Following the recent close of nominations, Donna Wiggett has been elected General Secretary of the Association of Educational Psychologists (AEP). Donna currently works as a Senior Educational Psychologist in the Education Authority, Northern Ireland - and brings significant experience to the role. She will take up the role over the coming months.

Schools Week today published a collection of articles relating to issues in the SEND system in England and Education, Health & Care Plans. They spoke to AEP President, David Collingwood about his experience of working with EHCP plans and the serious impact of the shortage of Educational Psychologists (EPs) in Local Authorities.

With effect from October 2024, the AEP is in dispute with The States of Jersey. This unfortunate situation has arisen due to the failure of the employer to deal appropriately with matters raised by Educational Psychologists in the course of their work.

Most EPs employed in Local Authorities are employed on Soulbury Terms and Conditions, which includes the nationally agreed payscales. These are not statutory, but have been developed over many years of consultation and negotiation by the Soulbury Committee which is made up of the Local Government Association and the recognised Soulbury Trade Unions. The AEP is a member of the Soulbury Committee along with National Education Union and Prospect. The full agreement can be found on the AEP website Soulbury Report. For AEP Members, there are four relevant scales, and every post should be graded on an appropriate range within them. There are other Soulbury scales, but it is only in rare occasions that EPs would find their post being allocated a range on another scale.

This short toolkit is designed to provide easy to use resources for members to support the campaign. It contains: Background information, Suggested key messages,  Draft email/letter text, Draft social media content,