The special educational needs (SEN) of “tens of thousands” more pupils could be met without an education, health and care plan and in mainstream schools if reforms succeed, a minister has said.
Catherine McKinnell, the schools minister, told MPs that research published today suggested reforms could “pave the way for a sustainable system in which schools cater for all children, and special schools cater only for those with the most complex needs”.
The Department for Education today released the first insight summary report from its Delivering Better Value in SEND (DBV) programme, a financial intervention for councils with large high needs deficits. Fifty-four councils have a DBV programme in place.
For the report, 1,550 local practitioners and professionals analysed the stories of over 1,650 children and young people with SEND.
Most pupils’ needs not met effectively
They “highlighted that if the system worked in an improved way, 65 per cent of the children and young people reviewed could have had their needs met in a more effective way”.
“This evidence indicates that if the system was improved, it could lead to 30,000 more children having their needs met through SEN Support and 35,000 more children having their needs met in a mainstream setting rather than a specialist placement, including 15,000 more children supported through resourced provision (a 370 per cent increase).”
The number of EHCPs issued to pupils with SEND has been rising rapidly in recent years, with the plans seen by many parents of the only way of securing the support their children need.
As of January this year, 575,963 such plans for youngsters aged up to 25 years old with special educational needs and disabilities were in place. This is up 58,914, or 11.4 per cent, on the previous year.
‘A more sustainable system’
McKinnell said today the DBV research “suggests that if the system were extensively improved through early intervention and better resourcing in mainstream schools, the needs of tens of thousands more children and young people could be met without an education, health and care plan, and in a mainstream setting rather than a specialist placement”.
“That can pave the way for a sustainable system in which schools cater for all children, and special schools cater only for those with the most complex needs.”
She said Labour’s plans included “strengthening accountability for mainstream settings to be inclusive, for instance through Ofsted, and helping the mainstream workforce to have SEND expertise”.
Analysis of DBV data found the “primary driver of growth in expenditure is growth in EHCP caseload, accounting for 90.7 per cent of the overall growth in expenditure.
“£431m of the £475m growth in high needs block expenditure 2020-2022 can be attributed to growth in overall EHCP caseload in this period.”
‘Parental confidence’ in mainstream an issue
The report also looked at pupils with specific types of need. They found 63 per cent of children and young people with an autism spectrum disorder “could be supported by either mainstream settings or resourced provision/SEN units with the right support”.
This compares to 40 per cent at present. The report highlighted “parental confidence in mainstream as the primary blocker preventing children and young people with ASC from being in the ideal provision”.
“These would decrease the proportion of children and young people requiring support from specialist settings by 41 per cent.”
The report found almost 50 per cent of EHCPs issued to young people with social, emotional and mental health needs “would ideally be supported in a mainstream setting”.
Four in five of these young people in independent or non-maintained special schools “were highlighted as being in a provision that wasn’t the most effective support for the child or young person”.
Not going to happen. When government cut all they did for schools and let posh snobs upper class invest in them and turned them to academies. It’s all about money now and how academic your child is. Mainstream will never meet the needs. Try living in derby we have nothing all mainstream academies here get rid. All co.es does to uniform and if not academic the academies don’t want them. Some kids need hands on this does not happen in our mainstream in derby
Perfect storm: surge in identified SEND; lack of specialist capacity; no money; parental confidence in the system at an all time low because of the unintended consequence of the growing tensions leading to the adversarial nature of relationship with Local Authority; mainstream schools battling with the challenges of meeting complex needs on less than a shoestring. And we wonder why teachers are leaving the profession in droves. Look to retaining the teachers you have before trying to recruit 6,500 newbies.
Another dreadful move from this Labour government I’ve worked in schools for 26 years SEND provision is NOT compatible in mainstream classes unless the young person is on the upper achieving end of the spectrum. There needs to be a middle ground provider (ie school for those with less severe complex needs) and the right teaching, support and decent pay at this level indeed all levels given the vital roles in supporting and educating children.
Force them into mainstream fine the parents when the kids can’t cope with mainstream then act baffled at the rise in home educated or absent children or children who are NEET
Why not just say we won’t educate SEN children and he honest
Just so people know what kind of person McKinnell is, she’s co-chair of Labour Friends of Israel which fully supports the displacement, killing and maiming of Palestinian children
I’ve worked in the same secondary school for 18 years. When I first started there were 20 teaching assistants. This year there are 6. There are more students with EHCP than ever before and these 6 are stretched to the kids mit just trying to support these students according to their EHCP. The continued reduction of funds coming into schools means that TAs were the first to go under redundancies twice, my daughter’s school ended up with no TAs what so ever. Class sizes are increasing due to not enough teachers training and teachers quitting due to the amount of work put on them. Going back 18 years there may have been 3-4 SEND students in classes that needed support. There are now classes with 32 students in and at least half on the register. In smaller classes it can be every student, in a class of 15-18, that are on the register. And no support. As a teacher you have to prioritise the support on the EHCP students first and foremost, the rest get a small amount of support, but the moment the teacher is settled with another student, the EHCP students is needing support again. Leave them at your own peril, if you don’t follow the plan, the student has had it drilled into them by their parents to report back if they’ve not had the support, then they’re in the phone to the school wanting to know why their child hasn’t had the detailed support. Are the government planning on putting their hands in their very deep pockets to provide for every student, increasing the funding not only to provide extra TAs but to increase their pay as some are still only working on grade 2 wages, especially in primary, where younger children can become more physical with their support. Schools have a high turn over of TAs especially the younger ones. The TAs that I know are creeping up to retirement age and have stuck around for years. Attracting and keeping younger TAs is going to take some work to make it seem attractive enough for them to stay in the job
Everyone should as you say be inclusive. I wonder though, at what point does a sen child that continuously attacks students and teachers be removed? Rather than a parent having to remove their child due to the sen child repeatedly verbally and violently abusing Teachers and other students? Then the child whos having this done to them would have to be deregistered??? when I’m just trying to protect my son?
