It is 10 years since the UK Government published Support and Aspiration the original consultation document that mapped out what became the SEND reforms implemented in 2014. At the centre of the reforms was the intention to improve outcomes and increase aspiration for children and young people with SEND.
The reforms have provoked a mixed reception with numerous reviews from the National Audit Office (2019), House of Commons Education Committee (2019), Public Accounts Committee (2020) and Ofsted (2021) all raising serious concerns about capacity and focus of the education system to respond to the requirements of the legislation.
Despite significant criticisms the principles outlined in the reforms still have support from parents and the Government and there has been significant good practice in many areas. To address the failings in the system the Department for Education announced a review of the SEND system in 2019.
This has been delayed in part due to the intervention of Covid which has exacerbated existing fault lines in provision. With little appetite in the education sector or Government for a wholesale change, to what is still essentially the Warnock framework of provision (Lamb 2019), what should the SEND review recommend to address the current issues and meet the levelling up agenda?
Significant variation in identifying and meeting needs in schools
A major change in the reforms was to simplify the pre-statutory stage of the SEND system to one category, SEN support. The Code of Practice (DfE, 2015) outlined the barebones of what a graduated response to Children and Young People (CYP) with SEND should entail as part of SEN support but it was left to schools to work out the details. Schools have control for how they deploy their delegated SEND budget in meeting the needs at this stage. While some schools have taken the opportunity to develop innovative support and practice for many CYP there has been significant variation in identifying and meeting the needs of children with SEND (Ofsted 2021).