The children’s commissioner for England has urged ministers to implement their special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) reforms “quickly” in response to new figures showing an increase in the number of pupils with education, health and care plans (EHCPs) in schools.
Children’s commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza has published a new blog in response to Department for Education figures showing more than 1.5 million pupils as having special educational needs, including 389,171 with EHCPs and 1,183,384 receiving SEN support.
Dame Rachel said she was “really concerned” by the new data, adding: “We need to radically rehaul our approach to SEND, to create a system which is ambitious for every child.”
The government’s planned reforms of SEND support aim to improve early intervention and therefore reduce demand for EHCPs.
But while Dame Rachel said it was “welcome” that the government had published its reforms, she added: “It is now fundamental that these reforms are implemented quickly, to prevent any more families from reaching breaking point.
“It is essential that we get the right support in place for children with SEND. Failing to do so has many knock-on effects. We know that pupils with SEN have much higher absence rates than their peers.”
And she said: “With waiting times for EHCPs growing every year, it’s becoming ever harder for children to get the help they deserve.”
Plans to improve SEND support
Government figures published this month reveal that the number of pupils with special educational needs in schools has increased to more than 1.5 million this year. The same data also shows that the number of pupils in England with education, health and care plans (EHCPs) in schools has risen to 389,171 - up by 9.5 per cent from 2022.
Separate government figures, published last month, show that across the country there are now more than half a million EHCPs issued. EHCPs can continue until a young person is 25.
The DfE has said previously that it aims to reduce demand for EHCPs through its reforms.
However, it refused to disclose information on the modelling it has done on the expected impact of its reforms in reducing the number of EHCPs, when asked by Tes.
Children’s minister Claire Coutinho and DfE officials told the Commons Education Select Committee in May that it was not working to a particular target or seeking to ration EHCPs.
In March this year the DfE set out long-awaited plans for SEND reform, but these plans revealed that many of the key proposals would not be rolled out until at least 2025.
The SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan takes forward a number of proposals that were part of the government’s SEND Green Paper, published in spring 2022.
The plan includes creating new national standards in SEND and moving to a digitised system for EHCPs, but these reforms look set to take years to come to fruition across the country.
The DfE has been approached for comment on Dame Rachel’s appeal for quick action.
Earlier this month she called for a national campaign to fix school attendance, warning that barriers such as pupils’ special educational needs and anxiety were preventing them from returning to school.
And she warned that the “crisis of attendance” is the “biggest problem” facing education policymakers and schools, but it is “becoming normalised” as new data shows absence levels have remained high since the pandemic.
