I bambini con bisogni speciali in Inghilterra possono perdere il diritto legale per il sostegno scolastico
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/may/24/children-with-special-needs-in-england-may-lose-legal-right-to-school-support
di Codydoc4
16 commenti
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This headline is extremely alarmist.
> “No decisions have been taken yet on how we deliver …. The change we want to see is just better support for children at the earliest stage possible. And clearly the system we’ve inherited is not delivering that.”
> “Parents have a real battle to get support that should be ordinarily available in school.” […] “I think parents would agree that if we had a well-functioning system, if we had that good early support, then you wouldn’t need a complex legal process to access an education.”
> “Even when families secure an EHCP, it doesn’t necessarily deliver the education that’s been identified … We’re listening to parents. We’re working on a new system. It’s not fixed yet.”
So, basically, its an overhaul but NOT a threat to leave anyone without support. The whole point is to provide MORE support to those very same children.
I don’t trust them as far as I can chuck them but they simply are not using austerity language here. They aren’t saying “cut” or “reduce” or “there will be pain before things get better”.
They are talking about simplifying the process and cutting out the complex legal bits, which would mean MORE disabled children are supported.
Ah yes the caring sharing Starmer government strikes again.
He must go.
At the moment, around 40% of children in Scottish schools have “additional support needs”. When the numbers get that high, the designation becomes essentially meaningless.
The schools with the highest percentages of kids with additional support needs tend to be the most affluent ones, where parents learn to game the system to give their kids every possible advantage.
There is such feature creep in the well meant idea of “additional support needs” that many children who do not need it suck resources from the children who truly do need it.
Really, the majority of kids with additional needs are not what you think. It’s kids who feel mildly anxious. Or they have “oppositional defiant disorder” or they are just a bit lazy.
(And I do mean most, not all. Of course there are kids with needs not being met, it’s the others sucking the resources that need to be filtered out)
As someone currently engaged with this system as a parent, I think a review and changes are in order and I’d be surprised if it ended up worse than the current system.
It’s too hard to get into the system, too hard to remove people from the system (not all SEN are permanent), and too generous given the resources allocated to councils. Some of the measures like providing transport to and from school should be limited in favour of available SEN funding being used for TAs and in school resources.
Read the article. The headline is not the same as the article.
Overhauling the system so the right people get the right support is good!
They should stop the right to thousands of pounds worth of taxis to school per child
I was an SEN child before the introduction of EHCPs; I only got through education because of how much my Mum fought schools for me to get what I needed. Two of my brothers currently work in schools – one directly involved with 1:1 care.
They say that it’s impossible to get an EHCP now due to the demand, and schools are having to take on more students than they have the funding to realistically afford. Maybe it’s no surprise that councils are running deficits if they’re not getting adequate funding?
If an actual replacement that provides better care and funding for SEND children can be implemented, then great. However, if this just amounts to cuts, then I’ll never forgive Labour.
All they’ve actually said is “We’re not ruling anything out, we’re still working on it”
“…the number of EHCPs up 140% since 2015”. This is a clear example of inflation. The proprtion of children with learning difficulties hasn’t changed. EHCPs have undergone “mission creep” and are now being given to children who would never have qualified for significant additional support when the EHCP system was first introduced. The system needs an overhaul and the government is absolutely right in addressing the issues.
My son has an EHCP but we are having to fight it because when they finally granted (6 months after it was supposed to be) they decided he could cope in mainstream. Without consulting a special school in the process as they legally have to (I have in writing that they didn’t).
He is nonverbal and doesn’t reciprocate or acknowledge any form of communication at nursery because the average class size is too much for him. The council went against his school SENCO and told me he’ll be fine in mainstream there, which is a lie.
It’s so hard having to fight to get him the help he needs. I even had a threatening phone call from the council rep trying to mislead me from following the correct process. It should not be this hard, spending 2 minutes with him instantly shows you his problems but local councils ignore all evidence and reports.
The problem is that the bill for send has ballooned. Councils are spending over a billion a year just on taxis for Send chldren. Send is bankrupting councils.
Having worked in education, there are numerous SEND pupils who are meant to have 1-2-1 support, but often that Support Staff has to look after 5+ other SEND pupils who also were meant to have 1-2-1 support.
This is just yet another move that shows Stamer’s Labour are just Conservatives
As someone who has children with EHCP this is worrying. Schools did the absolute bare minimum for my children without the legal backing the an EHCP plan.
An overhaul isn’t going to change the fact that there is no support. Both of my children are SEN. I know exactly how hard it is to fight the system because your children are too special for mainstream and not special enough for special schools(said by a government official as a reason why they were breaking the law). Services are assesment, report and discharge with a list of instructions if you’re lucky.
The local authority would rather drop hundreds of thousands on lawyers to fight at tribunals they loose than provide funding for the education system. Funding has been cut to bare bones and thrown at the economic budget because it’s not ringing fenced for Sen and social services. Hospital recommendations are ignored because “health and social care are not mandatory to support”. Anyone going this overhaul will be good needs to listen to the families that are fighting when we say the education system is on its knees and our children are the FIRST to suffer because of it because it’s not just special needs children suffering.
What annoys me is the same “overhaul” rinse and repeat happens across all public services and always makes things worse and you still have the beating drum in the mainstream that “oh it’s all their fault instead of excepting we’re ignoring the problem and you”.
What a year for segregation in the UK this would be if they did. First trans people excluded from both kinds of single sex space. Then disabled kids sent back to special schools away from the “normal” kids.