Oscar Steele will turn five in July. “He’s a lovely, happy, cheerful boy. But he does face real challenges,” says his mother Gillian., and non-verbal. He needs help with eating and drinking, and is not yet potty trained. He has no sense of danger, so will dash into roads and even climb over fences.
The Steeles are one of tens of thousands of families caught up in a crisis in the UK’s special educational needs system. Increasing numbers of children are being diagnosed as having SEND , and both special schools and mainstream schools are at breaking point.In England, two-thirds of special schools – which have specially trained teachers, higher staff ratios and extra resources to provide an education for children with complex needs – were at or over capacity in the last academic year.
Her own school currently includes more than a handful of children who, like Oscar, need constant, attentive care. Yet while these children are entitled to the highest level of funding available through an EHCP, it does not stretch far enough to cover their individual and highly complex needs. So: “you end up in a situation where you actually need a critical mass of special needs kids, so that you can pool the pitiful additional funding to employ a shared TA.
Teacher Tapp data suggests the number of primary school teachers who believe they have “nowhere near the help they need” to support SEND pupils almost doubled from 2022 to 2023. When asked what form of support is most needed, the vast majority say a teaching assistant. Yet the latest NAHT survey found 78 per cent of school leaders have been forced to reduce their number of TAs, or the hours worked by them, in the last three years because of funding pressures.