Norwood cautiously welcomes the proposed reforms on SEND provision in the long-awaited white paper on Schools. Even though these reforms were delayed, we are gratified that the government took the time to properly consult with families and sector providers. It is critical that parents and young people remain a key part of the conversation as the government develops detailed measures to deliver their ambitions. Parents and carers will be looking for greater clarity on how these measures will transform their children’s lives, and help them to navigate the system.
We have long argued that provision is underfunded and too dependent on diagnosis, so we support in principle the announcement of plans to invest an additional £1.6 billion on SEND support in mainstream schools. We eagerly anticipate further detail of how it will be allocated to ensure that the true cost of support is met where it is most needed across the country, to meet the government’s commitment to eradicate the postcode lottery that many families seeking support currently experience.
Whilst the government’s commitment to ensuring greater inclusion for neurodivergent children in mainstream settings is one we share, it is important to recognise that not all settings are appropriate for every child. Not all mainstream schools are equipped to meet the diverse needs of every neurodivergent child, and many are already under immense pressure with insufficient resources to meet the needs of their current cohort and empower each child to reach their potential. For many of the Jewish children and young people we support however, mainstream environments aren’t appropriate to meet their needs, and we welcome the broad commitment to increasing provision in special schools.
We welcome the focus the white paper places on supporting schools to embed inclusion into their ethos, as well as training school staff to identify commonly occurring needs and introducing adaptive teaching styles, so that every pupil can thrive. Parents we support often report a lack of knowledge and training as the primary obstacles to making mainstream school environments fully inclusive and adapted to the needs of their neurodivergent children, which will positively impact the wider class.
We similarly look forward to learning more about plans for an ‘Experts at Hand’ service to create supplementary expertise to support the needs of neurodivergent children and young people regardless of diagnosis. Education is only one – albeit key – part of the system and schools reform needs to form part of a wider joined-up approach to reform support across health, education and wider care sectors.
Whilst we have long advocated for a system that is more needs-based and less diagnosis-driven, we are concerned about the impact of automatically reassessing a child’s needs when making the transition from primary to secondary school. Families already face significant barriers when it comes to assessing their child’s needs in real-time, with significant backlogs in EHCP processing preventing them from receiving the most appropriate support to meet their child’s true needs. Any assessment must be forward-thinking and needs-led rather than financially-driven, consulting a child’s family, school and additional support team to ensure they receive the right support at every stage of their development to enable them to achieve their potential.
If children are subjected to a reduction in support provision as a result of this new assessment framework, we risk condemning future generations to unequal educational opportunities. We know the value that our wraparound support has for families, but if statutory support is insufficient to meet their needs, it makes our job harder.
