SEND - children’s needs to be reassessed from year 6 2029?

[missbish]

Are they taking the piss? After the struggles parents have trying to secure support for their child, they’re then going to threaten to take it away once they’re due to go to secondary? Ds goes to secondary this year so I don’t think it will effect him but I am so angry for those it does effect.

The diagnoses are always pending while the EHCP process happens.

I actually don’t think the parents think they’re doing all this. They’re too emotional and too close to the situation to be able to see it in the cold light of day, and they’re urged on by others online to view their child as disabled rather than a child that needs a different parenting approach or simply firmer boundaries. They’re then catapulted into the role of ‘protector’ fighting for their child’s rights and once they start, as a parent they keep going and going. I do get it, I would do anything for my children. But sometimes that parental love can cloud what is best for them
in the long run.

Have you read the ‘birthday cake’ thread on here at the moment? Mum complaining she’s being treated like shit by young adult daughter after running herself ragged to give her the perfect birthday, 2 cakes etc - only for DD to tantrum over the lot. Magically her DD can deal with her ‘triggers’ when doing something she wants to, but is ‘triggered’ by her servants aka parents not doing what she wants. OP explained it all away as ‘her autism’ because over the years she’s totally lost sight of the fact she’s being played like a fiddle and current groupthink is to have no boundaries or demands ‘so as not to put them in meltdown’.

Have a read, it’s very interesting.

*If all children need to learn to swim, for safety... but some cannot learn in group classes... how do you propose we provide swimming for the others.
My DS couldn't learn in a group, *

Much like maths gcse, imho we should provide the opportunity to everyone to learn & do the best we can on a state funded budget (which is finite) but some people won't be successful. We can't afford to state fund one to one lessons for this many kids.

It's a combination of a change in curriculum and an acceleration of the curriculum.

When I was at school, I remember spending time doing PE lessons, music lessons that involved lots of movement, an art project that was making and painting a giant Noah's ark in the corner of the classroom - movement breaks were part of the lesson plan, even if not called that.

But now, we need 5 year olds to know about split digraphs. We have 7 year olds having to identify and use different parts of speech in their writing (we just had to try to spell correctly). We have 9 year olds doing stuff that was reserved for secondary school. We have GCSE students doing maths that was A-level.

Schools have had real term spending cuts through funding freezes, so they have less staff. Class sizes have got bigger. School sizes have got bigger. The school DD1's attended was 1300 pupils when they attended. It was about 1000 when I attended.

Schools are trying to cope with more children, many of whom do not have the same regard for authority as when we were young. Schools respond by bringing in harsher and harsher behaviour policies (such as no toilets in class time, 30 minute lunches for 1300 pupils to eat and use the loo). Pupils get crushed by demands.

We struggled to even get an ehcp for him. The LA refused to assess to begin with and the head teacher at his primary school was furious with them.

You think it's a myth? It's literally still happening.

https://www.mencap.org.uk/press-release/over-half-billion-pounds-year-spent-locking-people-learning-disability-and-or

https://www.autism.org.uk/what-we-do/news/1-435-autistic-people-remain-locked-away-in-mental

Having been part of the SEND community and worked in SEND for several years (including reading EHCPs), it is vanishingly rare that I come across a family where I doubt their child truly has SEND and that ALL the difficulties are down to social factors or parenting. Not impossible, but very rare.

@elliejjtinyThat doesn’t sound right ! Did you appeal it? Bless your sons 🫶

What do you think? You shouldn’t rely on the LA or anyone connected to them to give you accurate information. That includes the autism specialist teacher.

Have a read of that thread.

I'm not sure reading one anonymous thread will change the perspective I formed from working with or for many real families.

Because schools were better funded so such children had better support. Support they don't get now. There was less pressure from the likes of Ofsted on academic attainment and as someone else said, we had more art/music/pe etc. Proper lunch breaks and two play times a day. Personally I think better education funding in general would be more effective than more SEND funding (and for any send funding to actually be ring fenced and someone checking where it's going).

"Sorry but that’s rubbish. The last ‘asylums’ closed in the early 80s, all this ‘they were locked away’ stuff is just a myth."

No it's not.

A few years ago I was told that if my son needed support beyond a certain ratio then he could not live in the community.

Agreed. My number one rule is assume anything the LA tell you is utter nonsense.

DD’s primary has all that now.

This is my worry. We had to choose an independent special school because there were no other appropriate state schools. With this potential cap on funding I’m now worried it’s going to go bust.

Err one thread on MN does not speak for all or even a proportion of families trying to manage SEND.

