the Role of Special Needs Coordinator in JapanA Comparison between Primary and Special Needs School
Tomomi SANAGI, PhD
School of Education
Kwansei Gakuin University
Hyogo, Japan 662-0827
Abstract
The special needs coordinator plays an essential role in development of effective schools for all pupils includingchildren with disabilities. The author focused on the attitudes of both primary and special needs school teachers
towards expectation of the roles of special needs coordinators. The purpose is to clarify some features incomparing teachers' attitudes towards the roles of special needs coordinator between primary schools andschools for special needs. In total 178 teachers participated. The findings indicated that primary school teachers
have expected their special needs coordinator to fulfill mainly the roles of development of effective school forchildren with special needs through managing regular meetings, overseeing the daily practice and the records ofchildren. On the other hand, the special needs coordinator who is working at school for special needs is highly
expected in liaising with the outside agencies and providing support to other neighborhood mainstream schools in
the local area.

Keywords: special needs coordinator, teachers’ attitude
1. Introduction
The Role of special coordinator is one of the essential factors for progress of special needs education. (Cowne,Frankle and Gerschel; Fitzgerald, 2007; Garner, 2009; Hodkinson, 2016; Sanagi, 2005a; Sanagi, 2005b, and soon) Packer (2014) expressed that the school special educational needs coordinator (SENCO) has become pivotal
to the success of every school. They have a heavy workload - a typical list contains over 30 separate areas of
responsibility for a SENCO (Westwood, 2013). The first code of practice on special educational needs as listed
the roles of SENCO has been issued in the United Kingdom in 1996, and the latest version of the code of practicefor special educational needs in the United Kingdom is issued in 2015 (DfE,2015). And, now, the SENCO will be
providing strategic direction and development, coordinating provision and tracking progress, along with leading
and developing others in school improvement (Packer, 2014, p.20).
The Japanese government introduced a system of special support coordinator in the school system in 2007, at thesame time of a shift the education system for pupils with disabilities from special education to special needs
education. The special needs education system in Japan is just for pupils with disability that is legislated in School
Education Law as partially amended in 2007. (MEXT, 2007) It is known that the special needs education system
is much wider than a former special education system in their subject. Although the Ministry of Education,Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), the exact name of Japanese Ministry of Education, haschanged the name of the education system from special education to special needs education (in precisely, it iscalled special "support" education), this system is for not pupils with special educational needs but just for pupils
with disabilities. This is the point that we should remember for making sense the special needs education system
in Japan. MEXT has introduced the special needs coordinator (SN coordinator) system that had reproduced
Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO) system in the United Kingdom in all compulsory primary andlower secondary schools and schools for pupil with special educational needs (in fact, just for pupils withdisability). The MEXT has adopted the roles of special needs coordinator in Japan superficially as very similar tothe roles of the SENCO in the United Kingdom, though the education system is quite different. Sanagi (2014)
repeatedly and strongly emphasized that it should be taken deliberate introduce of the roles of special needs
coordinator into the Japanese education system as the same contents as the roles of SENCO in the United
Kingdom because there is a fundamental difference between those two countries.
13ISSN 2220-8488 (Print), 2221-0989 (Online)©Center for Promoting Ideas, USA

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During the last decade, many books about special needs coordinator has been issued and also each education
authority has set some in-service training courses for special needs coordinators. Special needs coordinators havebeen nominated in special schools as the named person for providing support to neighborhood mainstream
schools rather coordinating special needs in their special school. While the special needs coordinator in schools
for special needs is nominated in 100%, special needs coordinator in mainstream compulsory schools has been
designated 99.2% in public primary schools and 95.6% in public junior secondary schools in 2016. (MEXT,2016) It shows that almost all compulsory schools have appointed special needs coordinator as a key promoter of
special needs education in the school system.
The roles of the SENCO can vary significantly between settings (Fitzgerald, 2007). It indicates that the role of thespecial needs coordinator in Japan is also different between in mainstream school and school for special needs.
The present study focused on the attitudes of both primary and special needs school teachers towards expectationof the roles of special needs coordinators. The author continuously conducted some investigations about teachers'
attitudes towards major concepts in special needs education. (Sanagi, 2009; Sanagi and Matsumoto, 2015; Sanagi,2016a; Sanagi, 2016b) In this study, the purpose is to clarify some features in comparing teachers' attitudes
towards the roles of special needs coordinator between primary schools and schools for special needs.

