The reality is those SEND children with sharp elbowed parents treat SEND as access to a private education with the state funding it. Drumming lessons, Gym Sessions, Horse Riding are extra curricula and support holistic health and social wellbeing. I guarantee a child in care is not necessarily accessing these provisions they are being supported to stay in school by hard working professionals during additional challenges from being in Care which shall also be impacting their SEND requirements. is right a lot of these activities are not necessarily required for education they are above and beyond what is required as I said essentially a private education funded by the state. They are not education they are extra curricula activities not open to a non-SEND children unless parents fund it which creates a societal divide. An unintended consequence of CaFA 2014 and SEN CoP 2015 unfortunately.
This is right out of the LA playbook and really doesn't bear any sort of examination. If you really think having a child in an independent specialist school confers some sort of social kudos, you really are deluded. I've never seen drumming sessions in an EHCP, and I've seen an awful lot of EHCPs, although I can see that it could be demonstrated as being helpful to children with, for example, sensory or hearing problems, or simply as a calming activity when a child is very dysregulated. I have seen provision like specialist PE and Riding for the Disabled, but no-one ever gets them unless there is good evidence that they have a need for which this is appropriate provision and that it will help them. It doesn't take Einstein to work out how such support can be very helpful to disabled people.
Yes, they're not open to children without SEND, nor indeed are they open to children with SEND unless it can be shown as providing genuine special educational provision. But which would you rather have, a child with SEND who accesses riding lessons to assist (say) with mobility, balance, and severe anxiety, or a child without SEND? I can assure you, those supposedly sharp-elbowed parents would give up the lessons in a heartbeat if it meant their child no longer had learning difficulties.
For what it's worth, children were getting similar provision well before the CFA came into effect, so it's not a product of that Act or the Code of Practice.