“This report provides yet more evidence of a special educational needs system which isn’t working well for children and young people, and where those from the poorest homes are the worst affected. Schools and colleges work tirelessly to support these students but they are critically under-resourced and face wider problems of delays to assessments for education, health, and care plans, and shortages of specialist staff such as speech and language therapists. Desperate families often pay for assessments themselves and fight for the level of care they want for their child through tribunals. But such measures are often more difficult for disadvantaged families and this means that we effectively have a two-tier system.
“The government is planning to publish reforms to the SEND system in a white paper in the coming months and there is no question that change is desperately needed. But it must be based on ensuring that the system is resourced to meet the level of need or otherwise we are just going to end up back in the same loop. This is certainly about adequate funding, but it is also about ensuring that SEND training is embedded throughout the system, that schools and colleges have access to the specialist staff they need, and that education policy is always formulated with the needs of these children and young people in mind.”