SEND funding petition – North East reaction
This week parents and carers of children with SEN handed in a petition with 34,000 signatures to Education Secretary Damian Hinds.
Lynn Watson, a trustee of Schools North East said:
“Over 2,000 of the most vulnerable children in our society are being euphemistically ‘home educated’ due to significant gaps in school provision able to meet their needs. This is an indictment on a system obsessed with Ofsted grades, floor targets, progress 8 and league tables instead of focusing on ethical leadership in what is of real value within an inclusive society. As long as some schools continue to use exclusion as a means of manipulating attainment targets these vulnerable children are at risk. This potentially has an impact on us all in terms of substantial costs to our health, social care and judicial system.
Over 2,000 of the most vulnerable children and young people in our society are out of school due to the inadequacies and lack of moral leadership in maintaining and providing provision to meet their needs. The solutions are never simple but considering the extent of the problem should we not be focusing on: strategic planning in line with demographics and funding to support provision, building capacity within mainstream schools so exclusion is not used as a means of manipulating attainment, supporting leaders who value inclusion and understand the effect of children being out of school and believing inclusion is a measure of success, confidence in managing the obsession with Ofsted and league tables, challenging the lack of partnership working between our services and I could go on to describe a woeful long term lack of support for SEND. Society will be the loser in this as demand for increased support from health, judicial services and social care costs effect us all.”