The government’s review fails children with special educational needs – and their parents

There is no commitment to help and support preschool children with SEND, and no clear plan to end the postcode lottery in provision or put an end to the constant battles parents face

For children with the most complex needs, we need a system that integrates health, social care and education (Getty Images)

For more than a decade the Conservatives have been failing children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and their families. The SEND Review is an admission by the government that their own reforms, introduced in 2014, have failed to deliver for children and families.

Since being appointed to the role of shadow minister for children and early years last year, I’ve spoken with many parents of children with additional needs. Their stories are heartbreaking and depressingly similar. Parents and carers describe the constant battles they face in accessing the support their child needs to thrive, from preschool to the end of their child’s school years. They are exhausted.

The parents of children who are refused additional support through an education health and care plan (EHCP) are increasingly appealing to courts, and of those who do so, 95 per cent are successful. Research by Let Us Learn Too suggests that three in 10 families have been forced into debt whilst fighting for support. At the same time, more than one in 10 children with SEND face exclusions or suspensions from school, and rates of long-term absence from school are rising.

There are SEND coordinators, teachers and support staff working tirelessly across the country to support children, but the lack of a national plan means that many children wait far too long for support and huge sums of public money are wasted on expensive private and residential placements.

The government must end postcode lotteries in the provision of services for our most vulnerable children. The Conservatives’ system for supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities is completely broken.

The SEND Review could not be more important. It was promised in September 2019 and since then, the Covid-19 pandemic has taken a terrible toll on children with SEND and their families, only increasing the urgency of reform.

It’s extremely disappointing that the SEND Review fails to match the scale of ambition or deliver the comprehensive reform which is so urgently needed, but instead proposes only piecemeal interventions and recycled funding announcements. There is no commitment to help and support preschool children with SEND, and no clear plan to end the postcode lottery in provision, fix the broken EHCP system or put an end to the constant battles parents face.

Labour is ambitious for every child. We want to see a coherent plan for supporting children with SEND, from preschool, through their school years and on into further and higher education, where help is promptly provided at whatever age an additional need is identified.

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What we should have seen today is a proper plan for inclusive mainstream schools, which have the expertise and the resources to support children with SEND in the classroom and in specialist resource bases, reducing school exclusions and improving outcomes.

We should have seen plans to end the battles for EHCPs – parents shouldn’t have to go to court to get the support their children are entitled to – and a plan for ensuring an end to the postcode lottery of special school provision and public funds being drained away on more expensive provision.

For children with the most complex needs, we need a system that integrates health, social care and education, so that there is clear accountability and parents do not have to fight multiple battles with different organisations who all have a responsibility to provide support.

The government is now consulting on the SEND Review. Over the coming weeks, I will be engaging with parents and organisations providing support to children with SEND and working to hold the government to account for this disappointing, piecemeal review that risks failing our children all over again.

Helen Hayes MP is the shadow minister for children and families