‘SEND reforms are a crucial test of the opportunity mission’

Labour’s opportunity mission promised to break the link between a child’s class background and their future success. The SEND reforms announced this week are a crucial test of that pledge, as well as a moment of maximum peril for education ministers.

The build up to this week’s schools white paper has been a trepidatious one politically for the government, with parents and Labour backbenchers on high alert since the original plan to publish in autumn was spiked. The national debate on this issue over the past year has been mostly seen through the lens of costs and budgets and deficits. This has done absolutely no favours to pupils with SEND, their parents and schools. The prospect of Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) being removed has caused significant stress to families already under pressure. It is only in recent weeks that the conversation has shifted towards a more child centred view.

From that point of view, there can be little doubt that serious reform is required. The status quo has not been working for parents, children, schools, or councils. The system has been increasingly geared around EHCP access, with a cliff edge in support for those who don’t secure one. Families who don’t have the resources and knowhow to navigate the bureaucratic, adversarial system are the ones who miss out. This means despite the fact that children from low income homes are more likely to have SEND, they are less likely to be able to access the support they need.

If the government are going to achieve their mission of breaking down barriers to opportunity, successful SEND reform is absolutely key. Pupils with SEND are less likely to achieve passes in their GCSE exams, progress to post-16 education, and attend university. They are more likely to be NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training), as well as more likely to be out of work as adults.

Given the over-representation of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in this group, improving provision and outcomes is essential to education and social policy more widely. In particular, the goal of halving the disadvantage gap at GCSE in the next decade announced this week simply won’t be achieved without targeted improvements for disadvantaged pupils with SEND.

The number one question underpinning these reforms should be ‘how do we best meet the needs of children with special educational needs’, rather than ‘how do we limit future costs of the programme’. Financial sustainability is clearly important, but more fundamental is having a system that actually works. One which gets support to pupils depending on their levels of need, at the right time, regardless of background.

READ MORE: SEND reforms: ‘Penny pinching on the backs of the most vulnerable ruin lives’

The announcement of a move to a more flexible system therefore is welcome, as is the new funding to facilitate the shift to the new arrangements. Given the increasingly complex needs of the school population, less money is the last thing that is needed. But funding needs to be spent in better ways. Better early identification and flexible support, a teacher workforce that can cater to a wider range of needs without recourse to additional supports, and a more even spread of resources, rather than high stakes cliff edges like the EHCP process.

The cautious approach of building up the new system while still running the old one is also sensible. Having a review point at the transition point between primary and secondary is practical going forward, if implemented sensitively – the needs of a child in Year 2 are going to be different than in Year 10. However the government have opened themselves up to some vulnerability by not guaranteeing to current parents that they will not lose support as a result, particularly as the secondary school transition is a stressful time.

Have the plans successfully threaded the needle between improving provision for all, addressing inequities in support and putting the system on a more sustainable footing, while reassuring parents? With several months of consultation looming, followed by the passage of legislation through parliament, only time will tell.

However, these are substantive reforms, which if implemented successfully give the government a good shot achieving these aims. They have also been accompanied by extensive consultation over the last few months, both with stakeholders on the ground, and crucially from a political perspective, the Parliamentary Labour Party. It does appear that at least some lessons have been learned from previous stand offs with the backbenches.

Ultimately these reforms will stand and fall on whether the system can get the right level of support, at the right times, for children with all levels of need – regardless of their background. Parents who already have a significant lack of trust in institutions and who have spent a chunk of the last year worried about what will happen to their child, will only be reassured by a system that is working. That will take time, but this week is a significant step in that direction.

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