Creating new national standards for special educational needs and disability (SEND) could create a “more adversarial system” if schools are not given the funding and support to meet them, ministers are being warned.
The Department for Education confirmed today that it is pushing ahead with a plan to create a new system of national standards for SEND but detailed plans setting expectations will not be published until 2025.
Concerns have been today raised that the proposals might add to the pressure on schools unless steps are taken to ensure they have funding and extra support to meet them.
The government published its long-awaited SEND action plan today, just under a year after producing its Green Paper proposals.
One of the key plans for ending what the department described as a “postcode lottery” of provision for children and young people with SEND is a system of new national standards setting out what should be provided to meet pupil needs, which organisation is responsible and what funding should be used.
But school leaders and teaching unions have raised concerns about how the standards could affect schools.
James Bowen, director of policy at the NAHT school leaders’ union, said: “My concern on national standards is that schools and providers have to be able to meet them. For instance, if it set an expectation that for some pupils they should be able to access speech therapy, well, then schools would need the resources and access to specialists.
“My concern is that the government doesn’t set these standards and then walk away, leaving it on schools. This creates the potential for making the system more adversarial because parents will be able to rightly point to a set of standards, and schools could be left in a position without funding or support to be able to meet them.”
Rosamund McNeil, assistant general secretary of the NEU teaching union, said: “There is no evidence that national standards for SEND will improve access to the specialist support services that schools tell us is the most challenging aspect of keeping students in mainstream provision.
“The proposals place the emphasis on already stretched schools doing more through the current available provision. Without funding and a more timely expansion of professional support, such as speech and language therapy and Camhs, schools will buckle and more SEND young people are likely to fall between the cracks of the system.”
The DfE said today its plan formed part of “the government’s significant investment into children and young people with SEND and in AP, with investment increasing by more than 50 per cent compared with 2019-20 - to over £10 billion by 2023-24.”
The department is moving forward with many proposals outlined in its Green Paper, including the creation of a new Sendco qualification and the digitising of the education, health and care plan process.
However, some have warned that digital ECHPs, which are not set to be rolled out nationally until 2025, could be ignored by councils if they are not made mandatory.
Pauline Aitchison, network lead at the National Network of Special Schools for School Business Professionals, said: “We know from experience that cash-strapped local authorities will be selective in adopting guidance that they cannot afford, so we hope that all will be in a position to adopt standard templates and that the government considers making this mandatory.”
No extra power for councils on admissions
When the SEND Green Paper was launched last year, one of the key messages from government was that it wanted to improve early intervention in schools and make the mainstream school system more inclusive.
Will Quince, then children’s minister, told Tes at the time that giving councils powers to order academy trusts to take on pupils would be “a game changer”.
However, this proposal is not part of today’s improvement plan. Instead, the department says it will look at how it can make the process of applying to the education secretary for a direction to admit a pupil “as effective as possible”.
In response, the chair of the Local Government Association’s Children and Young People Board, councillor Louise Gittins, said councils were concerned ”over the lack of any plan” to give local authorities additional powers to lead SEND systems effectively.
She added: “Improving levels of mainstream inclusion will be crucial to the success of any reforms, reducing the reliance on costly special schools and other settings. Powers to intervene in schools not supporting children with SEND should be brought forward at the earliest opportunity, but should sit with councils, not the DfE.”
Labour has criticised the plan and suggested it will not resolve the SEND crisis.
Helen Hayes, the shadow children and early years minister, said the government had failed to fix the SEND system for 13 years: “Across the country, children are left waiting for support. This unambitious plan won’t meet children’s needs or end the scandal of families facing lengthy court battles.”
Much of the government SEND reforms have a major question mark hanging over them as the scheduled implementation might not be concluded before a general election.
A SEND charity has welcomed the fact that the plan does not include any row-back of children’s legal rights.
IPSEA chief executive Ali Fiddy said: ”The most notable aspect of the government’s SEND Improvement Plan is that it contains no plans to change the existing law on support for children and young people with SEND.
“That means local authorities must follow the law, parents can continue to rely on it and the SEND Tribunal will continue to apply it.”
‘The devil is in the detail’
The improvement plan has received a cautious welcome from some multi academy trust leaders today.
Dr Nic Crossley, chief executive of the Liberty Academy Trust, said the launch of the plan was welcome across the sector and “particularly in the announcement of additional funding to support the growth of special schools and investment in training”.
But she added: “Of course, the devil is in the detail and the announcement of additional funding will help to accelerate those changes.
“It should be remembered, however, that this has been in discussion since 2019 and in the years that have followed, due in part to changes in leadership and a global pandemic, pupils with SEND have suffered further gaps in provision and whilst the proposals today propose a vision for improvement in the future, they do not address quickly enough the problems children and young people are experiencing now.”
And Seamus Murphy, chief executive at Turner Schools, said he welcomed consistency across the country with new national standards for SEND and alternative provision, and was “delighted that this means AP is now formally considered part of wider SEND provision”.
However, he added: “It is not yet clear that the new arrangements will reduce parental demand for EHCPs, while school trusts are still unclear on their role in delivering these ambitious new changes for mainstream education.”
Sendco qualification plan welcomed
The proposal to create a new Sendco qualification in the plan has also received some support today.
Leora Cruddas CBE, chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, said: ”We welcome the new Special Educational Needs Coordinator National Professional Qualification and investment in educational psychology and early language support. We need to build on this to offer compelling, evidence-led workforce development more widely, and especially to SEND support staff to help with recruitment and retention.”
Ms Cruddas also said the ambition for an effective, single national system is the right one, and that she welcomed the proposals for strengthened accountability and guidance between health and education.
And Annamarie Hassall MBE, chief executive of the National Association for Special Educational Needs (Nasen), said: ”The absence of a SEND-focused NPQ has been an omission from the NPQ portfolio for too long, so we welcome all prominence to SEND and inclusion across the NPQ suite.”
