Online forums provide teachers with an opportunity to seek and offer advice about professional matters. The first two listed below involve sending and receiving email messages. The third is a "bulletin board", where you log in and post messages that immediately appear on the site.

• SENCO Forum: This mailing list is for anyone who wants to support Special Needs Co-ordinators (SENCOs), those in local authorities and others involved in the education of pupils with special educational needs. Established in 1996, membership of Senco-Forum comprises mainly of SENCOs but also includes a range of education professionals and other interested parties, all of whom will be supporting the work of the SENCO. The list aims to provide an opportunity to discuss issues and provide practical advice which will help Special Needs Co-ordinators carry out their roles. Joining instructions are at http://lists.becta.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/senco-forum.
• SEN Special Interest Groups: The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency supports online communities focusing on medical needs; distance learning for pupils not in school; English as an additional language; emotional and behavioural difficulties; able children; physical disabilities; pupil referral units; refugee education; severe learning difficulties; SEN and ICT; speech and language difficulties; teachers of the deaf; traveller education; visual impairment. Joining instructions are at http://inclusion.ngfl.gov.uk/index.php?i=240.
• Times Educational Supplement SEN Staffroom: The TES supports many online communities for teachers, including SEN, Early Years and Primary. These "staffrooms" have plenty of traffic and a range of knowledgeable though sometimes argumentative contributors. Anonymity is encouraged and secured by choosing a user name other than your own. One of the TES website’s strengths is the members’ Resource Bank, which contains over 5000 Foundation to Key Stage 2 and 370 SEN items. Joining instructions are at http://www.tes.co.uk/section/staffroom/.

• Inclusion Questions and Answers Site: The Inclusion Site provides four sources of help: Questions and answers; Ask the experts; Online communities; Websites worth a visit. It also features a "latest news" section. In the Q & A section you can ask other colleagues for help and advice. Post a question, respond to queries from others, or browse through all the questions and answers. The questions and answers are categorised under four topics, namely Classroom practice, Management issues, Parents and carers and Research. The Q and A section is at http://inclusion.ngfl.gov.uk/index.php?i=201.

Optional Task: Imagine that a child with visual impairment (or another difficulty) has just joined your school. Search the SENCO Forum archives or the Inclusion Q & A site to find out how problems associated with this difficulty can be resolved.

These days most government publications about SEN are available in electronic format, which means you can search them more easily and copy and paste quotations from them.

• Teachernet is worth a visit. The Special Educational Needs Code of Practice is available for download from http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/docbank/index.cfm?id=3724 and its associated SEN Toolkit is posted at http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/wholeschool/sen/teacherlearningassistant/toolkit/. Other official sites include the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority at http://www.qca.org.uk/, the Department for Children, School and Families at http://www.dfes.gov.uk/ and National Curriculum in Action has sample pupils’ work at http://www.ncaction.org.uk/.
• The Equality and Human Rights Commission has succeeded the Disability Rights Commission, which placed a legal duty on schools to draw up a Disability Equality Scheme. The EHRC site’s education section is at http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/forbusinessesandorganisation/educationandtrainingproviders/.
• The Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education, so influential in the development of inclusive education, is at http://www.ecdgroup.com/download/gn1ssfai.pdf. The Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education site at http://inclusion.uwe.ac.uk/ is a must when researching inclusion.
• Local authority sites, e.g. South Tyneside’s at http://www.southtyneside.info/learningandleisure/schools/, offer SEN advice, information and resources for the communities they serve.

Optional task: Find out what the latest SEN news is as reported on any of the above sites.

Now and again parents will approach the school SENCo with the medical diagnosis of a condition which may affect their child’s educational development. A little online research may provide a few answers.

• The Contact a family website at http://www.cafamily.org.uk/ is a good place to start. Enter the condition name in the site’s search engine and you are likely to be rewarded with a full description of the condition as well as the contact details of any parent support group.

• All the major categories of SEN have national support group websites. The British Dyslexia Association is at http://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/. The National Autistic Society can be found at http://www.nas.org.uk/. The Royal National Institute for the Blind is at http://www.rnib.org.uk/ while the Royal National Institute for the Deaf is at http://www.rnid.org.uk/. AFASIC at http://www.afasic.org.uk/ caters for speech, language and communication needs, while the Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties Association is at http://www.sebda.org/.

• Other inclusionary categories are English as an Additional Language (EAL) and Gifted and Talented (G&T). For EAL support, visit the website of the National Association for Language Development in the Curriculum at http://www.naldic.org.uk/. As for G&T, try the National Programme for Gifted & Talented Education at http://ygt.dcsf.gov.uk/.

