It isn’t too long ago that, as a parent, sending your child to school was a special event. School was promoted to be the best place for children to learn, setting them up for their adult lives. It was seen as a unique place where all of every child’s educational needs could be met. Is this still the case in 2024? The identification and evolution of Special Educational Needs can be seen as a modern concept, where professional specialists determine that some children require specific interventions in their school life, to enable them to better cope with specific learning ailments. There is recent data that shows children with autism, social, emotional and mental health needs or speech, language or communication impairments account for an 88% increase in SEN needs since 2015; less than 10 years ago. This is an alarming rate of increase.
The anecdotal evidence that Sue & Dave experience at Kip poses the question of whether school today is able to fully cope with these significant increases in demand for a more specialist education provision. At assessments, Sue sees the whole range of students, some whom parents believe their child has some form of SEN, others who have been professionally diagnosed in accordance with current best practice, plus a whole range of other children who fall somewhere in-between.
If it’s appropriate for a child, the process for parents in obtaining an Education, Health & Care Plan (EHCP) is complex and fraught with challenges throughout. Hoops need to be jumped through in order to make and progress an application. Again, stats say that 90% of applications wait more than 13 weeks for a confirmed diagnosis; many wait more than 9 months. In the meantime, life, and school carry on unabated. The delays are understandable from a local authority perspective, as budgets aren’t unlimited and an assessment and diagnosis by a qualified Educational Psychologist takes time. Over the past 10 years the demand for assessments has skyrocketed. Data records identify more than 187,000 open referrals in the system in June 2024. Desperate parents sometimes bypass the set route and pay for an assessment privately. This can shortcut the normal process.
If a parent is persistent; working their way through the myriad of forms and assessment requirements; and successfully obtains an EHCP for their child, the challenge isn’t over. An EHCP carries additional local authority funding and a range of measures the school are meant to implement to recognise your child’s identified individual learning needs. Does the school have the resource / skills to implement all aspects of the plan? Can all of the interventions be put in place? If not, where do you stand? More importantly, how do you ensure that the focus remains on the very best outcomes for your child? It’s possible, (but probably not desirable) to take legal action in order to enforce an EHCP. How many parents have the desire and patience to challenge when their child’s school says no? It’s no wonder parents look to take back control of their child’s education. Being a responsible parent is all about giving your child the very best start in life.
Over the 14 years that Sue & Dave have been running Kip we have lots of anecdotal parental evidence of trying to both obtain and enforce an EHCP for their child. We freely admit to not being SEN experts, but Kip teachers do understand the complex needs of individual children; looking to deliver individually for them every single week.
