Is SEND provision failing?

Leadership Focus journalist Nic Paton looks at the financial situation surrounding special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) provision.

The parlous state of school funding and how NAHT is campaigning to ramp up the pressure on the government are central conversations this autumn, as our article elsewhere in this edition of Leadership Focus illustrates.

But, while NAHT’s funding report, ‘A failure to invest’ (available at www.naht.org.uk/RD/A-failure-to-invest), paints a grim and worsening financial picture for schools and school leaders across the board – from budgets to covid-19 and capital costs to infrastructure – the situation for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) provision appears especially worrying.

BARRY READ,
HEAD TEACHER AT THE R J MITCHELL PRIMARY SCHOOL IN HAVERING AND MEMBER OF NAHT’S SEND SECTOR COUNCIL

Is our government bothered? Not greatly, suggests Barry Read, head teacher at the R J Mitchell Primary School in Havering and member of NAHT’s SEND sector council. “This is a crisis; there is no doubt about that. Parents know that, and we know that, but the government won’t listen to the needs of schools and families,” he says, and we shall return to him at the end of this article.

ROB WILLIAMS,
NAHT SENIOR POLICY ADVISOR

The fact that (as of the time of writing in early October) there was still no sign of the government’s long-awaited and much-delayed review of SEND provision, originally expected back in the spring, also speaks volumes as to the lack of urgency within Whitehall and the Department for Education (DfE) over this issue, agrees NAHT senior policy advisor Rob Williams.

“There has been a significant number of changes within the team that is overseeing the SEND review at the DfE. There is frustration across the board, including rumblings in Whitehall, that this is taking too long to appear. But it is all still a bit up in the air,” he says.

Beyond funding, there are also concerns at hints from ministers that one area that they might look at within the review is the potential watering down of legal entitlements of children with EHCPs, he points out. Combine this with an increased expectation on mainstream schools to address and manage the needs of children with SEND, the crunched capacity within social care and health, and cuts to specialist provision; and what you have is “a concerning line of travel”, Rob highlights.

“The government needs to recognise that SEND is not an add-on in the education system; it is an integral part of it. As has been made crystal clear in ‘A failure to invest’, many mainstream schools have had no choice but to use their core budgets for provision to support children with their additional needs. As for the specific funding provided for special educational needs, neither SEN support nor EHCP high-needs funding is sufficient. And that has a knock-on effect on everything, on all the provision you can offer for every child,” he points out.

To that end, whenever the review does finally emerge and whatever it contains, there will need to be a much deeper, longer-term reform and a renewal of conversations around SEND provision within schools, argues NAHT. This discussion will need to include SEND provision and delivery in both mainstream and special schools, the way the system works (or not) currently for parents and schools, and how to join up provision between schools, healthcare and social care better.

“It is about recognising that, yes, we want an inclusive system, a system that supports children in the right places, and sometimes that is special schools. But that system must be backed with resources, and it must also be backed with a wider, fully funded multi-agency approach,” says Rob.

“So, it is not just about education needing to have enough resource to deliver its piece but also that health and social care have enough to deliver their piece, too. Yes, education needs better funding, but if you don’t address the shortfall in health and social care, the same issues will happen.

“Schools are already paying for things that should be sitting within health because either they have to wait for so long that it is not worth it, or they’re just flat-down refused,” he adds.

DAVID DUNCAN,
FORMER HEAD TEACHER OF ROSSENDALE SCHOOL

“In the wider concept of education, if you look at the role of our mainstream colleagues, I think, as we’ve moved more and more towards academisation – particularly those schools forced into becoming academies because they were failing schools – they are reluctant to have significant numbers of kids with SEN. This is because it could impact their position in the league table and so on,” agrees David Duncan, former head teacher of Rossendale School, an independent special school in Lancashire, though now retired but still a member of NAHT’s SEND sector council.

“All these issues have come together to form a perfect storm, and that now needs to be looked at. We also have considerable numbers of young people with significant needs but without EHCPs. If you look at what’s happening to them, they’re the kids who end up getting excluded.