2. Methods
Participants
・119 teachers from mainstream primary schools and 59 teachers from schools for special needs who have joineda series of seminars to have a special teacher license in Japan. In total 178 teachers participated.
Data collection・Using a questionnaire for the analysis that consists of nine items of the roles of special needs coordinator. It
consists of eight items from the roles of SENCO in the former Code of Practice in the United Kingdom (2001),
and in addition to the items, the role of managing regular meetings for special educational needs. Although thelatest Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice has issued in 2015 (DfE and DoH, 2015), theroles listed in the former Special Educational Needs Code of Practice were adopted in this study because there ismore difference in the education system for children with special needs after the new regulation in the United
Kingdom in 2014. (DfE, 2014) The items for questionnaire show in Table 1 as below.
Table 1. t-test between primary and special school teachers towards the roles of special coordinator
Mean
primary

4.43

special

4.15

primary

4.52

special

4.39

primary

4.40

special

4.34

Coordinating provision for children withspecial educational needs

primary

4.53

special

4.56

Overseeing the records of all children with special
educational needs

primary

4.29

special3.55

Liaising with parents of pupils withspecial educational needs

primary

4.24

special

4.29

primary

4.09

special

3.83

primary

4.45

special

4.75

primary

4.46

special

4.00

Overseeing the day-to-day operation of
the school’s SEN policy
Liaising with and advising fellow teachers
Managing the special provision team including fellow teachers,
teaching assistants, school counselors, and other relevant staffs

Contributing to the in-service training of staff
Liaising with the local authorities, early years providers, other schools,educational psychologists, health and social care professionals, andindependent or voluntary bodies

Managing regular meetings for SEN

tp

Effect Size
(r)

2.411

p<.05

0.18

1.391

n.s.

-

0.566

n.s.

-

-0.277

n.s.

-

5.455

p<.01

0.50

-0.378

n.s.

-

1.759

n.s.

-

-3.272

p<.01

0.27

3.207

p<.01

0.33

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International Journal of Humanities and Social ScienceVol. 8 • No. 3 • March 2018

doi:10.30845/ijhss.v9n3p3

・ Data collection had conducted on an in-service training course for teacher license of special needs education inAugust 2016.
Procedure・Questioning
Participants were asked items as “What do you think the extent of the importance that special needs coordinators
should take this role in your school?”・Analysis
The responded data were analyzed statistically using t-test for comparison between teachers from primary andspecial needs schools.

3. Results
Table 1 shows that the result of t-test between teachers from primary and special needs schools. It seems ingeneral that there is a high expectation of the roles of special needs coordinator in both primary and special needsschools.
Among the items, the highest expectation to their special needs coordinator at primary school was the item about"Coordinating provision for children with SEN" with following item as "liaising with and advising fellow
teachers". On the other hand, teachers who are from schools for special needs expected the role of "Liaising withoutside agencies". There are some differences between primary and special needs teachers in comparing
statistically the items with t-test. Four items among all items has shown the statistical significance between two
groups, "Overseeing the day-to-day operation of the school's SEN policy", "Overseeing the records of all children
with SEN", "Managing regular meeting for SEN", and "Liaising with outside agencies". In the first three of thosefour items, teachers from primary schools had much higher expectations to the special needs coordinator thanteachers from school for special needs. Teachers from special needs school have estimated in the item of "Liaisingwith outside agencies" as the highest importance towards the role of special needs coordinator. However, effectsize indicated that there are not so big differences between two groups.

4. Discussion and Conclusion
For development of effective schools, all teachers should be regarded as having responsibility to support andencourage not only pupils with special educational needs or disabilities but also all pupils in their school. In thetheory of an interactive model of the concept of special educational needs, Sanagi (2003) andSanagi (2007)
emphasized that all staffs including special needs coordinator should be recognized as an element ofenvironmental factor which may perform mutual interaction with individual factors. Most books about developing
effective schools and discussing the roles of SENCO in the United Kingdom, like as Cowne, Frankl and Gerschel(2014), pointed out in common that effective school policies depend on good communication systems between theSENCO and other staffs. There is no mention about special needs coordinator directly in the amendment of theschool education law in Japan. However, since the amendment towards special needs education the roles ofspecial needs coordinator were extended to include much wider educational needs not only at special schools butalso rather at mainstream schools. That is the reason why primary school teachers expressed their expectation
highly to the special needs coordinator to take the roles about overseeing and managing special provision in theirschool. During the last decade, the roles of school for special needs was also extended to provide theirprofessional resources for children with disabilities not only who are schooling special schools but also theirneighborhood mainstream schools as giving advices and providing itinerant services.
In conclusion, primary school teachers have expected their special needs coordinator to fulfill mainly the roles ofdevelopment of effective school for children with special needs through managing regular meetings, overseeing
the daily practice and the records of children. On the other hand, the special needs coordinator who is working at
school for special needs is highly expected in liaising with the outside agencies and providing support to otherneighborhood mainstream schools in the local area. It seems that this difference between primary and special
needs schools was involved in the extension of the provision for children with disabilities in each. That is, in thelast decade in Japan, primary schools have a much broader responsibility for children with disabilities than everbefore, and special needs schools have extended their roles in special needs education not only for the pupils whoare schooling special schools but also in the neighborhood mainstream schools as a center for special needs in thelocal area.
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ISSN 2220-8488 (Print), 2221-0989 (Online)©Center for Promoting Ideas, USA

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Conflicts of Interest
The author has no conflict of interest directly relevant to the content of this article.

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