Optional Task: Find out what you can about Rett Syndrome. Does the condition have implications for classroom practice?

Several SENCO Forum members responded when the discussion group was invited to recommend resources for primary-aged students with SEN.

• Primary Teaching Resources at http://www.primary-teaching-resources.co.uk offers "high-quality teaching resources with a professional look, designed to promote inspirational teaching and to enhance classroom displays". You pay to download resources.
• The Times Educational Supplement Resource Bank at http://www.tes.co.uk/resources/ is free and contains over 5000 Foundation to Key Stage 2 and 370 SEN items.

• Crickweb at http://www.crickweb.co.uk/ offers "142 free to use educational interactive resources for Primary Schools".

• NGfL-Cymru at http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/ has Early Years, KS1 and KS2 teaching resources.

• Sparklebox at http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/ has "hundreds of printable resources that help give your teaching that extra ‘spark’!"

• Communication 4 All at http://www.communication4all.co.uk/ has "resources for support inclusion".

• SEN Teacher at http://www.senteacher.org "provides cost-free teaching & learning resources for students with special needs and learning disabilities".

• Poisson Rouge - Red Fish at http://www.poissonrouge.com is a great bilingual site with free online games and activities for younger children.

• ICT Games at http://www.ictgames.com is not specifically SEN but offers useful activities.
• Clicker Grids for Learning at http://www.learninggrids.com/ "contains free high-quality resources" for users of Crick Software products.
• Certain school websites offer excellent materials, for example the "free Flash resources for teachers" which Sandfield Comprehensive School has at http://www.sandfields.co.uk/games; "interactive literacy games" on Woodlands Junior School’s site at http://www.woodlands- junior.kent.sch.uk/interactive/literacy/index.htm; Priory Woods School at http://www.priorywoods.middlesbrough.sch.uk with its masses of guidance, planning and policies for teachers and good educational resources for use with the students.

• The BBC Schools pages at http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ has primary level games and National Curriculum linked topics.
• Enchanted Learning at http://www.enchantedlearning.com/ is an American subscription site with plenty of things to do and colour in.
• Sebastian Swan at http://www.sebastianswan.org.uk/ offers attractive "big books" and related activities.
• First School Years at http://www.firstschoolyears.com/ offers conventional and useful "free worksheets, flashcards and resources for Early Years, Key Stage 1 and Lower Key Stage 2".
• Lanternfish at http://bogglesworldesl.com/ exemplifies how an English as an Additional Language site can be repurposed for SEN. The Dolch Sight Words section contains an excellent game that appeals to boys.

There are plenty of other places for primary teachers with a professional interest in SEN to explore on the World Wide Web.

• Reading Sites for the Primary Grades at http://www.amphi.com/~psteffen/prireading.html is the title of a useful links page.

• Links for Education at http://groups.msn.com/linksforeducation/sen1.msnw, http://groups.msn.com/linksforeducation/sen2al.msnw and http://groups.msn.com/linksforeducation/sen3mz.msnw offer an assortment of general education and SEN links.

• The AstraZeneca Science Teaching Trust website at http://www.ase.org.uk/sen/sen/strata-schemes.htm is useful for SEN science planning and resources. Another good science SEN website is Inclusive Science and Special Educational Needs at http://www.issen.org.uk/.

• ttrb Special Educational Needs at http://sen.ttrb.ac.uk/ is excellent for current research and debate about SEN.

• Special Needs Information Press at http://www.snip-newsletter.co.uk/ publishes SNIP, "a monthly twelve page newsletter produced by two practising SEN teachers. It aims to support staff in schools to identify and address the diverse needs of pupils, in order to promote their learning and school success".

• Reactive Colours at http://www.reactivecolours.org boasts a wonderful gallery which has been specifically designed for use with people with Autistic Spectrum Disorders.

• The National Association for Special Educational Needs website at http://www.nasen.org.uk/ is a good source of SEN news and publications.

• The US Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) at http://www.eric.ed.gov/ is the "world’s largest digital library of education literature". It is an excellent source of information about special education.

• Google at http://www.google.co.uk/ provides access to millions of SEN-related websites. The search engine is the first port of call when exploring unfamiliar territory. Remember that the best results are not always on the first page of results!
• Amazon at http://www.amazon.co.uk stocks many SEN-related books and delivers them fast.

• eBay at http://www.ebay.co.uk often hosts auctions of teaching resources, both commercial and home-made at bargain prices.