Unlocking Potential: How Mentoring and Upskilling Teachers Will Reduce NEET Outcomes for SEND Learners
For learners with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), the transition into further education, employment, or training remains one of the most challenging stages of their educational journey. Year after year, data shows that young people with SEND are far more likely to become NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) than their peers, despite their talents, ambitions, and potential.
But the key to shifting this narrative is not simply more interventions for learners. It lies in equipping the adults who support them with deeper insight, stronger confidence, and professional tools that transform how they engage with SEND learners every day.
The factors behind high NEET rates for SEND young people are well-recognised: fragmented transition planning, inconsistent access to careers guidance, barriers to employer engagement, gaps in teacher confidence and specialist knowledge and the fact their social, emotional, and communication needs often go unmet.
But at the core is a simple truth, the quality of relationships, understanding, and communication between professionals and learners determines whether a young person feels prepared, supported, and capable of moving into adulthood with confidence.
In December, CEO and Founder of TCES Group, National Online School and Great Minds Training and Therapy, Thomas Kearney, had the pleasure of presenting at The National Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET) Conference 2025 organised by the government.
Thomas spoke about supporting colleges, employers as well as schools with solutions to how they can better support children and young people with therapeutic education.
There was a lot of discussion around mentoring and upskilling staff to be mentors, to prevent students becoming NEET. He talked about Great Minds Training which we have developed to help support education practitioners. We want to share our experience of never giving up on a child and how that translates into 90% of our students continuing to be in employment, education and training.
Too often, teachers and support staff feel ill-equipped to address the conscious and unconscious barriers that limit engagement, belonging, and progress.
Why Professional Insight Is the Missing Link
SEND learners don’t disengage because they lack ability, they disengage when they don’t feel understood, when expectations feel unmanageable, or when their internal experiences go unnoticed.
To reverse this, education professionals need more than strategies, they need insight.
Insight into behaviour, into group dynamics, into communication patterns, and into the hidden emotional landscape that shapes how young people learn and relate.
World-leading systems share a common approach to SEND and employability, they invest heavily in the adults around the learner.
We have harnessed our 26 years of experience in delivering therapeutic education to create Great Minds Training which brings together the worlds of therapy, education, and psychology, helping professionals understand the barriers that keep learners from engaging fully, and how to remove them.
Developing a deeper understanding of the emotional and relational factors that influence learning can make a significant difference to how staff support SEND learners. Approaches that incorporate reflective practice and experiential exploration help professionals recognise key themes such as:
- Behaviour as a form of communication
- Patterns of emotional regulation and dysregulation
- The role of group dynamics and belonging
- How roles, power, and authority shape interactions
- The impact of unconscious processes on engagement
Gaining insight into these areas enables teachers to interpret challenging behaviours with greater clarity and compassion. It also supports the development of responses that foster trust, emotional safety, and sustained motivation, creating the conditions in which young people are more able to learn, participate, and flourish.
Across the education sector, there is increasing recognition that the most meaningful professional development is not delivered through instruction alone, but through experiences that mirror the relational complexity of the classroom. For staff working with SEND learners, this shift is particularly important. When professional learning makes space for reflection, interaction, and real-time modelling, it helps adults understand not just what to do, but why it works.
SEND provision often requires staff to navigate uncertainty, heightened emotion, and complex behavioural presentations. Professional learning that focuses on real-time exploration helps adults develop the relational confidence needed to respond calmly. Over time, this strengthens their capacity to maintain engagement, support regulation, and foster resilience, critical foundations for learners at risk of disengagement or becoming NEET.
A Stronger Foundation for Lifelong Outcomes
By understanding how learners experience group settings, transitions, and relationships, professionals can create the conditions needed for SEND young people to thrive emotionally, academically, and socially, long before they reach post-16 pathways.
These shifts play a direct role in reducing NEET risk.
When staff engage in this type of development and training collectively, schools and trusts can strengthen their wider approach to SEND, behaviour, inclusion, and post-16 transition. Developing a shared language, shared understanding, and shared reflective culture leads to more consistent, joined-up support for learners, reducing the likelihood of disengagement and ultimately lowering NEET risk.
Schools and trusts that prioritise mentoring and upskilling will see higher levels of engagement among SEND students, increased attendance and reduced anxiety during transitions, stronger relationships with families, more successful applications to college, apprenticeships, and supported internships, lower NEET rates and improved long-term employment outcomes.
Crucially, teachers describe feeling more capable, more supported, and more optimistic about the potential of their SEND learners.
Because when professionals understand the barriers that keep learners from engaging, and know how to remove them, those learners don’t just stay in education, employment, or training.
They thrive in it.
Reducing NEET among SEND learners is not only a policy priority, it is a moral imperative. For too long, the NEET challenge for SEND learners has been framed around learner deficits. It is time to reframe it around the system’s capacity to empower them.
Education leaders have the opportunity, indeed, the responsibility, to ensure their workforce is not only SEND-aware but SEND-confident.
To find out more about our Great Minds Training or to book a course visit: Great Minds Training - National Online School