Changes to special needs education in England have created a ‘fragmented’ system, according to a report by a children’s charity.
The study says that government alterations to special educational needs and disability (Send) provision over recent years have caused confusion and inconsistency in the quality of help offered.
Called Joining the dots: Have recent reforms worked for those with SEND?, it concludes: “Changes in policy since 2010 have ushered in a time of great upheaval for the school system.
“While poor provision and inconsistency is nothing new, so long as the sector remains chronically fragmented it will be hard to move forward and schools will continue to face huge challenges in meeting their students’ needs.”
The charity behind the report is the Driver Youth Trust, which works to improve the life chances of children and young people, especially those who struggle with literacy.
It is now calling for a review of the support offered for special needs education. The charity is also urging councils to engage parents and young children in the development of their local offers.
Series of changes in special needs education
The report looks at a series of changes that have taken place in Send provision in recent years.
The first big change looked at in the report was the introduction in 2010 of the Academies Act. This enabled more schools in England to become academies, free from local authority control.
But the most far-reaching change was the introduction in 2014 of a new special educational needs and disability (SEND) code of practice. Among the changes it brought in were:
• Special educational needs statements and learning difficulty assessments (LDAs) are replaced with education, health and care (EHC) plans.
• These EHC plans cover children and young people through to the age of 25, while provision had previously been up to the age of 19
• Parents and children are supposed to have a greater say in decisions that affect them
• Parents and young people are able to ask for personal budgets. The aim was to give them more say in how funding for their provision is spent
• Local authorities have to publish a ‘local offer’ for Send, detailing the support they have available.
• A system was introduced for categorizing pupils’ needs, so that support can be more graduated.
Reforms have brought benefits too
The Joining the Dots report acknowledges that government reforms have brought some benefits. It says:
• In many schools, the focus is moving from discrete, specialist provision to a greater focus on quality-first teaching
• Some schools have embraced new freedoms and found innovative solutions to problems
• Young people and their parents have been given a greater say in how their needs are met
• Some LAs are developing models and structures more closely aligned with their communities’ needs, for example by linking together different teams and departments.
Read the Joining the Dots report here
Published: 17 October 2015
