Controversial government SEND proposals have been slated as “dangerous” and “budget cuts dressed up as being good for kids”.
Concerns over the ‘Every Child Achieving and Thriving’ white paper were voiced at an information session on the plans, hosted by community group Isle of Wight SEN support at the Riverside Centre in Newport earlier this week (Wednesday).
The government has said the document charts a path to halving the gap between outcomes for poorer children and their peers, alongside generational reform to the SEND system.
Proposed reforms, which are under consultation until 18th May, are built around 5 key pillars.
These include support as soon as needs are identified, learning close to home alongside peers, settings resourced to meet commonly occurring needs and clear legal rights and national standards, evidence-based approaches and education, health or care and family support working together.
The Department for Education said the plans involve re-shaping the SEND system to make all mainstream early years settings, schools and colleges ‘truly inclusive’.
Billions of pounds are being invested to adapt classrooms and corridors, train teachers, educators and assistants, and bring experts like speech and language therapists into settings, it said.
Under the proposals, all children and young people with SEND will have an Individual Support Plan (ISP) and for those with complex needs, over and above what can be routinely provided by mainstream settings, education and health care plans (EHCPs) will be ‘retained and improved’.
EHCPs are for children and young people aged up to 25 who need extra assistance than is available through special educational needs support.
They determine educational, health and social needs and present the additional support to meet them.
Amanda Tickle, an Isle of Wight SEN Support co-director, told the meeting:
“Many children who currently qualify may no longer receive an EHCP. Children could be moved on to school-based plans instead and as we know they (EHCPs) are the only legally enforceable plan at present.
“There is a risk children could receive less support with fewer legal protections. There is a proposed weakening of parental legal rights so parents will instead have to use school complaints systems and mediation processes…school complaints systems are not independent in the same way as tribunals are.
“Reforms strongly emphasise mainstream inclusion. Some children cannot cope in mainstream schools, even with support – it’s just a fact.”
Commenting on the white paper after the main presentation, Rachel, a mother of a 19-year-old son with SEND and another co-director of Isle of Wight SEN support, said she would “throw it in the bin”.
She said:
“It’s regressive. It’s actively dangerous, it’s so obviously just budget cuts dressed up as being good for kids…there’s absolutely no way that this can work.
“It’s been recognised for years that to be effective, to make a real difference for children and young people, provision has to be needs-led.
“There’s no mention of needs in this at all – it’s all about provision, it’s all about we will have set packages and if you’re lucky you might qualify, and if you qualify you will get what’s set out in the package.
“The white paper is all mainstream (education), mainstream, mainstream – you might get specialist if you’re really exceptionally special.”
Another mother, Sharon, said:
“It’s not going to work – how can the schools do all this when they are stretched to the limit at the moment? They’ve got 30 children in each class.
“I’ve got a high functioning autistic daughter. Went through primary school. Wasn’t until she was in Year 5, we saw her drop off a cliff. Transitioned to secondary school, couldn’t cope, couldn’t get any support from the NHS.
“Fought for six months to get a paediatrician, fought for a year to get Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, she ended up in an ambulance…she had to be in crisis before anybody helped.”
Asked what changes should be made to the white paper, she said she would like to see “properly trained professionals” who know what “they’re talking about”.
Perhaps we should be finding and addressing the reasons for such a dramatic increase in the demand for SEN services over the last thirty years.
Perhaps we should be asking and why it keeps being hidden is if Bradford are number one in league table for children living in, or on the poverty line,considering it’s size and population some would not be surprised!guess who is Second in the table The Isle of Wight ,and before the wingers start it’s not because of single mums blah blah that’s just a smokescreen to deflect it’s because of the wages on The Island,even with both parents working children are still living under the poverty line ,The Island one of the smallest places in the UK with one of the lowest populations!!and where are either of our MPs on this?shuffling the league table and hiding it!.
What will happen to these children as they get older and how will they cope with life as some of these conditions will last a life time, way past their 25th birthday when help ends.