Unfortunately this would only work if Mainstream schools were held accountable for their actions. My child and hundreds more suffer daily from MATs suspending and permanently excluding children with SEN..because of their SEN. Parents often give up fighting the injustice due to long drawn out processes, no support for parents or lack of accessible legal support due to costs. MATs understand this and use it to their advantage. Often resulting in parents pulling their child out of school or giving up on a extreme biased non justice system.
Mainstream does not meet the needs of it’s current SEND students.
This report just says it would be better if it were better…
Tell me you don’t work on the ground in education, without telling me you don’t work on the ground in education. Deluded preaching from the ivory towers of non-teaching education ‘gurus’!
Spot on!
What load of rubbish.
Mainstreams= daily phone calls of up to 6 times a day detailing how they cannot meet need. SEMH needs cannot and will never be met in a mainstream provison.
A whole bespoke curriculum is required for these children. I am sick of hearing this as a cost saving tool. Do you know the level of work involved in advocating for SEMH children. Mainstreams look at these children through thr neurotypical gaze. Enough id enough hidden disabilities need to be treated the same as physical disabilities.
Training and oversight by Ofsted is not the way to go. Making our schools less Draconian and stressful for both teachers and children by reducing the current emphasis on micromanagement, ‘perfect uniform’ and zero tolerance discipline is what is needed. These techniques are often highly stressful for children and in particular those with SEND.
I agree with the reports findings that children are being sent to sen schools when they should be in mainstream settings. There are a few mainstream schools in Bedfordshire who have a specialist unit attached which means sen children can be supported whilst in mainstream. The amount of ASD children who have high anxiety so have become violent so are then either looking for a sen school or being homeschooled has risen. SEN schools are probably not what they need as they need some integration into mainstream but not completely as their curriculum needs may need to be less of one size fits all. Schools need money and space to set up units with specialist teacher and TA support properly funded as presently funding for EHCPs cannot cover a child’s needs. This school development approach would put less strain on SEN schools to actually support children they were intended for.
As a headteacher of a very inclusive primary school, I wholeheartedly want to support and include all pupils. This is not a problem for many types of SEND, but the cost of support for emotionally deregulated pupils is enormous- we have 6 pupils with one to one support for SEMH – only one of whom has any funding, as the EHC process takes so long (and even with the maximum funding would not cover even a half of the wages of a full time, qualified TA). Adding more is not sustainable to our budget. In addition, behaviour difficulties -which often follow from dysregulation – cause distress to other pupils and disruption to learning. The current mainstream curriculum does not help to provide what many SEMH pupils need and more parents are realising this and demanding an alternative. At High school, the support is pulled immediately, even when the child is not capable of self-regulation and then they are excluded because they can’t behave – and primary schools get the blame for giving them too much support. Trauma doesn’t stop affecting pupils when they go to High School – and Neurodevelopmental conditions do not simply get better with age. In addition, mainstream parents do not want their children to be hurt by dysregulated pupils, so support is necessary. A child in a wheelchair is tolerated, a child with emotional outbursts is not. Angry and ‘violent’ behaviour is still seen by many (both in and out of the profession) as deliberate, and not recognised as a symptom of a need. I won’t permanently exclude, which means I have lost many good staff and good families. That’s inclusion!!!’
Training up primary staff to recognise and be aware of SEND issues does not increase capacity. We already have a number of children with high level and complex needs in our mainstream setting. Where, for example, a child constantly puts things in their mouth (choke hazard) they need a member of staff with them at all times. The highest level funding we have for support staff only covers a proportion of their time in school. We then have to divert the staff who would be supporting children who may, for example, be autistic but able to work successfully in a mainstream class (with that support). We already have significant numbers of children with autism successfully working in our mainstream classes, but the more recent addition of children who are working at 3-6 months developmentally at age 5 or 6 is decimating our ability to meet the needs of other SEND children. One person cannot change two nappies at once. Highly skilled, experienced and qualified staff are leaving the profession due to stress.
This is the third or forth time governments have tried this, it doesn’t work. It sets students up to fail straight away, puts even more strain on teaching and support staff who will then ultimately leave the professional. Parents will pull their children from school because their needs are not being met and then the whole cycle starts again.
Let Independent provisions do what they do best but hold them accountable for what they charge for a placement. Mainstream schools have enough to deal with without the added pressure of having to try squeeze in even more training on ASD/ADHD/SEMH/PDA/ODD the list is endless.
Yes the SEND system is not great at the moment and something needs to be done but this isn’t the answer.
Perfectly said Lisa and spot on !