SEND Reform White Paper Consultation: My Answers

I recently responded as part of the consultation for the SEND Reform White Paper. I wanted to copy the questions it asked and the answers I gave here, just to record for prosperity and reference.

Mainly though, I want to make more people aware, if I can, about how incredibly sky-high the bar is to respond to these sorts of things. To respond to the government on their proposed changes, which will affect the most vulnerable children in this country, they seem to make the consultation process as obtuse, challenging and difficult as possible. If I was feeling cynical (which I am about anything to do with the SEND support system), it was designed in this way so they limit the number of responses they get. The number of objections they receive.

To answer any of these questions at all, I had to read a 120(ish) pages document, The White Paper, and the 20(ish) pages of appendices. I had to read it a few times, absorb the information – which was based around educational policy, SEND conditions and their support, funding, and the legal framework around education and SEND support. As documents go, it was complicated, but compared to the average person, I am well-versed in such things; you have to be as the parents of a young child with SEND in the education system – which is part of the problem of all for much of this, to advocate well and get your child’s needs supported, you need to have medical and legal degrees because if you are their parent don’t clue yourself up to the teeth about these things, the system does not ‘kick in’ to support them automatically. It only starts when the parent and carer kicks and screams it into life, sometimes only by kicking it in the precise and correct place.

It is something I have been successful at doing, because of my own privilege and circumstances, but that’s not the story for countless other families in this country.

The consultation contains 39 questions. It should be noted that you could email your thoughts on the White Paper, or supply a voice recording (I saw this suggested on a video) rather than answer the questions, and you did not have to answer every question. Even just sending a written email to respond to this, assumes you have read and understood the White Paper on some level and have set aside time and energy to this.

There’s a lot of this that is indicative of the SEND parent experience: to support, advocate and protect the legal rights of our disabled children, we have to have energy, time, resources to respond to doctors, schools, professionals … and government legislation, all alongside the additional challenges in day-to-day parenting of a SEND child often brings. The government gave 6 weeks to respond to this consultation, which sounds like a reasonable amount of time, doesn’t it? But take into consideration that the people most likely to respond to this are SEND parents, advocates, teachers who are responding to this on top of their lives, their jobs – it doesn’t become much time at all.

I wrote these answers over 4 days. As I am freelance, I built the time to answer these into my week alongside projects, my life, my parenting. I am lucky, fortunate to be able to do this, and is perhaps a rare position. It was a tricky academic exercise anyway, but it was an exhausting emotional one too, as these changes will personally affect my son, negatively, and so the weight of this felt massive, and grew with every question. Not least when I realised that if I was feeling it was impossible, if I wanted to stop, that likely meant countless others were feeling the same way, perhaps they might run out of energy, time, willingness to send their responses. After all, we were being told by the media that the government had already decided much of the reforms already – was my part in the consultation futile?

I had two other issues with this consultation response experience.

One: a lot of SEND conditions are genetic and run in families. Those parents are still fighting for support the needs of their child, and this way of responding would be inaccessible to them. Their views and worries about this system reform are important and likely weren’t heard because of the high bar to respond. The government did supply a Easy Read text document designed for those for whom reading and processing is difficult, or those for whom English is a second language. I read this too, to see what was included versus the full document. What alarmed me was that for this consultation, the devil is quite literally in the wording and detail. Turn of phrase, knowledge of the old system and the legality of that system is crucial to understand what the government are proposing here. So the Easy Read text document seems disingenuous at best, exploitative at worst.

Two: The government certainly did not try to make this easy to understand in any way. The government did not supply easy to read tables outlining the big changes between the old and new systems. Independent advocates online did this (shout out to @Sendra.UK for all her hard, tireless work on this. This woman is a warrior for SEND children’s rights and an absolute legend of gigantic proportions. Can not thank her enough.). The government did not do bite-sized videos to help explain the details, show their thinking, hopes and goals for these reforms. Again, independent advocates and SEND content creators did this. Did the government want any of us to understand the implications of these reforms at all?

Bridget Phillipson and Georgia Gould did some question and answers, and town halls with charities and other people. There were some videos that I saw on the Department of Education Instagram where straight-forward questions were put to Phillipson and she only gave “politician” answers, where she barely addressed the question and talked about something ever-so-slightly at a tangent to the question as to not be immediately obvious, but she never answered the question.
The DofE also turned off comments to a few videos, restricted comments and deleted one entirely after backlash in the comments (Your Questions on Schools White Paper Answered on Facebook). It felt as though they were gaslighting everyone at every turn.

