The SEN crisis swallowing schools

I AM one of three siblings. When the youngest, my brother, was able to go to primary school at the age of five, my mum went back to work. We’d just moved to Norfolk, and she worked for the educational psychologist at the County Council in Norwich. With a background in social work and needing a part-time job, she helped the psychologists organise their assessments of children who were struggling with learning at school. 

Back in the late 1970s, there was only one team to cover the special needs inquiries of the whole county. At that time, all children with identified educational challenges were assessed by a psychologist and a Statement of Special Educational Needs (SEN) was drawn up, outlining their needs and the best options for them. Those with the greatest needs were educated in special schools. There were very few children with statements in mainstream provision. The whole county probably had fewer ‘statemented’ children than are found in just a handful of schools in Norfolk today.

Something very disturbing, however, has been happening in the last 50 years. Children with the greatest challenges are still given a statement of needs, but there are many, many more who are getting ‘support’. These statements, which are now called Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs), comprise a personalised report setting out learning challenges, the extra support the child requires and the strategies to help them, a review taking place every year. In 2023, there were 8,671 children with an EHCP in Norfolk, a rate set on an upward trajectory. A further 16,000 children were reported as requiring extra support at school, without the backup of an EHCP. To meet this demand the council plans to create an additional 2000 places in specialist schools, although it is already bankrupted by the cost of demand.

There is no way that the system can function as it used to, with just one team overseeing a whole county. In what ecologists have called ‘shifting baselines’, the rising incidence of special needs has been normalised as the problem has grown, with additional funding, systems and staff constantly added to cope with growing demand. 

Over time, we have simply forgotten how things were. If I took my 90-year-old mum back to Norfolk today, she would be overwhelmed by the scale of demand, the number of SEN children, the complexity of the system, and the eye-watering costs of it all (including the litigation involved). In half a century, she would see an education system transformed beyond recognition. Why? Because every school in the UK is affected by the special needs crisis.

This is not, however, because there were lots of children with special needs in past who were not getting support; nor is it because we are now better at spotting the problems. I’m sure the system was less than perfect, and people had to wait for assessments to happen, but the numbers were far lower than they are now.

Today up to a third of pupils in England are now given extra time in exams due to documented special needs. Many more have identified health concerns: rates of eczema are now 1 in 5; asthma is 1 in 10; and severe food allergy has life-threatening consequences for at least 1 in 50. A quarter of children are overweight or obese, and a fifth are reported to have a serious mental health concern. There is, without doubt, something seriously wrong with the neurological, immunological and psychological health of our kids.

These are the canaries in our classrooms: the rates of learning disability, mental distress and physical ill-health are real. Teachers and school leaders are struggling to cope, and the system is not keeping up with demand. Parents are organising protests to get more help for their children, and the crisis has devastating knock-on effects for school culture, the education system and the rest of society.

We need to start asking the question why so many of our children are sick, disabled and unable to learn. We need to face up to the psycho-neuro-immunological damage being done to our kids. For even if pupils are diagnosed and secure an EHCP, there is no guarantee that the system will be able to educate them. My son for example had support relatively early in his education and went to one private specialist and two mainstream primary schools, as well as two state-funded specialist secondary schools. Everyone did all that they could to assist him, but he never learned to read or write; he still can’t hold a conversation or look after himself. The cost of his education must have been colossal, but his autism proved too much for us all.

Government officials are now trying to blame the problem on over diagnosis, the perverse incentives of the benefit system and a ‘medicalised model’ of public provision. Only last weekend, three leading Labour ministers (Wes Streeting, Liz Kendall, Bridget Phillipson) were on TV to outline their plans to make cuts to the welfare and benefits bill, as well as the costs of meeting special educational needs throughout education. All three are attempting to wish the problem away.

Yet there is clear evidence of growing demand for assessments and increasing numbers of young people becoming sick and disabled – a 140 per cent increase in children with Education Care and Health Plans (ECHPs) between 2015 and 2024, rising from 240,000 to 576,000 in England alone. Demand in the pipeline is set to increase further. The Children’s Commissioner has calculated that the number of children waiting for a first meeting with the relevant health service team is now 400,000, approximately 3 per cent of all the children living in England, some of them waiting for more than 4 years!

The cost for services has grown rapidly too: demand is now at least £10.7billion a year, bankrupting many of the councils which administer local provision. Government ministers and civil servants trying to find ways to spread the money more widely and reduce the overall costs, won’t make the problem go away.

The Department of Education’s Expert Advisory Group for Inclusion has just launched a six-week call for evidence on ‘Inclusion in Practice’. It seems the Government are keen to overturn the old ‘medicalised model’ that relies on a health diagnosis and a council-led assessment of educational need. Indeed, Phillipson herself introduced the project by saying, ‘a classroom that caters to all is a strength. Children thinking in different ways is a gift.’

Arguments about ‘neurodiversity’ are a gift to ministers looking for cuts. If they can assert that autism and related neurological disorders are ‘gifts’, they can insist on inclusion and reduce the cost of provision. They are trying to wishfully think the canaries out of the way.

In practice, the canaries can’t and won’t fly away. They will become more of a challenge to school leaders, teachers and communities. There will be less funding and support for the special needs kids. Parents will feel forced to keep their children at home, increasing the benefit bill as they can’t go to work.

Eventually, the Government will have to address the root problem of why we have growing numbers of children with neuro-developmental disorders and mental health issues. In the United States, President Trump has supported Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to find and solve the increasing numbers of afflicted children. Kennedy’s team are determined to identify the cause, even if that means curbing the public’s enthusiasm for vaccines. Our best hope is that this good sense finds its way to this side of the pond. Our children, the next generation, depend on it – not to mention the taxpayer.

This article was first published on The Autism Tribune is republished here by kind permission.