Professor Barry Carpenter is Associate Director (Special Educational Needs) with the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust .Within this role he acts as Director of the DCSF funded Project on Children with Complex Learning Difficulties. He is Honorary Professor at the University of Worcester, and a Fellow at the University of Oxford.

In a career spanning 30 years, Barry has held the leadership positions of Chief Executive, Principal, Headteacher, Inspector of Schools and Director of the Centre for Special Education at Westminster College, Oxford. Currently, he is directing a project for the TDA on the Education of children with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders.

The author of over 100 articles on a variety of topics in special educational needs, he has won the prestigious Times award for his co-edited book ‘Enabling Access’. His latest book (with Jo Egerton) is ‘New Horizons in Special Education: evidence-based practice in action’. Barry lectures nationally and internationally, most recently in Japan, USA, China and Australia. He has been awarded a Fellowships of the Royal Societies of Arts and Medicine, and was created O.B.E. by the Queen for services to children with special needs.. Barry has 3 children – one a teacher, one a student and Kate who has Down’s syndrome and has just acquired a home of her own.

iNet Chair for Special and Inclusive Education

Confirmed as the iNet Chair for Special and Inclusive Education in January 2010, below Professor Carpenter explains his views regarding sharing best practice internationally.

The first decade of this 21st century has seen the emergence of a new generation of children in our schools. All schools have always educated some children with Special Educational Needs (SEN), but this new wave of children have needs arising from causes that we have not previously known. For example the survival rate of premature babies has risen worldwide. Currently around 60% of these survivors have some form of special need or disability; and it is a different type of need because, (as one mother stated recently), their ‘brains are wired differently’. If the children have changed then the ways in which they learn have changed too. But has our teaching? Are we educating 21st century children with 20th pedagogy?

This is a global challenge, and iNet, with its rich and diverse networks of schools internationally is well poised to lead on this major issue. More than ever we need to unite as an international educational community to seek resolution to the pedagogical challenges presented by our changing school child population. We need to share the research and practice knowledge in each country to chart the pathways to learning.

For example, New Zealand leads on our understanding of premature babies; Australia and South Africa have a wealth of information on Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, (the largest non-genetic cause of learning disabilities), the USA has groundbreaking research on chromosomal disorders particularly Fragile X Syndrome (the largest genetic cause of learning disabilities), and the UK has some excellent evidence-based practice around children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD).

The iNet Charter for Action exhorts us to educational transformation. This is so needed for this new generation of children/young people with special needs and disabilities if we are to evolve new generation pedagogy. Again the Charter coins the phrases ‘navigators of learning’: a perfect phrase to inspire our quests and inform our journey. Through iNet we have the capacity to build a global solution in a 21st century context.