I can only conclude the Department of Education either did not want to the general population to understand these SEND reforms or perhaps they themselves don’t understand them fully. Either conclusion is horrifying, frankly. The children of this country deserve better from their government and Department of Education. They are not a cost cutting exercise or scape goats to budget saving measures. They are beautiful, worthy, capable humans who deserve to be supported and nurtured through their education with their individual needs met. Reading through the whole thing, speaking to people online and watching and reading other people digest it, I don’t think this White Paper feels thought through or realistic. On a basic level, it strips the legal rights of our SEND children away, which is horrifying just in itself.

Here are the answers I gave, presented to give some sense in the amount of work expected to put in to reply to this consultation. I did not answer all 39 questions, I left out the ones I felt I didn’t understand enough to answer or weren’t relevant to me as a personal individual responding. I answered to the best of my ability and to the best of my understanding of the White Paper. It isn’t perfect, I don’t have a perfect understanding of everything proposed and how it might affect our children when it comes into practice and law, but showcases my worries and fears for these reforms.

1) We want children, young people and their families to be involved in making better, evidence‑based decisions about SEND, both in their local area and across the country. How can we make sure children, young people and their families have a genuine say in these decisions?

By asking and talking to children, young people and their families. By listening to their responses, their experiences with the system. By building a system that doesn't make them fight and constantly makes them feel as if they are, somehow, gaming the system simply by seeking support for their's, their children's or their family's needs. By making us trust in the system you are building and reforming; which is badly in need of reform, yet the reforms proposed in this White Paper are more terrifying. Kier Starmer spoke of building back the trust of parents and the SEND community with the government and the education system; while at the same time Bridget Phillipson has been answering direct and simple questions on the DofE Instagram pages with "politician" answers; she never answer the question directly or redirects onto something adjacent. For this whole consultation period, the media and the government responses have felt like gaslighting as we scream that we want protection for our SEND children's legal rights, and it is ignored. We have been shouting for reform of this system for years – so that the system works to support the law that was in place; the law which was solid but just wasn't being followed or conformed to by LA. What you have proposed in this document is a weakening of the rights of disabled children to an education that meets their individual need, disguised as making education more inclusive for all.

2) How can we make sure that high-quality evidence and best practice inform decisions about SEND?Please share examples.

Evidence and 'best practice' in this area only go so far in the support for SEND and needs to be supported with practical day-to-day hands-on experience from the people and carers who see and support the child daily. Evidence and academic theory only goes so far and does not support the individual and whatever the expression of their interweaving needs – sometimes those needs might express and interact differently as they age, as they grow, as they develop. Support for the individual child's unique needs needs to be the crucial centrepiece to any reforms made to the system. To paraphrase my son's neurologist in one appointment we had when talking of MRI scans of brains: sometimes he sees brain scans of an unhealthy brain, but the child is living a healthy life, and sometimes he sees a healthy brain scan but the child is incredibly sick. For my son, the evidence of his multiple diagnoses medically paint an individual you might expect not to be independent or developing in life, let alone in a mainstream school, yet he is a bright, intelligent, happy and thriving boy, which you could not ascertain from looking at evidence alone, but only from day-to-day evidence and assessing his individual support needs from there. Part one: putting children and young people first

3) How can we ensure that children are best supported by the Universal offer?

I think the universal offer should include all no and low cost reasonable adjustments to be available for every child, allowing flexibility and adaptation of a mainstream environment to help support all children during their development. This will not only help to support all our children, but also lead by example in showing them that throughout their lives, adaptation and support are available to everyone, and it is acceptable and necessary for them to reach out for help if they are needed. For example: in my son's class, he and a few of the other children in the class need to have movement breaks to help maintain their focus. So the teacher has implement active breaks – walking around the test classmates etc. into their lessons and has found that the movement breaks have benefitted the whole class.

4) How can we ensure that children in the Targeted layer are best supported?‍ ‍

My concern about this whole tier of Targeted support is the extra pressure this puts directly onto schools and the teachers directly. Schools and teachers who are overworked, underpaid, overstressed currently, without adding this extra layer of support. What sort of training will the teachers have? When will they have this training? Will there be a pay increase to account for their extra skills, expertise, time and pressure added? There has been a well-documented teacher hiring crisis over the last few years, teacher retention crisis too – and this just seems a way to add more pressure and stress onto the teachers. The few overworked and dedicated teachers our school system has left. Over-stressed and over-worked teachers will not mentally be in place to provide the necessary support for children who need it at this tier.

