Labour is Taking Too Long Over SEND Reform
It is strange to watch NEPO baby Georgia Gould, Minister of State for School Standards (who pronounces her ths more like fs), state broadly sensible things around SEND reform on today’s media round. The main tragedy is that the majority of the reforms proposed in the Government’s education White Paper are open to consultation and won’t come in until 2029 – so probably not at all. And in the meantime, the SEND grift will continue with hundreds of thousands more children pulled into its net.
If you are able to move beyond the rather sinister statist Labour Government intention to involve itself in all aspects of children’s life – “First, our approach to education must shift from narrow to broad. Past governments’ narrow focus on what happens only within the school gates will be replaced with a broad vision for childhood, from the day children are born to their transition to adulthood” – there are a number of useful ideas presented in the paper. The recognition that the current SEND system is not working is a promising start: one in three school children are identified as having a SEND condition at some point in their schooling, costing upwards of £13 billion. Any attempt to grapple with the issue is to be applauded.
Firstly, the Government is proposing an immediate investment of £4 billion pounds to support SEND provision in mainstream schools. The white paper states
Children with SEND must be able to attend their local mainstream school and have their needs met by highly trained teachers, leaders and support staff, driving the highest standards for all.
Georgia Gould elaborates on LBC:
We will be investing directly in schools and investing in some of ve professionals who sit around schools, ve speech and language ferapists and educational psychologists so vat in every classroom children have ve support vey need to frive.
The white paper states this will involve:
Expanding access to multi-agency support in mainstream, creating a new £1.8 billion Experts at Hand service of speech and language therapists, educational psychologists and wider professionals to get support to children early, alongside new partnerships between special schools, alternative provision and mainstream settings to meet a wide range of needs confidently.
In practice this may well be more of the same – a vast army of female-dominated SEND support staff, teaching assistants, wellbeing officers and SENCOs who often embed the idea in a disaffected child that there is something wrong with him or her, which in turn causes the child to try less hard at learning. There is growing evidence that all the current SEND support makes no improvement to educational outcomes. Another, better approach would be to train and employ 7,500 specialist music, drama, art, woodwork, PE and other practically skilled teachers to keep children inspired and busy – on top of the 6,500 additional teachers the Government states it wishes to employ. But at least Keir Starmer and team have recognised that it is better for such children to be in schools rather than specialist provision. In the Times Keir Starmer writes:
The evidence shows that pupils in a mainstream setting achieve around half a grade higher in GSCE English and maths than similar pupils in special schools.
The SEND special school grift is one that is growing apace and it is refreshing to see it at least acknowledged by Ministers. On BBC Today, Georgia Gould called out the “private equity backed special schools making profit over vulnerable children”. I have seen first hand the paucity of NSEP (non-school education provision) – tutors from private companies paid to take mild SEND children out for little more than a coffee and a chat, SEND schools that only offer arts and crafts activities and no attempt to teach academic subjects, behavioural units that are mere holding pens to keep ‘disregulated’ children from disturbing the rest of the school. The White Paper states encouragingly:
We will also change the law on independent special schools to ensure that children get suitable high-quality placements and that local authorities pay a reasonable price for them.
Alas this is not set to be immediately gripped and there is no timescale attached.
Almost acknowledged within the White Paper is the fundamental issue at stake in any discussion about SEND reform: is there anything really wrong with the child? An effort is being made to separate out those children with severe mental and physical conditions in need of determined and specialist support, and those children with ‘milder’ issues such as ADHD or late diagnosed autism.
After legislation takes effect, children with an existing EHCP will have a needs assessment as they approach the end of each phase of education. The local authority will determine whether they require a Specialist Provision Package and therefore a continued EHCP; if so, a new EHCP will be created based on the relevant Package, supported by an Individual Support Plan setting out day-to-day educational provision. If they do not require a Package, they will move to an Individual Support Plan in a mainstream school and receive support through the Universal and Targeted layers. The first cohort to transition will be pupils at the end of primary, secondary and post-16 in academic year 2029 to 2030, with assessments from September 2029 and moves to the new system from September 2030; those moving to Individual Support Plans will keep their existing EHCP until the end of that academic year.
In the meantime, according to current SEND trajectories in England, whereby SEND children are increasing at a rate of 5-6% per year, another approximately 400,000 children will be diagnosed as having a special needs condition. The system as it stands will bumble along: costs will rise, private companies will continue to fleece the taxpayer and all the SEND support will continue to make no difference to educational outcomes for the children involved.
Mary Gilleece is an education support worker and her name is a pseudonym.
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If you are able to move beyond the rather sinister statist Labour Government intention to involve itself in all aspects of children’s life – “First, our approach to education must shift from narrow to broad. Past governments’ narrow focus on what happens only within the school gates will be replaced with a broad vision for childhood, from the day children are born to their transition to adulthood”
Sorry, I am not able to move past this. I am done with anything like this, however well-intentioned is starts off sounding.
Too right.
If they manage children with the same rolls-royce efficiency they manage everything else, then god help us all.
I think assuming it’s well intentioned is possibly over-generous.
Agree on both fronts
Exactly. Schools are there to provide education. The health service is there to provide healthcare. Parents are there to nourish their children physically and emotionally. Only if the parents are found to be incapable of doing that, for whatever reason, should the State step in.
Sir Keir is quoted as saying:
How were the pupils in mainstream schools assessed as being similar to pupils in special schools? If they were indeed assessed as being similar, why were they not moved to mainstream or vice versa? I smell BS.
As usual, when Sir Keir starts talking, the bullshit monitors start twitching.
i would say alarm bells start ringing.
Labours problem is that they think every case is completely genuine and that telling people ‘no’ is tantamount to being the devil incarnate. If you incentivise the outcome, then is it little wonder that the case continue to climb and climb.?
This is just more tinkering around the edges.
We have a far bigger fundamental problem that if unaddressed will make any other attempt to resolve these sort of problems a waste of time.
Our entire society is infected with a socialist mindset, one which sees humans as weak, disadvantaged creatures that need someone else’s help. It’s become obsessive compulsive behaviour. There are lots of people everywhere that are at risk, vulnerable, impaired that need to be helped.
We need to go back to a world that expects everyone to be self reliant, where needing someone else’s help is the last thing you want out of pride. Where making excuses for yourself or others is frowned upon.
Until we turn that tide back we aren’t going anywhere.
You are right. Well said.
It is, and will be, a bottomless money pit until the causes of SEND are reduced.
Stop vaccinating babies and toddlers until they are at least 5 years old would be a start.
Do away with Big Pharma immunity from compensation and prosecution.
Safer vaccines.
I am not “anti-vax” just “safe-vax”.
As it says at the end of the article “In England”, Education is devolved, so my friend with a SEND child can’t get anywhere near the support an English parent can get, and all this spending, which comes out of general taxation, doesn’t benefit her at all.
Firstly, the Government is proposing an immediate investment of £4 billion pounds to support SEND provision in mainstream schools.
So rather than saving taxpayers money they are going to piss more of it away.