Not SEN, Not Thriving: The Hidden Crisis in Mainstream Education

Recently, a friend and colleague of mine shared a concept that was new to me: "SEN-betweeners". SEN-betweeners are children whose needs don't meet the threshold for specialist schools but who struggle in mainstream settings.

This got me thinking about an even larger group who are currently falling through the gaps – children with no diagnosable special educational needs who simply don't thrive in our one-size-fits-all education system.

These students might be:

- Highly creative thinkers constrained by standardised approaches
- Kinesthetic (tactile) learners who are in primarily auditory/visual environments
- Deeply curious minds that need more autonomy than traditional classrooms allow
- Sensitive children overwhelmed by large social settings

Education professionals are seeing this population grow, because our industrial-age educational model wasn't designed for the diverse ways children learn and develop in today's world. And it's not setting up for a very different future.

Perhaps the question isn't "what's wrong with these children?" or "why are so many more children being diagnosed with special educational needs?" but rather "what's missing from our educational approach?"

Progressive educational communities that embrace personalised learning pathways, flexible environments and focus on individual strengths are showing promising results with these children. But they're the exception, rather than the norm.

What should we call this growing group of learners who fall between the cracks of our education system not because of diagnosable needs, but because of educational models that haven't evolved for their unique strengths?

And more importantly, how do we ensure their talents aren't lost to a system that wasn't designed to nurture them?