5) How can we ensure that children in the Targeted Plus layer are best supported?

I love the idea of school and the students who require it having quicker and easy to 'experts at hand'. My concern for this proposal is two-fold: 1) the budgets suggested for 'experts at hand' only equates to less than a day per child with SEND in primary school. This doesn't seem like any time at all that will help children at this level. 2) Where are these experts coming from? There's a national shortage of Educational Psychologists, for instance. Years (6 or 7 years) of training and education, so there is no quick solution here, so we are expected to believe these will be ready for the launch of these reforms? Wouldn't this just lead to a 'postcode lottery' type system, where the support is postcode dependent?

6) How can we ensure that children in the Specialist layer are best supported?

I can not express what a terrifying and terrible idea I think the specialist provision packages are, particularly as a parent of a child with high needs, and a high-banded EHCP. As a child's needs get more complex, the less predictable the interaction of their needs becomes, so the idea that a child's individual needs can be supported by predetermined packages is non-sensical. And their day-to-day needs will be covered by the ISPs which are not legally enforceable, with no legal right to appeal or tribunal, and you could only challenge the school. What I can see in this is many children falling between two or more of these packages, so either not having all their needs met, or being unable to find a school or setting willing or able to meet need across various and multiple packages. Every child with SEND I have ever met never fits into a neat box: and each of them deserves to have their individual needs met and supported – which is not what these predetermined packages provide. Supporting access and need unlocks potential in our children, potential for the future to become happy and successful adults. Adults who have the tools to live well in society, thrive and contribute. Denying them access at early stages will stunt a child's growth and cause further problems later in their lives. If this White Paper is a cost-cutting exercise at the expense of our SEND children, it is short-sighted our future and costs will escalate elsewhere.

7) How do you think early years settings, schools, and colleges can best support the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people?

I noticed that 'mental health' has been removed from the previous 'Areas of Need', newly renamed 'Areas of Development', and doesn't appear on the breakdown of the pie chart either. The rewording of 'Need' to 'Development' is interesting and concerning; a 'Need' is lifelong and necessary. An 'area of development' labels things as more temporary, things that can be corrected – which is just not correct in so many cases of many children, and for so many diagnoses. It feels as though to me this is another part of the White Paper where more pressure is being put onto teachers and schools – moving mental health out of the SEND system as if the two aren't co-morbid conditions, one affecting the other. Mental health support is far too medically complicated for teachers to deal with alone, and I think they should support the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people in their care by referring them to doctors and specialists.

8) Do you agree that the refreshed ‘areas of development’ will support educators to understand and address barriers to learning and participation?‍ ‍

It won't help educators at all unless they have the specialist training they need to support a child's mental health and needs. Schools and teachers are so overwhelmed as it is, and this White Paper seems to add more and more responsibilities onto the teachers. Unless you are putting a SEND and mental health specialist teacher on hand in the majority of classrooms, I imagine due to the overwhelm of teachers, the children will not be supported in this new system and more children will be failed and fall between the cracks. Early intervention and support is key for a child's success in life, so without it, I can only see more problems.

11) What should the top three priority areas be for building and sharing evidence within the National Inclusion Standards?

1. Being flexible enough to ensure all a children's individual needs are met. Standardising might mean some children get left behind, as they don't conform to the standard strategy. This is also a weakening of our SEND children's current rights to an education that supports their individual access needs.
2. Consultations of medical experts, teachers as well as 'day-to-day' evidence from those who see the child daily (including family)
3. Building trust in the system – for parents, teachers and children/young adults in the system.

12) What are the most important issues for national training to cover, to help support children and young people with SEND?

£200 million has been set aside for training, and quick research tells me there are about half a million teachers in the UK currently; which, spread equally is £400 for training per teacher. So a day, maybe two days worth of training, on a very complicated, varied and complicated subject – doesn't seem to stretch very far. All the things listed in the paper are great: more support, more training, inclusion and adaptive learning, but to get all the teachers there from a 2026 standing start, seems overly-ambitious for the budget set. To get an idea of what can reasonably be achieved within the proposed budget, I would ask the teachers about what behaviours, presentations, conditions they are coming across most often and lead from there. I would also like to see cultural representations considered in the system – from communication between school/professional and parents, as well as how some conditions manifest slightly differently depending on cultural background (eye contact, for instance, is not insisted upon, or discouraged for children to look adults in the eye – which would be a cultural aspect and not part of an autism diagnosis for someone from that background) and are supported at home differently.

