Curriculum reforms of the last 10 years have “created a SEND crisis”, according to the chief executive of a major multi-academy trust.
Tom Campbell, the CEO of E-ACT, which runs 38 academies, told a Tes Trusts in Education event today that he wanted the government’s curriculum and assessment review to examine the link between curriculum changes and the number of pupils who are classed as having special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
The panel was discussing how the new government will approach inclusion and the relationship between alternative provision, SEND and mainstream education.
‘We’ve designed a system that tests what children can’t do’
Mr Campbell said: “Now I personally think that the curriculum over the last 10 to 15 years has created a SEND crisis.
“Schools are not inclusive by design. We’ve designed a system that tests what children can’t do, so we have lots and lots of data about what children can’t do. We haven’t celebrated what they can do and the curriculum has narrowed.”
He added: “I really hope this current curriculum and assessment review really examines the relationship between the last 10 years of curriculum reform and the massive increase in children presented as having SEND.”
The Labour government has launched a curriculum and assessment review, which is being led by Professor Becky Francis. The review launched a call for evidence in September and will publish recommendations in 2025.
Tom Rees, chief executive of Ormiston Academies Trust, also spoke at today’s event, and said that there needed to be a system change.
‘People with good intentions acting rationally in faulty system’
Mr Rees, who said he was speaking in his capacity as trust leader and not in his role of DfE inclusion advisor, highlighted how the current 2014 SEND reforms have been in place for 10 years.
He told the panel that a National Audit Office (NAO) report in 2019 had reflected the view that those reforms had been the right ones, but that the implementation and funding had been the reason why the system was not working.
He added, however, that a recent NAO report into SEND, published last month “tells a different story”.
“It says this system that we have is not a good system…And I think we reached a conclusion where this isn’t about simply the funding or implementation of the 2014 reforms.”
He told the event that many of the parental complaints about schools related to SEND, and that this was parents acting rationally within the existing system to achieve the best for their child.
He said: “We don’t need in this debate to try to pitch this as being about parents versus schools, or schools versus local authorities. I think in all of these different parts of the system, people with good intentions are acting rationally within the system, and what’s at fault is the system design that we’ve got.”
‘Very good analysis’ of SEND problem but no ‘end state’
Leora Cruddas, the CEO of the Confederation of School Trusts, said that the last government’s SEND green paper and its SEND and alternative provision improvement plan had provided a very good problem analysis but she added that it “did not have an end state”.
She told the event in Manchester today that this meant that the “policies we saw beginning to be outlined in the implementation plan were piecemeal and not very well thought through.”
Nic Crossley, CEO of Liberty Academy Trust, which runs four special schools for autistic pupils, warned against there being any more national reviews assessing the problems facing the sector relating to SEND.
“We have got the evidence and intelligence in the system - it’s already there. We’ve done multiple reviews over and over again… we’ve just got to get out there and find the solutions,” she added.
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