����Vlog

Tackling the special educational needs crisis is “much harder” in a system where not all schools are in strong trusts, the government’s inclusion adviser has warned.

Tom Rees, who chairs the Department for Education’s expert advisory��group on SEND inclusion, was speaking to ����Vlog as the government prepares to publish its schools White Paper and long-awaited plans for reform of special educational needs and disabilities support.

Mr Rees said he hoped that the reforms, and the work of his group, would result in more children thriving in a mainstream school, better external support for pupils with SEND and a less “adversarial” relationship between schools and parents.

The chief executive of Ormiston Academies Trust added that this would be more achievable if schools were in trusts with the “capacity and resources” to support pupils and communities.

The SEND crisis and MATs

“Being part of a group, you’re better able to respond to local problems,” Mr Rees said. “Some of that is about expertise, some of that is about knowledge and sharing. Some of that is about how you might pool resource.”

Before taking on his inclusion role, Mr Rees had spoken to ����Vlog about what he saw as the drawbacks of England having “two systems, with both academies and local authorities running schools” in relation to overcoming challenges such as SEND.

Asked whether his inclusion work had either reinforced this view or shown that SEND can be improved within a dual system, he said: “I think the challenge of SEND is much harder to fix [with two systems]. It’s even more my view now.”

He added: “I think that a lot of the reason we’re not able to deliver what we should be doing as a system is because of fragmentation and a lack of clarity of role.

“And I think that this is an opportunity for us to think about, longer term, how do we move forward the system design and architecture to a place where we have much more clarity of role.”

This is not just about academisation but also ensuring that existing academies are in “strong, sustainable trusts”, Mr Rees said.

“If we think about it in a local area - for example, where you might have children who move schools, who have different levels of need and require more specialist support - having the capacity to pool resource and respond to that, it makes you more resilient.

��

“And I think that’s where the trust is at its best, where you see that power of the group.”

The DfE is understood to have looked at requiring schools to be in groups, or trusts, as part of its soon-to-be released White Paper.

Reforms will take a ‘long time’

Mr Rees also addressed concerns voiced by teachers and leaders that educating more pupils with SEND in mainstream schools will prove difficult without significant extra resource.

He acknowledged that schools already face a number of challenges - including funding, staffing and the after-effects of Covid - and said spending would be needed in areas such as training.

But he also saw a need to look at where funding was being directed; for example, whether enough was being steered towards early help.

Improving the SEND system is not just the responsibility of schools, he said, as “I also think we need to look at the workforce outside of schools”. He pointed to the need for greater access to speech and language therapists, occupational therapists and behaviour support.

Members of the expert advisory group came from different parts of the school system, including primary, secondary, special and alternative provision, and include experts in fields such as educational psychology.

This has brought a range of perspectives, Mr Rees said: “We’ve had expertise and experience from lots of different parts of the sector, so we’ve been able to really understand the different challenges that people are having and the different concerns about reform.”

He advised that change would be introduced gradually.

“We need to be realistic about how long it will take to change the system,” he said. “This is not a thing that we can flick a switch or a quick policy shift for. This will take us a long time to implement and work through.”

School relations with parents

Mr Rees said he hoped the move to a more inclusive system would improve relationships between parents and schools, which have become increasingly strained in recent years.

“I think we should acknowledge that there are lots of parts of our society and discourse at the moment that are quite fractured. And I think that we can see at times this plays out in the tension between schools and parents, particularly on SEND.”

Within five to 10 years, he envisaged “a less adversarial relationship between parents and schools, where parents don’t feel they need to fight in order to get what their children need at school”.

However, in the run-up to the publication of reform plans, there has been controversy - particularly among parents’ groups - about the possibility of SEND support being rationed and the removal of education, health and care plans (EHCPs).

����Vlog revealed last May that the DfE was considering whether EHCPs were the “right vehicle” for securing SEND support.

Last night The Times reported that EHCPs would be reviewed in each phase of education under a new system starting from 2029-30, and that legal rights to special needs support will be available only to those placed in the highest of three new tiers.

Speaking in more general terms about the need to reform the SEND system, Mr Rees said that “there will be things that are controversial, no one will ever agree with every part of every package”. But fundamentally, he said, “there’s so much consensus about the need for change”.

He added: “We just have to hold that in our mind, the opportunity for this bit of the system to be much better as we go through some of those challenges.”

You can now get the UK’s most-trusted source of education news in a mobile app. Get ����Vlog magazine on and on