Starmer’s next big battle: reforming the system for special needs children

Photography by Richard Saker

Reform of special educational needs and disabilities (Send) provision is gearing up to be the next big political battle for the government.

Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, wants to drive through changes that would allow more Send pupils to be taught in mainstream schools. She is planning to introduce additional training for teachers and more specialist units for those pupils within mainstream schools.

A greater priority will be put on early intervention, with the new Best Start family centres all having a trained Send specialist.

But Phillipson has failed to guarantee that parents will continue to have the same legally enforceable rights to ensure their children get the help they need. There could be changes to education, health and care plans (EHCPs) that guarantee additional funding and extra support for Send pupils. Parents could also lose the right to choose a particular school with special provisions for their child.

Since 2015 the number of young people with an EHCP has more than doubled. The cost of Send provision has reached £12bn a year, up from £8bn in 2021-22. Councils are spending more than £1bn a year on taxis alone to transport Send pupils to and from special schools.

Senior Labour figures are warning that the plan risks becoming “welfare mark two”, with dozens of MPs prepared to rebel against what they see as further Treasury-driven cost-cutting measures.

Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader who cares for his disabled son, believes the Send system is in “desperate need” of reform. “I’m really worried that if the government doesn’t listen to parents and just focuses on saving money, this could turn into another mess like welfare. I hope the prime minister will work with us to reform Send in a way that strengthens children’s rights, instead of rolling them back.”

Katie Ghose, head of the charity Kids and vice-chair of the Disabled Children’s Partnership, says: “The government should be honest about the lessons from the welfare reforms which left thousands of people in fear of poverty, instead of seeing practical pathways to jobs they could do.”

The National Autistic Society has warned that legal rights for children who need extra support must be retained.

A report from the Centre for Young Lives, to be published this week, found that growing numbers of vulnerable children are not having their needs met. More than 1.7 million young people in England were identified as having special educational needs in 2023-24, up 34% since 2017-18. Since the pandemic, there has been a 341% increase in the children waiting for an autism assessment.

Ministers are working hard to avoid another revolt on the scale of the welfare rebellion. Last week, Keir Starmer suspended four Labour MPs who voted against the planned cuts to disability benefits.

Phillipson is consulting widely with teachers, families and backbench MPs before publishing proposals as part of a schools white paper in the autumn.

One Department for Education source said lessons were learned from the welfare revolt. “We need to be clear that this is not about saving money, it’s about improving outcomes for children with special educational needs. I don’t think anyone looks at the current Send system and thinks it’s working.”

But the issue has caused tension around Whitehall, with Downing Street worried about another controversial reform. One senior educationist says: “The mood music from the profession is we have to do this because what’s happening at the moment is not in the interests of children. Kids are sitting in taxis for two hours a day and getting terrible provision. Bridget Phillipson is holding firm. Meanwhile, No 10 is wobbling incredibly because they think they won’t get it through the backbenches.”

In January, almost 640,000 children in England had an EHCP, 11% higher than the previous year and the equivalent of almost an entire schoolyear cohort across the country.

A legal framework introduced in 2014 means that schools are only guaranteed top-up funding for children with EHCPs. Parents were also given greater choice over their child’s education, including the right to request a specific special school. Independent schools were included and private equity firms moved in.

One of the largest private providers of special educational provision – Witherslack Group, owned by Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund – trebled its operating profits between 2019 and 2023 to £36m.

Meanwhile, the accountability measures for schools focus almost entirely on academic attainment, creating an incentive to remove children who might not do well in exams.

Pupils with special educational needs are more than three times more likely to be suspended and five times more likely to be permanently excluded. Alex Russell, chief executive of the Bourne Education Trust, says t here is a moral and financial imperative to improve provision for Send pupils within mainstream schools. T hree of his schools have “special school satellites” and a fourth is now being created for children with severe learning difficulties. Pupils with additional needs spend some of their time in the specialist unit, but can also access many elements of mainstream education. “It works really well and is totally inclusive,” he says. “There are children who need to attend special schools but I’m also realistic enough to understand that the cost of special educational needs provision is simply not sustainable.”

He says technology is a “gamechanger” for these pupils. “A teaching assistant can take the lesson that’s been produced by the teacher and interpret or manipulate that lesson using artificial intelligence so it’s relevant to the reading age or learning style of the individual they are supporting.”

Parents say the education system too often sees Send pupils as a problem to be managed rather than recognising their talents. Tom Rees, chief of Ormiston Academies Trust, who is leading the government review of Send provision, has a son, Freddie, with Down’s syndrome. He says the current system can make parents feel they should be trying to create a “better version” of their children, rather than celebrating them as they are.

Only three in 10 autistic people of working age are in employment. Yet there are many successful individuals with a neurodivergent condition. The entrepreneur Richard Branson describes dyslexia as his “superpower”.

Peter Kyle, the technology secretary, is so severely dyslexic he has a reading age of eight. He thinks it gives him a different perspective on the world.

“I’ve always been good at reading other people’s emotions. I learned at the beginning that I’m going to have to work harder than other people to do the same. The things that were holding me back have ultimately been the things that have given me the greatest success in life.”

In some parts of England children are facing a seven-year wait for an autism diagnosis, compounding their problems at school and increasing emotional difficulties. Now a groundbreaking project is sending specialist teams into primary schools, cross-checking government data to identify pupils most at risk and delivering extra support within weeks.

The Born in Bradford study has been tracking 13,800 children born at the Bradford Royal Infirmary between 2007 and 2010. Researchers analysed data relating to children who had autism diagnosed by the NHS at age 11 and found many traits were already apparent in information collected routinely by schools in reception.

They could predict with remarkable accuracy which children would later receive an autism diagnosis. Pupils with a low score on the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile – an evaluation carried out on all five-year-olds across England – were 50 times more likely to be diagnosed eventually with autism.

The team then looked at the current cohort of five-year-olds, using the same metrics to identify those at risk of having additional needs. These children were formally assessed at their school rather than in a hospital. Almost all had a neurodivergent condition. meaning support could be put in place immediately before difficulties escalated.

The programme, successfully piloted in 10 primary schools, is being rolled out across Bradford and could be adopted all over England. Mark Mon-Williams, chair of cognitive psychology at Leeds University and deputy chair of the Department for Education’s science advisory council, who helps lead the study, says: “There are a lot of very straightforward approaches that a school can take which make the difference between a child feeling they don’t belong and ultimately just disengaging from the whole education system or feeling included and achieving.

“All the evidence says that the earlier you can get in and provide the support, the better the outcomes.”