“The explosion there in five and six-year-olds being permanently excluded is frightening, and that is around people struggling to manage the demands of the youngsters and their behaviours,” David adds.

BARRY READ,
HEAD TEACHER AT THE R J MITCHELL PRIMARY SCHOOL IN HAVERING AND MEMBER OF NAHT’S SEND SECTOR COUNCIL

Is our government bothered? Not greatly, suggests Barry Read, head teacher at the R J Mitchell Primary School in Havering and member of NAHT’s SEND sector council. “This is a crisis; there is no doubt about that. Parents know that, and we know that, but the government won’t listen to the needs of schools and families,” he says, and we shall return to him at the end of this article.

ROB WILLIAMS,
NAHT SENIOR POLICY ADVISOR

The fact that (as of the time of writing in early October) there was still no sign of the government’s long-awaited and much-delayed review of SEND provision, originally expected back in the spring, also speaks volumes as to the lack of urgency within Whitehall and the Department for Education (DfE) over this issue, agrees NAHT senior policy advisor Rob Williams.

“There has been a significant number of changes within the team that is overseeing the SEND review at the DfE. There is frustration across the board, including rumblings in Whitehall, that this is taking too long to appear. But it is all still a bit up in the air,” he says.

Beyond funding, there are also concerns at hints from ministers that one area that they might look at within the review is the potential watering down of legal entitlements of children with EHCPs, he points out. Combine this with an increased expectation on mainstream schools to address and manage the needs of children with SEND, the crunched capacity within social care and health, and cuts to specialist provision; and what you have is “a concerning line of travel”, Rob highlights.

“The government needs to recognise that SEND is not an add-on in the education system; it is an integral part of it. As has been made crystal clear in ‘A failure to invest’, many mainstream schools have had no choice but to use their core budgets for provision to support children with their additional needs. As for the specific funding provided for special educational needs, neither SEN support nor EHCP high-needs funding is sufficient. And that has a knock-on effect on everything, on all the provision you can offer for every child,” he points out.

To that end, whenever the review does finally emerge and whatever it contains, there will need to be a much deeper, longer-term reform and a renewal of conversations around SEND provision within schools, argues NAHT. This discussion will need to include SEND provision and delivery in both mainstream and special schools, the way the system works (or not) currently for parents and schools, and how to join up provision between schools, healthcare and social care better.

“It is about recognising that, yes, we want an inclusive system, a system that supports children in the right places, and sometimes that is special schools. But that system must be backed with resources, and it must also be backed with a wider, fully funded multi-agency approach,” says Rob.

“So, it is not just about education needing to have enough resource to deliver its piece but also that health and social care have enough to deliver their piece, too. Yes, education needs better funding, but if you don’t address the shortfall in health and social care, the same issues will happen.

“Schools are already paying for things that should be sitting within health because either they have to wait for so long that it is not worth it, or they’re just flat-down refused,” he adds.

DAVID DUNCAN,
FORMER HEAD TEACHER OF ROSSENDALE SCHOOL

“In the wider concept of education, if you look at the role of our mainstream colleagues, I think, as we’ve moved more and more towards academisation – particularly those schools forced into becoming academies because they were failing schools – they are reluctant to have significant numbers of kids with SEN. This is because it could impact their position in the league table and so on,” agrees David Duncan, former head teacher of Rossendale School, an independent special school in Lancashire, though now retired but still a member of NAHT’s SEND sector council.

“All these issues have come together to form a perfect storm, and that now needs to be looked at. We also have considerable numbers of young people with significant needs but without EHCPs. If you look at what’s happening to them, they’re the kids who end up getting excluded.

“The explosion there in five and six-year-olds being permanently excluded is frightening, and that is around people struggling to manage the demands of the youngsters and their behaviours,” David adds.

ROB GASSON,
MEMBER OF NAHT’S SEND SECTOR COUNCIL AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF WAVE TRUST

“I think what we’re seeing is the whole system creaking under strain,” says Rob Gasson, another member of NAHT’s SEND sector council and chief executive of Wave Trust, which runs 12 alternative provision and special school academies in Devon and Cornwall.

