Half of all extra schools spending in the last decade has gone on special needs and three-quarters of England’s councils face bankruptcy over the costs. As parents chase extra support for their children, Send is out of control, says Zachary Marsh in the Spectator. Here’s an excerpt.
As students go back to school this September, headteachers across the country are being forced to confront a system in crisis. While children reconnect with their friends and swap stories of the summer holidays, an ever-increasing number will have a little ‘S’ next to their name on the register – for Send, or Special Educational Needs and Disabilities.
Startlingly, one in five students in England are now recorded as having Send. Policy Exchange’s new report, ‘Out of Control‘, finds that the number of children given Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) – designed to support those with the most severe needs that schools cannot normally provide for – has increased by 83% since 2015. As a former teacher, I saw this spiralling crisis first hand.
This has come at a tremendous cost. Half of all extra schools spending in the last decade has gone on Send. £11 billion will be spent this year – with taxis for children with Send set to cost more than £1 billion alone by the end of the decade. The system is at breaking point, with three-quarters of England’s councils facing bankruptcy over Send costs.
The popular consensus that the unstoppable rise of Send among our children is the product of better awareness and diagnosis has blinded policy-making for too long. In reality, while mental health and neurodivergence remain fundamental challenges for many young people, the system increasingly draws in many who do not need a label and do not benefit from having one – at terrible human and economic cost.
Child development is messy. Yet the desire of parents and teachers to ensure young people are happy and healthy has too often spiralled into an urge to problematise that runs counter to children’s interests. We used to be comfortable accepting that sometimes children might feel down or upset, or struggle to keep up with their peers in class for a period. Now widespread concern about mental health means that if you feel anxious, you must have anxiety. If you get restless in lessons, you must be struggling with ADHD. Yet a 2018 study at Cambridge University found that 25% of children diagnosed with Send were in fact age-typical.
Worse still is an incentive structure that encourages families to seek out labels for their children in return for a host of benefits. Middle-class dinner party conversations now turn on what diagnoses will unlock extra time in exams. Send-based exam adjustments are twice as common in the independent sector as in state schools. The unlimited funds that can be unlocked by EHCPs have started an arms race of parents wanting to access more support for their children – crowding out those with genuine needs.
“We must scrap the perverse incentives, insist on good evidence and address over-medicalisation,” says Zachary.
Worth reading in full.
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