'Cultural shift' required to move Send schooling into mainstream education, report finds

One in five children are now identified with Send, the equivalent to six children in every classroom, while support for those with the most complex needs has doubled since 2014.

However, critics say the current system continues to lead to poor outcomes for children, and is adversarial for families and bureaucratic for teachers.

The report found that inclusivity must be embedded in all education settings, from early years through to sixth form, to identify special needs early and provide the requisite support.

The Committee said it saw fine examples of this practice happening in Ontario, in Canada, and also in the UK in Norfolk.

“This isn’t just blue sky thinking,” committee chair Helen Hayes MP said.

“A model the Government can learn from already exists in the Canadian state of Ontario, where we saw teachers actively try to meet the needs of their pupils from their first day at school.

“Closer to home, we witnessed an inspiring whole-school approach to Send at two settings in Norfolk.

“We also call for an increase in the number of specialist state school places so that more children can be educated close to home, reducing the cost of transport and expensive independent school places.”

In particular, this is a major issue in rural parts of the region, with both North Yorkshire Council and the East Riding saying how the Send crisis is causing significant funding pressures.

North Yorkshire Council leader Coun Carl Les revealed that transporting one child with complex needs to school was costing £1.2m a year.

“That is the sort of scale of cost that we can be facing for an individual child, and there are more of those children coming into the system,” he said.

While in the East Riding of Yorkshire, the council receives the lowest amount of per pupil Send funding in the country.

Coun Victoria Aitken, cabinet member for children, families and education said: “The way Send funding is calculated is outdated and doesn’t represent the current demands and needs of children and their families.”

If the East Riding of Yorkshire received the average national funding per pupil, the council would have £17.4m extra each year for Send provision.

“The effect of lower funding in children’s services contributes significantly to the wider council budget, and if we received appropriate funding for high needs, our overall council position would be significantly more manageable,” Coun Aitken added.

The Government will set out how it will reform the Send system in the Schools White Paper later this year.

There have been concerns that EHCPs, the legal documents setting out support required for young people with Send, may be cut under the Government reforms.

“We make a really clear recommendation in the report that the entitlement to EHCPs should remain as it is at the moment, and that there should be no reduction in that entitlement and no raising of the threshold for that entitlement,” Ms Hayes added.