“I am really sad that the government looks like it is going to rush back to a system that, actually, we have proven over the last two years is not necessary.

“If the last two years have taught us anything, it is the importance of our schools being at the heart of our communities. We've seen the impact education can have, in its widest form, and the positive effect inclusion can have on the poorest members of our community,” he adds.
“Obviously, within that, there is a place for special schools. Because you have some children with high disability needs that are not very common, and those are better met by specialist teachers and specialist settings. My concern is that we fundamentally have a flawed system in place, and it’s one that this government is wedded to.

“The problem, for me, is also multi-faceted. There is a problem with the EHCP process because it is adversarial. Because parents have been made to wait and have invariably been through a very long and very bruising experience, they come out of the other end of it going, ‘right, I’m going to get what my child deserves regardless of what that costs or what is reasonable’.

“I do get that, as a parent myself. But what it means is the high-needs budget will just get stretched thinner and thinner until you’ll get to a position where an EHCP will, in effect, be meaningless because it won’t generate any extra income, any additional resource, for that child,” Rob adds.

MARIJKE MILES,
CHAIR OF NAHT’S SEND SECTOR COUNCIL

“I think what has happened with covid-19 is that the existing fractures in the rock have exploded; it has been like putting frost on a stone,” says Marijke Miles, chair of NAHT’s SEND sector council and head teacher at Baycroft School in Fareham, Hampshire.

“What we are seeing is disjoints across the system for our children and families, massively exacerbated by the incredible pressures the system finds itself under and which were growing even before covid-19. The situation now is so risky – both in a quite literal safeguarding sense but also in terms of children’s progress, development and prospects – because of the unforgivable fact that the legislation and the current framework do not mandate cooperation between different agencies and teams around the child in meeting their identified needs.

“The flaw in the legislation we currently work to and the reform to the Code of Practice, subsequent to the Lamb Inquiry, is the failure to make the health and social care of an EHCP statutory. While it is non-statutory for the other agencies, I don’t think we will ever secure the level of joined-up practice that our children are entitled to – especially now, when so many agencies are working to minimum thresholds. They are not going to do anything they don’t absolutely have to do,” Marijke adds.
And the answer? Is it just about more cash? “The bottom line is [that, yes,] there is insufficient funding across the whole system,” agrees Marijke.

“But I think we have also got to ensure that clinical commissioning groups in healthcare, in particular, and bodies responsible for providing social care have much clearer lines of accountability to the EHCP of any individual child; that they have a named person in the same way that we do in education.

“As this is such an inconsistent picture across the country and as we are so often faced with excuses for failing to make provision, it seems only a legal mandate can galvanise people to understand that meeting identified needs, legally articulated in an EHCP, is not optional – regardless of which section they appear in.

“I am increasingly frustrated by the waste represented by the rise of parents seeking SEND tribunal rulings for residential education provision when it’s social care that should be meeting care needs, but the only current recourse is through the education route. I really welcome the current pilot of non-statutory direction for other agencies by the tribunal. Still, it’s incredibly frustrating for professionals and families that it remains just that: non-statutory,” Marijke says.

PAUL WHITEMAN,
NAHT GENERAL SECRETARY

There also needs to be greater recognition that not adequately funding SEND provision is a false economy that will only store up even greater problems – and costs – for the future, both within education and society more generally, warns NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman.

“We need a needs-led system rather than a resource-led system. We’re given an amount of money, and we do our best with that, but, actually, with something like special educational needs and mental health needs of young people, we need to establish what the problem is and not be held back by an amount of money,” he tells Leadership Focus.

“If we allow young people not to progress with the assistance they need or even to be damaged in the young part of their lives, they will never recover and never be able to have the absolute of fulfilment in later life that they deserve. If we fail to invest now, we pay for it forever. This is a real crisis for young people and one the government doesn’t appear to be willing to face up to,” Paul adds.

Finally, one thing the pandemic has brought home to all of us is the potentially transforming capability of technology, and this needs to be recognised – and enabled – much, much more within the context of SEND provision, Marijke contends.