14) How should the Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO) role evolve to better meet the needs of children and young people with SEND?

The paper mentions that the problem with the SENCO role currently is that it is a lot of admin and bureaucracy, and I know that from speaking to the SENCO at our school. I think it would be incredible if the amount of paperwork, chasing and admin the SENCO role had to do so they can be more present in the day-to-day support of the children and the teachers, that'd be wonderful. But, I am concerned that getting the schools, and I assume the SENCOs, to produce, update and maintain all the ISPs for the children who need it in the school, will actually end up giving the SENCOs even more admin and paperwork ... also the constant monitoring of the children through all the support layers as they grown and development – I can't see how that won't be admin heavy too. I think there should be more SENCOs in the school to match the ambition of this White Paper. And more training.

15) What would provide assurance for families that an Individual Support Plan (ISP) is high quality and contains the essential information?

The complaints process for a setting not meeting the provision set out in the ISP (which are created by the school) outlined in this White Paper is to complain to the school. I appreciate this is to speed up the process as wait times for tribunal are so long currently BUT in cases where the parents know, feel or have evidence for the school not meeting provision usually goes hand-in-hand with frustration and communication breakdown between the school and the parents. And so to then, have to complain to the same place who is neither meeting provision or potentially has a poor relationship and dialogue with the parents (for whatever reason) is madness. "We investigated ourselves and found ourselves to be blameless and completely correct." It seems most likely the school will find in favour of itself, its staff, its other concerns for the school as a whole, rather than the individual pupil. And then, is there no other route to resolve this? This in itself presents a terrifying and drastic weakening of our SEND children's legal rights and it is horrifying. There is no way to provide assurance for families in the ISP if there is no way to enforce a setting meet a child's needs.

16) How can we ensure Individual Support Plans are clear, concise and practical for professionals to use?

It is a huge amount of work to have the schools not only create the ISPs, but also decide what goes into them: the children on the Targeted Level do not have any input directly from experts or doctors. And what happens when what the individual child needs might not match the standard provision sets being proposed, so do they go up to the next tier? Without the ISPs being enforceable, I think you'll end up where we are now – where an EHCP is the only way to have a child's needs met; the very issue this White Paper was commissioned to solve.

17) How can we best support transition for young people with SEND, so that they are well supported into post-16 provision and further education, training or employment?

Extending support for those with EHCPs to age 25 I think is a great idea. The transition into the adult system is known to be a difficult time for both adults and children alike.

18) How can we make sure that every area can meet the full range of the needs of children and young people through Inclusion Bases?

I do think that inclusion bases for some children in a mainstream setting are a great idea, so they have the opportunity for flexible accommodations of their needs over time, whilst still being a part of school life where they can. I think all children in school can benefit from seeing society that way, that different people have different needs and if supported, they too can thrive together with them. That being said, it's in no way feasible that a school environment will work for all children – there are a number of children with various needs for whom a school environment is the worst place they can be; the environment itself is a barrier to their access and support. There are some for whom no matter how we try to include them, due to their disabilities they will never be able to be included. Inclusion does not mean simply present on a school campus. On the SEND children needing access to specialist setting in their local area – ideally this would be amazing to avoid long travel distances, families having to relocate etc. But it can not, surely, be guaranteed that all conditions and needs could be supported and specialised within a single area, or county even? And if the child moves through the tiers, will they change schools, possibly have to move towns, which is not flexible and extremely disruptive? For Visual Impairment, there are only 4 specialists schools in the country, for example. If your child's condition is rare, and support scarce, how will this work?

19) How can we make sure that Inclusion Bases help children and young people succeed in mainstream settings?

By being flexible and adaptive to a child's individual needs, supporting those needs in a way that supports that child's unique needs day-to-day. No child's needs will ever be met by a standardised and prescribed set of support needs – this is how children are failed and fall into gaps in the system. As I mention in question 18: inclusion bases are a great idea for perhaps a majority of children, but there is no way inclusion bases can support all children and their needs.

20) Through the Experts at Hand offer, we want to ensure that mainstream settings can get quick specialist support for children and young people. What arrangements are needed between local area partners (education, health, social care) to deliver this Experts at Hand offer effectively?

