'SEND has lost its humanity,' says seriously ill father after being told autistic son's classroom support will end
A severely ill father facing hospice care has told LBC the SEND system "has lost its humanity" - having been told his autistic son's classroom support is being taken away after four years.
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Despite being sent doctors’ letters explaining the daily struggles of the man's life-limiting condition, the local council have stopped almost all the boy's SEND assistance - just as he starts secondary school.
“I’ve recently been referred to hospice care – and they know this and the stress this puts our family under” says the man, who we aren’t identifying to protect his family’s privacy.
Although term started this week, the boy has not been to his new school.
“We have two very stressful situations overlapping – a SEND child out of school with all the problems that brings and then me with a life limiting illness. We asked the hospice to contact the SEND team, my consultant wrote to the SEND team…but it doesn’t seem to have made any difference. You just want them to do the right thing”.
The family say they’ve now spent £10,000 on solicitors to take the local council to tribunal over the decision, which they believe is budget-driven.
“It’s like trying to communicate with a brick wall… the system feels like it has lost its humanity”.
Read more: Education system 'letting working class children down,' admits Schools minister
Margaret Mulholland from the Association of School and College Leaders has told LBC it can take families a long time to go through tribunals over SEND provision.
“It can run into years – which is a dreadful state of affairs. What we hear from school leaders is that they do not want to get to the point where families are having to go to tribunal and they are trying to ensure that support is in place as quickly as possible”.
Meanwhile the Local Government Association say there will be children with special educational needs in every part of the country starting this school year without the support their families want.
Chairwoman Louise Gittins told LBC “every single council will have examples of where there are potentially unmet needs…that’s why the system needs a massive overhaul so every child can get the support they need in a local school”.
Last week, former Conservative Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt angered many families, saying SEND support should be scaled back and that only pupils with highest need should have in-school assistance.
The Department for Education told us: “This government inherited a SEND system on its knees - leaving parents telling us time and time again how they have to fight for the right support for their children. That’s why we’re committed to overhauling the SEND system through the upcoming Schools White Paper.
“We’re delivering more early intervention to better support pupils with SEND, coupled with £740 million invested to create more specialist places in mainstream schools.
“Alongside this, we’re putting a further £3.7 billion into schools’ budgets to ensure all children receive the additional support they need to achieve and thrive.”