“There is a shocking lack of understanding about how technology can support the daily lives and the learning and care of people with SEND. We simply haven’t got the people who understand how to use the technology,” she says.

“For example, educational psychologists, who should be the people making recommendations because they write EHCPs, generally have little clue about how to harness technology and what entitlement someone may even have.

“They’re quite happy to recommend a sensory programme, speech and language support, or some way of breaking the learning down, but other than a typing programme, I’ve not yet seen somebody recommend the way technology ought to be properly used for a child. And that, again, should be adequately funded and systematically reviewed as an entitlement in every EHCP as needs change over time,” Marijke adds.

ROB GASSON,
MEMBER OF NAHT’S SEND SECTOR COUNCIL AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF WAVE TRUST

“I think what we’re seeing is the whole system creaking under strain,” says Rob Gasson, another member of NAHT’s SEND sector council and chief executive of Wave Trust, which runs 12 alternative provision and special school academies in Devon and Cornwall.

“I am really sad that the government looks like it is going to rush back to a system that, actually, we have proven over the last two years is not necessary.

“If the last two years have taught us anything, it is the importance of our schools being at the heart of our communities. We've seen the impact education can have, in its widest form, and the positive effect inclusion can have on the poorest members of our community,” he adds.
“Obviously, within that, there is a place for special schools. Because you have some children with high disability needs that are not very common, and those are better met by specialist teachers and specialist settings. My concern is that we fundamentally have a flawed system in place, and it’s one that this government is wedded to.

“The problem, for me, is also multi-faceted. There is a problem with the EHCP process because it is adversarial. Because parents have been made to wait and have invariably been through a very long and very bruising experience, they come out of the other end of it going, ‘right, I’m going to get what my child deserves regardless of what that costs or what is reasonable’.

“I do get that, as a parent myself. But what it means is the high-needs budget will just get stretched thinner and thinner until you’ll get to a position where an EHCP will, in effect, be meaningless because it won’t generate any extra income, any additional resource, for that child,” Rob adds.

MARIJKE MILES,
CHAIR OF NAHT’S SEND SECTOR COUNCIL

“I think what has happened with covid-19 is that the existing fractures in the rock have exploded; it has been like putting frost on a stone,” says Marijke Miles, chair of NAHT’s SEND sector council and head teacher at Baycroft School in Fareham, Hampshire.

“What we are seeing is disjoints across the system for our children and families, massively exacerbated by the incredible pressures the system finds itself under and which were growing even before covid-19. The situation now is so risky – both in a quite literal safeguarding sense but also in terms of children’s progress, development and prospects – because of the unforgivable fact that the legislation and the current framework do not mandate cooperation between different agencies and teams around the child in meeting their identified needs.

“The flaw in the legislation we currently work to and the reform to the Code of Practice, subsequent to the Lamb Inquiry, is the failure to make the health and social care of an EHCP statutory. While it is non-statutory for the other agencies, I don’t think we will ever secure the level of joined-up practice that our children are entitled to – especially now, when so many agencies are working to minimum thresholds. They are not going to do anything they don’t absolutely have to do,” Marijke adds.
And the answer? Is it just about more cash? “The bottom line is [that, yes,] there is insufficient funding across the whole system,” agrees Marijke.

“But I think we have also got to ensure that clinical commissioning groups in healthcare, in particular, and bodies responsible for providing social care have much clearer lines of accountability to the EHCP of any individual child; that they have a named person in the same way that we do in education.

“As this is such an inconsistent picture across the country and as we are so often faced with excuses for failing to make provision, it seems only a legal mandate can galvanise people to understand that meeting identified needs, legally articulated in an EHCP, is not optional – regardless of which section they appear in.

“I am increasingly frustrated by the waste represented by the rise of parents seeking SEND tribunal rulings for residential education provision when it’s social care that should be meeting care needs, but the only current recourse is through the education route. I really welcome the current pilot of non-statutory direction for other agencies by the tribunal. Still, it’s incredibly frustrating for professionals and families that it remains just that: non-statutory,” Marijke says.

PAUL WHITEMAN,
NAHT GENERAL SECRETARY

There also needs to be greater recognition that not adequately funding SEND provision is a false economy that will only store up even greater problems – and costs – for the future, both within education and society more generally, warns NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman.