I think this is based on a brilliant idea. Quick communication between schools and experts to help get children a diagnosis and support in a quick and agile way. Early intervention is key. I understand that the 'Experts at Hand' argument is being made to reinforce the idea that legally enforceable EHCP plans will not be needed for as many children, as they are currently. While I think that on the surface this is what is needed to fix the current system, what the paper seems to outline is that these experts will train the teachers on how they can support children themselves (increasing workload on school staff yet again). My other worry is, where are all these experts coming from? Doesn't having local experts at hand turn each area into a postcode lottery? As I understand things, there is currently a shortage in Educational Psychologists, for example, a key speciality in the SEND and education system. This is a profession which requires years of training and education – a PhD, so 7/8 years in full time education. Are these going to be available to get this off the ground in 2028 as proposed? There are years long waiting list for literally any professional at the moment: physio, OT, speech and lang. What time are these same professionals going to have to clear waiting lists and provide the extra support outlined? Part three: specialist support for those with complex needs

21) What needs to be in place so that children and young people with low incidence, highly complex needs can always access the right specialist placement?

Making sure the system of support looks to support a child's individual needs, rather than only supporting their needs that fit into the pre-determined packages. I imagine that to make sure children with complex needs fit into the 'predetermined boxes' of need, they will either need to be so broad as to be useless, so children don't fall between the gaps, or so specific that a lot of children are missed, unsupported and spend their time in education being failed by the system. I think the idea that those with rare high needs be able to find support in their local area, so they can be close to their family, which undoubtedly is best for all. I can't see how that can work in all areas for all conditions though.

22) How can Specialist Provision Packages be designed to effectively support the main types of need we currently recognise?

I don't think the Specialist Provision Packages will be effective at all, and represent a horrifying reduction of the legal rights of the disabled children in this country. If this reform is put into place, it will be a great shame on our nation and we will have failed an entire generation of children. If children might need more than one package, as detailed in the white paper, then surely that negates the whole concept of their being packages in the first place. Complex needs are complicated, interwoven, complex. The idea that the children with the most complex needs can fit into boxes like this, while the rest of the system is 'flexible and adaptive' is reductive. Right now, my son has an individualised EHCP which outlines how to meet each of his needs. What you are proposing here reduces his rights to have his individual needs met and attempts to crush him into a box he might not fit. Are some of his needs more crucial to be met just because they happen to match whatever 'package' has been dictated? The White Paper also outlines that only certain mainstream schools will support certain packages. So if a child straddles two packages, as my visual impaired, AuDHD child likely will, will we have to make a choice between his various needs, if the schools can only meet one. Is it more important that is visual impairment needs are met, or his AuDHD ones are met?

23) We propose that EHCPs will guarantee educational provision set out in a Specialist Provision Package, with day-to-day provision captured in Individual Support Plans. What is needed to make these proposals work effectively?

You need to make them both legally enforceable, and liable to be challenged by tribunal, outside of the school and setting. Do the EHCP specialist support plans detail that the ISPs are legally enforceable alongside whatever is in the package they are rewarded? Seems like neither can exist without the other, so it seems redundant that only one part is enforceable, but the other isn't. ISPs need to be legally enforceable. It is proposed that the EHCP packages are only ever reviewed at Key Stage change, which is 4 times in an education year span of 16 years – 16 years that cover the most development and change a person ever goes through, and risks a child out-developing the needs set out quickly, so it might be irrelevant or, worse, harmful with no way to amend when needed rather than at specific times. It would be hurtful if a child is put onto a wrong provision package, and time is wasted until it can be changes, wasting vital development and time in education due to bureaucracy in this way. There needs to be ways to amend, challenge these all the aspects that support a child's individual needs and be flexible enough to amend them.

24) We propose creating a more direct route to Specialist Provision Packages and EHCP assessments for children under 5 with complex needs. How can we make sure this works in practice?‍ ‍

Make sure this is adaptive and flexible to bring in evidence from doctors and professionals, as well as nursery teachers, staff and teachers as the baby/toddler/child grows and develops. So much happens and changes to a child in the early years, and so getting them stuck in a 'Specialist Provision Package' early on, with no room to change until they progress into KS1 could be damaging and limiting. At worst, this might waste the crucial formative years of a child's development, where early intervention is key, life-changing and time sensitive.

25) What would you expect to be considered as part of the needs assessment, for example evidence and expert or professional input?

The same level of input as the current system, but actually make those experts available and get these appointments in for the children who need them early. Doctors, experts, OTs, Physios, Speech and Language Therapists, Educational Psychologists. SENCOs, nursery staff, parents and carers. Part three: specialist support for those with complex needs

26) What factors should LAs take into account in proposing to parents and young people a list of potential settings to name on a plan?

