Schools wasting SEND money applying for unneeded EHCPs says DfE

[noblegiraffe]

Well this is bound to be a popular opinion!

www.tes.com/news/exclusive-schools-wasting-send-money-says-dfe-adviser

I can’t say this is my experience. A nightmare in getting one for kids who desperately need them is more like it.

Bollocks. This quote is much more like it:
""Schools are left in an impossible position whereby there is not enough money in their budgets to afford the cost of supporting children with special educational needs, and the only way of securing the funding they need is through EHCPs.

"If schools were able to afford more support for early interventions this would reduce demand for EHCPs but this is not the reality of the funding situation in education at present."

If there were enough schools with a nurturing ethos with enough TAs etc to support kids, we wouldn't need EHCPs, but in the circs...

With asd and adhd diagnosed more frequently now, TA's and staff should have appropriate training to deal with and accommodate additional needs.

That being said, not all children with additional needs can cope in a mainstream school and they are better placed in a specialist school.

But ime, my ds's school had 'run out of funds' for my ds while we were applying for an EHCP. County washed their hands and said it was up to the school to be 'imaginative and responsive' to his needs and that funding doesn't come from county for my da but from the school.

Only when I told them I was seeking legal advice did additional 'emergency funds' appear from county.

The EHCP process is long and certainly in my county it seems like more staff are needed. But the end of the day the issue is No + £ = yes, and there isn't enough money

Not enough to train the staff, not enough to meet the needs of children who require equipment/additional support, not enough school places, not enough specialist schools with places available

It’s certainly an issue that we used to have TAs who could be allocated to weak classes for general support and now we have none, so we only get any additional support if there’s a student with an EHCP.

Kids who previously would have managed without an EHCP because there would have been a small class and a TA are now left to flounder. This may well trigger more EHCP applications but that’s not because it’s not needed.

In my personal experience it is do hard to get an ehcp at all. Took me 5 years to be taken seriously. Sounds rubbish to me

I don't think the government can have it both ways. If you continually make cuts to school budgets this is going to impact on their ability to support pupils with SEN. A greater proportion of these children are then going to need the support that comes with an EHCP.

This smacks of the time that the DfE said that schools should save money by cutting back on colour photocopying and cut lunch sizes.

I.e. refusing to admit that their cuts have had any adverse impact whatsoever and schools are just spending taxpayer cash on fripperies.

I can't imagine a parent getting an EHCP just for the jollies. It's a long old painful process for schools and parents alike!