“We need a needs-led system rather than a resource-led system. We’re given an amount of money, and we do our best with that, but, actually, with something like special educational needs and mental health needs of young people, we need to establish what the problem is and not be held back by an amount of money,” he tells Leadership Focus.

“If we allow young people not to progress with the assistance they need or even to be damaged in the young part of their lives, they will never recover and never be able to have the absolute of fulfilment in later life that they deserve. If we fail to invest now, we pay for it forever. This is a real crisis for young people and one the government doesn’t appear to be willing to face up to,” Paul adds.

Finally, one thing the pandemic has brought home to all of us is the potentially transforming capability of technology, and this needs to be recognised – and enabled – much, much more within the context of SEND provision, Marijke contends.

“There is a shocking lack of understanding about how technology can support the daily lives and the learning and care of people with SEND. We simply haven’t got the people who understand how to use the technology,” she says.

“For example, educational psychologists, who should be the people making recommendations because they write EHCPs, generally have little clue about how to harness technology and what entitlement someone may even have.

“They’re quite happy to recommend a sensory programme, speech and language support, or some way of breaking the learning down, but other than a typing programme, I’ve not yet seen somebody recommend the way technology ought to be properly used for a child. And that, again, should be adequately funded and systematically reviewed as an entitlement in every EHCP as needs change over time,” Marijke adds.

BARRY READ IS HEAD TEACHER AT THE R J MITCHELL PRIMARY SCHOOL IN HAVERING AND A MEMBER OF NAHT’S SEND SECTOR COUNCIL

“Although we are a mainstream primary, we have 18% EHCP children in our school. We’re actually higher than two senior schools in the borough, and the next equivalent at primary is at 4%.

“That means we don’t get the funding as if we were a special school, even though we have children who are, most definitely, special school-type children. We are also hammered by the £6,000 contribution [where schools must fund the first £6,000 of the cost of provision required by an EHCP]. If you have 60 children in the school with an EHCP, as we have, that is an immediate £360,000 worth of additional debt each year; that is a massive challenge.

“It’s not only the SEND funding itself. I have more than 100 staff employed here because of the needs of the children. Every time national insurance goes up – as it now will under the government’s extra health and social care spending plans – that massively affects the school in terms of the budgetary situation.

“At the moment, we’re simply robbing Peter to pay Paul. For example, we have a teaching assistant for one room covering another room, but then you’re not giving the provision and statutory hours for the other child. Lots of us are making decisions that we know are wrong and don’t want to make. Still, we are very conscious of this idea of governing bodies ‘failing’ because they’re not looking after their finances correctly, according to Ofsted.

“Nothing is taken into account in terms of children with SEND in our mainstream schools – yet we are doing fantastic work with the children, so we should be being rewarded for that, not penalised. 

“Primary schools don’t generally have special school facilities. We’re supporting special-needs, high-needs children in a non-specialist environment, and we just don’t have the money to provide that. It’s even little things, like the cost of laminating pouches for timetables.
“We don’t have the hydro pools, the sensory gardens or the minibus to take them out on trips. We have to borrow and beg from senior schools, and we have to buy equipment ourselves.

“I even funded a trampoline this week for our children; it was a gift to the school from my wife and me because we have no money to buy a £35 trampoline.

“For me, yes, it is simply about a need for more money to be put into the system. As a union, we just have to be pushing for more money. We also need to get parents on board, most definitely. Parents are probably our best allies because they understand what is going on in schools, and politicians will listen to them.”

VIEW FROM THE NATIONS

LAURA DOEL, NAHT CYMRU DIRECTOR

The introduction of statutory additional learning needs coordinators (ALNCos) into schools is a massive transition and potential SEND headache for schools in Wales, highlights Laura Doel, NAHT Cymru director.

“We are fully supportive of the new ALN legislation, which is designed to give every learner in Wales, whatever their ability, the support that they need to reach their full potential. That, of course, is something NAHT members 100% agree with,” she emphasises.

