SEND

Coutinho: ‘Important to take time and get SEND reforms right’

Children's minister was responding to criticism of SEND action plan that 'pushes tough decisions until after election'

Samantha Booth
Samantha Booth
SEND

Parents wait up to a year to challenge SEND support

'In the most extreme cases you could have kids sitting at home, self-harming for a year with no provision'

Samantha Booth
Samantha Booth
SEND

Kent wants school ‘volunteers’ to clear its SEND backlog

Council promotes 'exciting' and 'behind the scenes' opportunity

Samantha Booth
Samantha Booth
SEND

School leaders rebel over raid on reserves amid ‘shameful’ bail-out ultimatum

A council set for a multi-million pound government bailout to bring its soaring SEND deficit under control will claw back...

Jessica Hill
Jessica Hill
SEND

‘People like me were absent when things were going wrong’

Tony McArdle is the man who holds the purse strings to stop councils going bankrupt – but only if...

Jessica Hill
Jessica Hill
SEND

SEND costs leave councils on brink of bankruptcy

Some councils are draining reserves to plug high-needs deficits while their other services face cuts

Freddie Whittaker
Tom Belger and Jessica Hill
SEND

Success! Councils required to boost special school funding by 3.4%

New requirement comes after Schools Week's 'SEND robbery' campaign, but leaders say rise 'won't fully alleviate challenges'

John Dickens
Samantha Booth and John Dickens
SEND

SEND tribunal appeals top 10,000 for the first time

In the past academic year, 11,052 SEND appeals were registered – a 29 per cent rise from 8,579 the...

Samantha Booth
Samantha Booth
Ofsted, SEND

Improving councils can get top SEND marks under new inspections

Ofsted amends new framework after complaints its proposals would 'set the bar too high'

Freddie Whittaker
Freddie Whittaker