Whoever invented the term polycrisis must have been thinking of SEND provision in schools in England. Its problems are multiple, serious and growing. Developed behind a smokescreen of denial, government policies are making them worse.
Last week the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) reported that two-fifths of special schools are expecting to make cuts in provision in the year ahead (Lucas et al, 2023).
Support staff numbers are being cut with no thought to the impact on SEND. Teachers’ capacities are being stretched to the limit – and beyond. At the same time – as research by Kings College London and the Edge Foundation (McPherson et al, 2023) has shown – pressure on teachers to get students through exams is limiting the pastoral and additional educational support that SEND learners need.
This is a picture graphically confirmed to the union by thousands of our members in their responses to our regular State of Education surveys. Recent responses include the following two:
“One form entry school. Pressure from MAT. SLT all have multiple leadership roles – e.g. SENCO, EAL lead, ECT mentor, MFL lead and DSL – all being the same person. School has very high EAL, close to 50%, high levels of deprivation and high levels of SEND with increasingly complex SEND children. Lots of pupil movement in and out during school year. Situation untenable. Currently signed off for four weeks with stress. Spending my time off with stress feeling stressed about letting the children and team down.”
“Lack of funding and provision for ever-increasing SEN and SEMH needs are just crippling schools – financially as well as the mental and emotional impact for staff. We do this job to make a difference and we can't with the resources we have and that it just so depressing.”
Faced with these pressures, which are eating away at the work and lives of educators, learners and parents, the government has concluded that SEND can be made more sustainable by cutting Education, Health and Care Plan provision.
While ministers and civil servants have denied the existence of an arbitrary target for EHCPs, it is plain from press revelations that this is exactly what is being demanded.
Implemented in the context of the polycrisis, this policy threatens new disasters. It does not consider the quality of provision that can be offered in mainstream classes to learners who have SEND needs – but who do not have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP).
It does not take into account the condition of the teaching assistant workforce, nor the harsh pressures on the pastoral staff of the school. Least of all does it envisage curriculum flexibility and the lessening of “exam factory” cultures. In short, it represents cost-driven, one-dimensional thinking at its worst.
The present government seems set on creating a legacy so toxic that its successor will draw back from dealing with it in the depth, and with the resources, that are required.
If that were to happen then it would be no exaggeration to say that schools will face another decade of deprivation.
Educators, parents and students cannot allow this. In the next 12 months we face the probability of a general election. At the centre of debate, and core to party manifestos, must be the question of investment in education – of a programme of educational and social reconstruction.
SEND provision should not be just a detail of such a programme, but a major part.
England’s schools cannot become places where students – and educators – thrive unless the multiple crises of SEND are recognised. The evidence of distress is there to see. We need a government with the educational understanding, the political will, and the financial boldness to respond to it.
Daniel Kebede is general secretary of the National Education Union.
Further information
- Lucas et al: Cost-of-living crisis: Impact on schools, NFER, September 2023: https://tinyurl.com/yap8a5vj
- McPherson et al: Schools for All? Young people’s experiences of alienation in the English secondary school system, Edge Foundation & Kings College London, 2023: https://tinyurl.com/42m27625