Send education is ‘buckling and broken’—Labour must step up

Pairs of shoes placed at a protest in Matlock, Derbyshire, over Send provision (Picture: Jeannie Robinson)

Parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) held nearly 100 demonstrations outside council offices on Monday about the failure of Send education.

Some 5,000 people joined the demonstrations, where they laid pairs of shoes outside of the buildings, each with a personal message attached.

This was to showcase the children the education system has left behind.

One tag on the shoes told the story of an autistic child wrongly excluded from school and the anxiety and distress this caused, only for the exclusion to be overturned.

A tag read, “KR age 11, Every child deserves a place to belong, where’s mine?”

Another described the story of a child with ADHD, autism and dyslexia who is constantly placed in isolation due to education workers not understanding his needs.

The demonstrations, organised by The Send Sanctuary UK, took place up and down Britain. From Devon to Derbyshire, from Somerset to Scotland, parents expressed their anger and disappointment at the current system.

The founder of The Send Sanctuary UK, Aimee Bradley, told Socialist Worker that Send education is “buckling and broken”, calling for restructuring and change. “There is no accountability for how it is failing children. It is a postcode lottery.”

Too often local authorities fail to fulfil education, health and care plans (EHCPs) or dither and delay in giving them out.

These plans lay out the provision that a child with Send requires, and councils are legally obligated to meet these requirements. Parents are frequently forced to take their local authority to a tribunal to get it to fulfil its legal obligations.

Aimee has three children with Send. She took the council to a tribunal after it denied her son a space in a specialist school when he was four. The council tried to give him a mainstream place that would have not met his needs.

“Having been there and had those sleepless nights, it is horrific. I’ve had to fight for my children for something that should be given to them,” she said.

It took nine months to reach a tribunal review, which Aimee won, and it was another two months until her son was finally in school.

“I have felt broken and alone and that my children have been let down. Navigating this process is difficult. The councils count on parents not knowing what they are doing.

“Imagine waking up every day in fight or flight mode, wondering whether your child will get the support they need. You should be enjoying them growing up, not waking up with crippling anxiety and having to fight for their support,” Aimee added.

There should be a massive expansion of specialist school places. Currently, there are simply not enough to meet demand. Aimee said Labour “needs to spend money on infrastructure”. Councils would then save money on all these tribunals—especially as “local authorities lose 93 percent of tribunal cases”.

She argued that the Labour government, which is expected to announce reforms to Send provision in the coming months, should have more accountability.

“They say they inherited a broken system of Send provision, which is partly true. But Labour needs to actually speak to parents who are living it every day and speak to children who are out of school or at home with trauma or have not had a school placement.

“These children are being failed. Labour needs to listen to them.”

It has previously been reported that Labour is considering scrapping EHCPs altogether.

But Aimee thought that removing EHCPS would “take support away from children who appear to have fewer care needs”.

Her daughter goes to a mainstream school but has an EHCP that enables her to get additional support, meaning she is able to attend the school.

“If that was taken away she would spiral. We need to make sure what is given to one isn’t being taken away from someone else,” she continued.

“I don’t think it is too much to ask for children to have an education that enables them to thrive.”

It is a disgrace that the education system is failing the most vulnerable children in our society.

It is shameful that successive governments have allowed this crisis to worsen. Parents are right to protest.

The impact of the demonstrations has been to “give parents the feeling of not being alone and the drive to speak for themselves and tell their stories,” Aimee said.

“The Labour government should be about proper funding. Don’t get rid of parents’ legal rights to EHCPs because that is what we hold onto. Just be transparent and listen to us.

“We just want our children to become the incredible adults that they could be if given the right start.”