Ok well watch Kelly Bright’s Panorama on iPlayer. Etta’s mum - very nice caring lady, a loving mum but flailing around with zero boundaries allowing herself to be pushed around by a 6 year old. Seems utterly unconfident and almost nervous of her.

When I was at school, I remember spending time doing PE lessons, music lessons that involved lots of movement, an art project that was making and painting a giant Noah's ark in the corner of the classroom - movement breaks were part of the lesson plan, even if not called that.

My kids state primary is like this. There's a big focus on play, music, movement. Its an ordinary one form entry school. Despite this stuff it still has seen a massive increase in children with ASD & Adhd diagnoses.

There isn't a "cobble along" option for a child who cannot enter the school premises because of the overwhelming sensory overload and trauma that they experience there when there are no adjustments. Refusing to make adjustments for a child who cannot enter the school premises due to how they are affected by ASD is ethically exactly the same as refusing to make adjustments for a child who cannot enter the school premises because they are using a wheelchair and the school is up a flight of stairs. The latter case is clear discrimination and the LA must provide a place at a school that is wheelchair accessible. A child who is highly intelligent and capable of getting qualifications but who cannot cope with the noisy and busy atmosphere of being in a room with 29 other kids is still entitled to an education and we cannot say that we are providing them with an education if all we are doing is making a place available for them in a classroom that they cannot bear to be in and which makes them ill.

This isn't about what is best for children though, is it? It's about trying to save money.

Same here. I started primary in 1996 and we had SATS, weekly spelling tests, CATS (anyone remember those?!) and learning ‘sets’. Secondary had uniform inspection (complete with a ruler to measure skirt length and baby wipes to remove offending makeup!), teachers shouting, Saturday detention and 1,200 students.

I don’t recognise these cool, chilled, devil-may-care schools of the past.

If the colossal amount we are currently spending is not ‘meeting their needs’ we never will, and need to get the costs under control as it’s not even producing results.

If the aim was early intervention then the government would introduce screening for things such as ASD routinely then real early interventions ideally before age 5 or as early as possible could make a huge difference.

You are the one talking absolute rubbish. There is a whole government program designed to try to stop the high numbers of autistic people ending up in inpatient- Dynamic Support Register .

Research and data show that
autistic people are significantly more likely to be admitted to and "stuck" in inpatient mental health hospitals compared to the general population. While autism is a developmental disability, not a mental illness, many autistic individuals end up in these units, often due to a lack of proper community-based support.
Springer Nature Link +3
Key Findings on Autism and Inpatient Care

• Over-representation: A meta-analysis estimated that while autism affects roughly 1% of the general population, autistic people represent approximately 10% of patients in psychiatric inpatient settings.
• Increased Admissions: In England, the number of autistic people without a learning disability in mental health hospitals increased by 116% between 2017 and 2024.
• Long Stays: Autistic people often face extremely long, inappropriate, and sometimes damaging inpatient stays, with average lengths of stay reported at over 4.5 to 5 years.
• Youth Vulnerability: Autistic youth are hospitalized for mental health reasons at dramatically higher rates than their non-autistic peers, accounting for 36% of admissions compared to 21% for non-autistic youth.
• National Autistic Society +4

Reasons for High Inpatient Rates

• Lack of Community Support: Many are admitted not because they need hospital-level care, but because of a lack of appropriate social care, housing, or specialized community support.
• Crisis Situations: Autistic individuals may be in crisis (meltdown/shutdown) and are sent to hospital because community services cannot manage their needs, often leading to them being "stuck" in hospitals for years.
• Misinterpretation of Behaviors: Staff in general mental health units may not be trained in autism, often interpreting sensory overload or extreme stress as "challenging behaviors" requiring sedation or restraint.
• Diagnostic Overshadowing: Co-occurring conditions, such as anxiety or schizophrenia, are common, and in some cases, the autism itself is mistakenly treated as a mental illness that requires detention.
• National Autistic Society +5

Risks in Inpatient Settings Inpatient units are often noisy, bright, and unpredictable, which can be detrimental to an autistic person's wellbeing, potentially worsening their mental health and leading to further restrictions. National Autistic Society +1 Efforts for Change Campaigners and organizations like the National Autistic Society have highlighted this as a "national scandal" and are fighting for legislative changes to the Mental Health Act to stop people from being detained simply for being autistic, aiming to ensure proper community care instead. National Autistic Society +1

My son is a wheelchair user and if his EHCP is taken away because he's in mainstream, he won't be able to physically enter school either because his 2:1 support would end and he can't push himself in his wheelchair.