Tag Archives: Education and Health Care plans

Special Needs – is nothing new?

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Serendipity is defined as a fortunate finding of something unexpected. The origin of the term is credited to Horace Walpole. Earlier this afternoon, while waiting for some data on ITT statistics from the early 1990s that were being brought up from the reserve stacks of a library, I browsed through a bound volume of the TES for March 1991 that happened to be available.

The TES for the 22nd March 1991 contained a report of the annual conference of educational psychologist, the spring being education conference season even then. The report contained the following report

‘The government confirmed that there has been a widespread increase in the number of children referred for special help to support the claims of educational psychologists who believe that their numbers have increased by 50%. … Anthea Millett HMI for special needs said many local authorities reported an increase in referrals for assessment by educational psychologists.’ (TES 22/3/91 page 3)

One reason suggested was that as schools were becoming liable for their own budgets under local management of schools that had been set out in the 1988 Education Reform Act, schools were more anxious to obtain the statutory help that a statement of special needs brought with it.

Interestingly, in 1990, over 100 MPs had signed an Early Day motion in the House of Commons to the effect that ‘many children in urgent need of help and advice from an educational psychologist are waiting unacceptable lengths of time’.  (TES 22/3/91 P3)

In an editorial in the same edition as the news item referred to above, it was claimed that devolution of funds to schools had exposed the crudeness of existing formula for special needs that had made proper funding for children with special needs a lottery for schools, and that the 1988 Education Reform Act had not paid attention to the needs of children with special needs. The prediction that children with special needs would be a casualty of the Act was now coming true.

All of this seems very reminiscent of the current situation of a growth in demand and concerns over the funding for that growth, as does the analysis in the editorial that devolving funds to schools had allowed schools to identify many children with needs not being met that required extra funding.

As the editorial concluded, ‘The pre-LMS discretionary targeting of resources by LEAs according to putative need was often little more than a system of rationing inadequate funds. Those with the most efficient advocates or most obvious handicaps (sic) got first pickings. The rest got little or nothing – often not even a proper assessment.’ (TES 22/3/91 P21)

Reading this bit of history, reminded me of the present explosion in demand for EHCPs as schools struggled with demand they felt was not funded. This time around, local authorities faced with the 2014 Act opted for running up deficits rather than rationing, except that is by using the NHS favoured outcome of rationing by waiting time for assessments.

One wonders what the government has learnt about special needs funding over the past 35 years, and what the White Paper will do? Will it just tell schools to devote more of their resources to dealing with the issue? Or, will there by more cash – this seems unlikely, but one can but hope.

Better identification or more pupils with SEN?

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The DfE data on pupils with special education needs in schools at the January 2019 census data confirms what everyone has been saying about the absolute number of such pupils being on the increase, as might be expected when pupil numbers overall are increasing. However, the percentage of pupils with both SEN and the need for an Education and Health Care plan (EHCP) has also increased. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england-january-2019

As the DfE puts it, across all schools, the number of pupils with special educational needs has risen for the third consecutive year, to 1,318,300 (14.9%) in January 2019. This follows a period of year on year decreases from January 2010 to 2016. Over this period, the overall decrease was driven by decrease in the proportion of pupils with SEN support, while the percentage of pupils with a statement or EHC plan remained stable at 2.8%.

The percentage of pupils with SEN Support, those with identified special educational needs, but no EHC plan, followed a similar pattern rising to 1,047,200 (11.9%).

271,200 school pupils had an EHC plan in place in January 2019. This is an increase of 17,500 since January 2018. The percentage of pupils with an EHC plan has risen to 3.1% of the total pupil population in January 2019, after remaining constant at 2.8% from 2007 to 2017.

These figures show why both the high Needs Block of funding is under such pressure and also why local authority SEN transport budgets are also costing local taxpayers more each year. Moe pupils means more schools and it is to be hoped that in parts of England where there are many small local authorities the forward planning by the ESFA is robust enough to deliver these places at the minimum additional travel costs to taxpayers.

Across all pupils with SEN, Speech, Language and Communications Needs is the most common primary type of need at 22% of pupils. This had previously been Moderate Learning Difficulty, which has decreased to 20%.

Among pupils on SEN support, Speech, Language and Communications Needs is also the most common type of need, at 23%. Of those with an EHC plan, Autistic Spectrum Disorder remains the most common primary type of need with 29% of pupils with an EHC plan having this primary type of need. This has increased from 28% in January 2018.

The number of pupils in state-funded special schools has increased by 6% to over 120,000. This represents 9% of all pupils with SEN. The former trend towards integration now seems to be a feature of the past as numbers of SEN pupils in independent schools has also increased. 7% of all SEN pupils are placed in an independent school.

Special educational needs remain more prevalent in boys than girls, 4.4% of boys and 1.7% of girls had an EHC plan, both small year-on-year increases. Similarly boys were almost twice as likely to be on SEN support – 15% compared to 8% of girls.

SEN is most prevalent among boys at age 9 (23% of all boys), and for girls at age 10 (13% of all girls). SEN support is most prevalent among primary age pupils, before decreasing as age increases through secondary ages.

For EHC plans however, as age increases the percentage of pupils with EHC plans also increases, up to age 16, where nearly 4% of pupils have an EHC plan. However, it is not clear how many pupils with identified needs have been flagged by the NHS before they enter into education. This would save schools both time and resources and ensure early help for some children.

With the new focus on mental health, something schools have always been acutely aware of as an issue, I would not be surprised to see the number of pupils with SEN continue to increase over the next few years. The DfE will also need to consider how to help teachers keep as many of those that can manage their learning in mainstream schools to do so.