Campaigners been ‘sounding alarm for years’ on special education crisis, says charity

We’re joined by Catriona Moore, who is not only a parent of a child with SEND, but also the policy manager at the charity IPSEA, which helps families navigate the current SEND system to secure the support that their children are entitled to.

Jackie Long: The National Audit Office concluded today the system is broken. Presumably no surprise to you or many other parents?

Catriona Moore: It’s not a surprise at all. Everyone has known this for a long time. We hear all the time on IPSEA’s advice service that all over the country, children and young people with SEND aren’t getting the support they need and that the law says they should have to help them succeed in education.

Jackie Long: Now, it says specifically that families have lost confidence in a system that often falls short. Can you give us a sense of what falls short means in reality for parents and these children?

Catriona Moore: Falling short barely does justice to what some families experience. The law is clear about what children and young people are entitled to, about their right to special educational provision and support. But it’s widely not followed. The consequences of this non-compliance with the law fall on children with SEND and on their families. So, for example, a growing number of children with SEND are currently not in school at all. This may be because the additional support they need isn’t being provided or no suitable school place has been made available. This has a huge impact on families. We know from our advice service at IPSEA that parents often have to give up work because their children spend so much time at home or because the battle to get what they need is just so all consuming.

Jackie Long: I mean, obviously we have a new government and they say they understand the enormity of the challenge here, which I’m sure you’ve heard before from other government. Understanding is the easy bit, isn’t it? I mean, what do you need the government to do?

Catriona Moore: They definitely should understand the enormity of the challenge, because we and many others have been sounding the alarm for years. We need ministers to commit to making the education system work for children and young people with all types of needs. That means prioritising the law and not making families fight for their children to receive what the law says they should have. It’s undeniable that local authorities and schools are under huge financial pressure. Choices, though, need to be made about priorities, and next week’s budget statement is obviously a very important opportunity to address this.

Jackie Long: You’re a parent yourself. Can you give us some sense of what that has been like? Because as you rightly say, you have been making noise about this, banging the drum on this with other families for a very, very long time.

Catriona Moore: Yeah, we really want to feel that not just that we’re heard, but that action is going to be taken, that our children will be prioritised, that there will be an understanding that our children aren’t just going to go away, that we have a legal framework that is a very good legal framework for our children that puts their rights at the centre. But too many families are having to fight to make the system work as it should.

Jackie Long: I mean, one of the most striking points made by the report is that it says the Department for Education doesn’t even know how many spaces will be needed in the future for mainstream or specialist schools. I mean, that is not encouraging, is it?

Catriona Moore: It’s really not. It was a particularly alarming aspect of the NAO report, which is overall a bit of an indictment of national policy making for children and young people with SEND. But it’s very clear that the Department for Education has failed to plan properly and to gather evidence. But that’s one of the main jobs of DfE and of local authorities, to understand the needs of the population they serve and to make sure there’s provision to meet those needs. That’s one of the reasons why children have to travel long distances in some cases to go to a school where their needs can be met. And that’s not because parents want to send their children a long journey from home every day.