This idea will restrict school choice for a number of SEND children; school choice is predetermined by a standardised set of needs, rather than friends, community, environment or the choice of the parents, who know their child and the needs best. The White Paper seems overall to prioritise cost-cutting in SEND areas, as well as increasing the number of reasons that a setting can refuse or claim need can not be met. The standardised packages of need, and predetermined school choice based on this, will disproportionately affect those children with the most severe and/or most costly support needs. Cost should not be a barrier to providing the support and needs of our SEND children, nor able to be given as an excuse that a child's needs can't be accommodated. The power parents had to go to tribunal to make sure a setting could meet a need has been weakened too – and proposed that even if a tribunal disagrees with the setting/LA, the decision is sent back to the school/LA, who denied it in the first place. Prevent tribunals from naming a school choice - even if a tribunal disagrees, that is then sent back to the LA, who made the original refusal. Which is a looping system that will inevitably reinforce its own decisions, rather than prioritise the needs and education of our children.

27) What information and support do parents need to make a decision about which setting will be best for their child?

Detailed and realistic information about staffing, therapies, environment, educations, exclusions and outcomes for other students. There should also be independent support and guidance given to parents to help them support their choices for their children. Parental choice should be encouraged and considered, and school choice should not be restricted to a pre-approved list, which limits their choice, and their child's outcomes based on cost savings for the LA and government.

31) Do you agree that more SEND funding should sit directly within mainstream budgets? Please explain why.

Under pressure services will default to providing the legal minimum in dire situations. so if ISPs aren't legally enforceable, or schools are accountable only to themselves to enforce them, they will not support ISPs during tough times. We know this because of the current SEND crisis, that schools have been under pressure so much that the only for needs to be met for our vulnerable SEND children has been down the EHCP route. If school funding for SEND is pool either in an academy trust, or within the school itself in a expanded budget, and the school is under pressure, needs will not be met – it will go or be reduced in favour of the majority and whole. Children's whose needs are more costly, will be viewed as a fiancial burden rather thanas a human being whose needs deserve to be met.

32) In relation to pooled funding, we propose that every school becomes part of a local SEND group. Do you agree that this proposal aligns with our aim for all schools to be part of high-quality, community-based trusts?

Pooling everything together in a SEND group between several schools will surely slow down and add additional admin and paperwork and reduce the schools ability to be flexible and meet a child's need. They'd have to go through the pool funding system to access it, which will likely take more time as they decided; wasting time and going against the speed and flexibility the white paper appears to want to priorities in this system.

37) What information, advice and guidance can best support children, young people and their families to ensure greater fairness across the system?

Fairness depends on whether the support your child needs exists, is accessible to them and is enforceable. And whether families have meaningful rights in practise and are able to challenge, amend and advocate within the system in a way which best suits the needs of their child and their family. The solution is to support the families who struggle to understand and navigate the system better, not by taking the rights away so there's less for them to understand. Which seems to be what this White Paper proposes in my opinion. Some of the best support and advice I have been given in the years I have been navigating adn fighting for my son's rights, have been independent sources of information and advocacy. I would like to see more of this subsidised and prioritise. It feels like a system within which you need medical and legal degrees to understand, years of experience in education plus time, energy, the finances to advocate successfully. The barrier to this needs to be lowered to support all who find themselves in the system, rather than forcing us to find a way to learn all about this ourselves, through trial and error.

39) This consultation outlines a series of measures intended to reform the SEND system. Some of these measures have already been finalised, and this is clearly indicated within the document. With this in mind, is there anything further you would like to contribute to help inform the remaining proposals that are still under consideration?

1) Protecting our children's legal rights to an education that supports a child's individual and unique needs
2) The system should be flexible and agile to support changing and varying need as a child develops
3) Have the ethos that providing access and supporting needs unlocks potential in all our children to help them become happy, content and thriving people as adults – at whatever level is achievable for them
4) Increasing training and support for teachers, SENCOs
5) Access to independent support for parents/carers navigating the SEND system and support available for their child SEND parents have been trying out for reform of the system for years. We did not ask for the law to be changed, but that the system around it is held accountable to those laws and works. This White Paper strips our SEND children of their legal protections, perhaps in the name of cutting costs, scapegoating the most vulnerable in our society. Those who deserve to be cherished, supported and given a good education.