Open Letter: A drastically different approach is needed to tackle SEND crisis

02/09/2024

In England today, nearly one in six pupils rely on something additional and/or different to access education (i.e.Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) support) in order to have the same opportunities as their peers.

Our schools are currently in the throes of a SEND crisis.

Chronic underfunding of schools and local authorities, inconsistent legislation and much reduced mechanisms for local authorities to hold education settings to account for implementing the flexibility required for statutory and non-statutory support, have significantly reduced schools’ capacity to provide inclusive education. This has led to disadvantaged children and young people with SEND being left behind.

Today, the AEP endorse an open letter to Secretary of State, Bridget Phillipson, drafted by a grass roots movement of educational psychologists, and other leading SEND groups, has been published. In it, the issues facing education and the ways in which the new government can work towards a solution are outlined.

In order to understand the factors underpinning the current crisis, the letter’s signatories assert the need to stop looking at SEND in isolation and consider the wider education system as a whole.

It’s imperative that future policy includes a repositioning of SEND within the wider education system, so that it is no longer viewed as a bolt-on or afterthought.

Our children and young people need a coordinated and united approach to improving the education system, and an end to the current culture of finger pointing.

The blame around SEND should ultimately lie not with individuals but squarely at the door of those current policies in place, with a series of well-intended measures having led to a fragmented and underfunded system.

Schools are all too often criticised for not being inclusive enough, when true inclusion is made impossible with competing pressures and overstretched teachers who are hampered by a restrictive, inflexible curriculum. Meanwhile, parents are portrayed as ‘pushy’ or ‘demanding’ when they advocate for their children within a system which is not designed with their children in mind.

Educational psychologists, with support from leading SEND organisations, are looking forward to constructively engaging with the new government to work towards a solution to tackle the SEND crisis.

Write to your local politician
You can help to endorse the message and ensure it's prioritised by the government. The more EPs who share their voices and expertise - the more we can be heard as a profession and achieve change.

You can use the template letter to send a letter to your own MP / local politician to send the message about the SEND crisis and be heard.

Dr Cath Lowther, General Secretary of AEP, said:

“The current SEND system has failed to deliver consistently good outcomes for the children and young people it is meant to be supporting. In addition, children and young people are being actively disabled by the narrow curriculum, the exclusive focus on ‘high standards’ and lack of access to early, preventative support. This is being compounded by years of austerity and more recently the fallout from the COVID lockdowns and the cost-of-living crisis. The system is thoroughly broken, not fit-for-purpose and causing distress to a vast number of children, young people and their families.

We welcome commitments from the new government to address the problems inherent in the current system and to reform the curriculum. However, we urge the government to use this opportunity to look at SEND as a central component of the education system as a whole, rather than a ‘bolt on’ as it currently stands.”