We will not solve our special educational needs crisis until we solve our education system crisis more widely (Children’s development ‘put back by years’ due to failure of special educational needs system, 23 November). Unrealistic expectations, policy driven by behavioural management rather than child‑development principles, and an overemphasis on discipline above engagement will result in an ever-increasing number of children not coping.
As a clinical psychologist, I see young people every day who are struggling to meet the demands of school. My own child is one of the 1.2 million mentioned in your report who won’t meet a threshold for an education, health and care plan.
My child wants to be a writer and illustrator; they are totally on board with the importance of education and have a thirst for knowledge. They can’t sit still on a chair all the time and they aren’t great at remembering the correct pen. Luckily, my child is at a supportive school. If my child attended an academy school like Mossbourne Victoria Park, in east London, where teachers allegedly “screamed at” and humiliated pupils, I suspect that they would be terrified and would probably fail.
As a society, we have to start looking at the wider picture and ask what it is we think schools are for. Are they places to teach young people obedience, where the majority will do OK but a large percentage of young people will be left burned out and crumbling? Or are they a place where teachers and young people all get to thrive and, dare we say it, enjoy education?
Dr Helen Care
Clinical psychologist, Woodstock, Oxfordshire
The headline on your article about the failure of the special educational needs system applies to all children. I am a supply teacher working in London, trained in special education needs and disabilities (Send). The reality is that inadequate Send training and resources impact not only (and of course, primarily and with most urgency) children with needs, but also their parents’ ability to work, their siblings’ mental health, teachers’ workload and health, and – last, but by no means least – the education of their classmates.
The disruption from an inadequately supported Send child takes considerable teacher time. Multiply that by five (a reality in most classrooms) and this critically undermines the potential for fruitful learning discussions, whole-class activities and group work needed to help support the lower attainers. Excellent classroom management can only go so far. As always, it is a false economy not to be supporting the most vulnerable in our society.
Helen Kinsey
London
The frustration that Amerdeep Somal, the local government and social care ombudsman, has expressed about the inability of education services to meet the special needs of so many children is entirely understandable, and the causes lie in decades of “reforms”. There is no special education needs system but a patchwork of fragmented services.
Since the 1988 Education Reform Act, local accountability for whole education systems has been steadily undermined. The act gave schools the opportunity to be “set free” from the control of local education authorities (LEAs) by becoming grant-maintained, funded by government but with less accountability to local, democratically elected councils.
Some LEAs did a poor job, but many worked well; nevertheless, the concept of private good, public bad took hold and the system was subject to years of attrition in favour of less accountability and more “freedom”, losing sight of the need to look at local provision as a whole.
The option of improving the existing system and clarifying public accountabilities was ignored, as in the case of public services generally. Schools are public services and are there to meet the needs of all children; without a whole-service framework there can be too many gaps for children to fall through. Without supportive and well-managed services such as educational psychologists, schools can find it too difficult to cope – witness the increase in primary-age children being suspended or excluded from school. Vision is needed, but it isn’t clear where that might come from.
Andrew Seber
Winchester