“However, what is not there are the building blocks and the funding to be able to do that. For example, we don’t know what the ALN funding will be for schools at the moment or how much an ALNCo should be paid because this role currently sits outside of the pay structure. The Welsh Government has made it a mandatory role, but it hasn’t thought through the implications of this on schools’ budgets.
“So, the conversation in Wales is very much around how schools are going to deliver the new ALN legislation. Because, of course, this has landed smack bang in the middle of the pandemic, and there are significant legal ramifications for schools if they get it wrong.

“NAHT Cymru has, therefore, been calling for greater support for schools to help them get to grips with the new legislation. The ALN code that sits alongside the legislation, which is supposed to tell schools what they need to do, is 260 pages long. It is not particularly user-friendly. So, we are calling for greater support for schools and school leaders to help them get it right, not criticism or threats of legal action if they get it wrong,” she adds.

HELENA MACORMAC, NAHT(NI) DIRECTOR

In Northern Ireland, SEND provision is also a key pinch point for schools and school leaders, not least because of the enactment of new SEND legislation, including a new code of practice and regulation, this year, says Helena Macormac, NAHT(NI) director.

“None of this has been properly workload assessed; it hasn’t been properly budgeted for either. Legislative reform is obviously essential, but without the practical realisation of how that affects our members in schools on the ground, we are concerned as to the success of this to really change things for children,” she says.
“Already we are seeing high numbers of school leaders reporting that they simply cannot recruit to the new learning support coordinator post, even where there is additional remuneration, because the workload is too unmanageable, and this responsibility cannot be offloaded on to already overworked school leaders.

“We’re still seeing high numbers of unplaced children this term. It is not like they’ve come out of thin air; they are known and should have been planned for. We just don’t have the infrastructure or school estate here in Northern Ireland to deal with the number of referrals; it is a huge issue,” she adds.

LAURA DOEL, NAHT CYMRU DIRECTOR

The introduction of statutory additional learning needs coordinators (ALNCos) into schools is a massive transition and potential SEND headache for schools in Wales, highlights Laura Doel, NAHT Cymru director.

“We are fully supportive of the new ALN legislation, which is designed to give every learner in Wales, whatever their ability, the support that they need to reach their full potential. That, of course, is something NAHT members 100% agree with,” she emphasises.

“However, what is not there are the building blocks and the funding to be able to do that. For example, we don’t know what the ALN funding will be for schools at the moment or how much an ALNCo should be paid because this role currently sits outside of the pay structure. The Welsh Government has made it a mandatory role, but it hasn’t thought through the implications of this on schools’ budgets.
“So, the conversation in Wales is very much around how schools are going to deliver the new ALN legislation. Because, of course, this has landed smack bang in the middle of the pandemic, and there are significant legal ramifications for schools if they get it wrong.

“NAHT Cymru has, therefore, been calling for greater support for schools to help them get to grips with the new legislation. The ALN code that sits alongside the legislation, which is supposed to tell schools what they need to do, is 260 pages long. It is not particularly user-friendly. So, we are calling for greater support for schools and school leaders to help them get it right, not criticism or threats of legal action if they get it wrong,” she adds.

HELENA MACORMAC, NAHT(NI) DIRECTOR

In Northern Ireland, SEND provision is also a key pinch point for schools and school leaders, not least because of the enactment of new SEND legislation, including a new code of practice and regulation, this year, says Helena Macormac, NAHT(NI) director.

“None of this has been properly workload assessed; it hasn’t been properly budgeted for either. Legislative reform is obviously essential, but without the practical realisation of how that affects our members in schools on the ground, we are concerned as to the success of this to really change things for children,” she says.
“Already we are seeing high numbers of school leaders reporting that they simply cannot recruit to the new learning support coordinator post, even where there is additional remuneration, because the workload is too unmanageable, and this responsibility cannot be offloaded on to already overworked school leaders.

“We’re still seeing high numbers of unplaced children this term. It is not like they’ve come out of thin air; they are known and should have been planned for. We just don’t have the infrastructure or school estate here in Northern Ireland to deal with the number of referrals; it is a huge issue,” she adds.

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