\n<\/p>\n
The government is facing \u201ccrunch time\u201d over the rising costs and failures of special needs education for children in England, according to a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.<\/p>\n
The IFS said government spending on educating children with special needs would double between 2015 and 2028, \u201csqueezing funding\u201d for mainstream schools as a result.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese pressures risk crowding out resources for mainstream schools and constraining the system\u2019s ability to deliver a broad, balanced and high-quality education for all,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n
The IFS report highlights the difficulties facing the government\u2019s plans to reform provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send), as extra spending has so far failed to keep up with the support required by families, schools and local authorities.<\/p>\n
Luke Sibieta, one of the report\u2019s authors, said the current system in England was increasingly costly and failing to deliver for those who need it.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThe most important education issue facing the government is the growing dysfunction in the special educational needs system. The problems here are not new but they have been growing, and the government is right to stress the importance of reform for the sake of everyone involved \u2013 children, families, schools and councils. But we have now reached crunch time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the near term, ministers face a stark set of choices: slow the growth of Send spending, accept an ongoing squeeze on mainstream school funding, or inject additional resources into education through higher taxes or reductions elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bill Revans, the County Councils Network\u2019s Send spokesperson, said: \u201cFaced with exponential rises in demand and costs, councils have increasingly had to request that money from mainstream schools is diverted to prop up Send services, with around \u00a3150m rerouted this way last year. This, amongst other reasons, is why national Send spend per person has risen at double the rate of mainstream pupils.\u201d<\/p>\n
One option, according to Sibieta, would be for the government to capitalise on falling school rolls to redirect \u00a31.8bn towards special needs funding in 2028.<\/p>\n
A schools white paper expected next month will outline the government\u2019s plans, including moves to expand special needs provision in mainstream state schools. That would allow more children with special needs to attend local schools rather than compete for scarce and more expensive special school places.<\/p>\n
Pepe Di\u2019Iasio, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: \u201cAside from the financial considerations, it is more important still that the planned Send reforms deliver real improvements for families. While there is fantastic work going on in many schools and colleges to support young people with Send, the system as a whole is not meeting the current level of need in the way it should.\u201d<\/p>\n
The white paper will highlight the use of education, health and care plans (EHCPs) \u2013 legal agreements between families and local authorities that detail support for children with special needs, including the type of school they should attend.<\/p>\n
The IFS said reducing the use of EHCPs or limiting the support they could provide \u201cwould likely be needed to meaningfully slow high-needs spending growth\u201d, but that any savings \u201cwould be slow to materialise\u201d and further investment would be required to improve the capacity of mainstream schools.<\/p>\n
The Department for Education last week announced \u00a3200m to fund training for school staff on teaching pupils with special educational needs and disabilities.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson said: \u201cThe package will crucially enable children to feel safe and welcome in school \u2013 promoting good attendance, attainment and wellbeing. This marks a key step towards delivering on the government\u2019s mission to make inclusive practice the norm across all schools.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The government is facing \u201ccrunch time\u201d over the rising costs and failures of special needs education for children in England, according to a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The IFS said government spending on educating children with special needs would double between 2015 and 2028, \u201csqueezing funding\u201d for mainstream schools as a result.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[305,639,1018,311,17581,1999,1014,1017,7939,286],"class_list":{"0":"post-42221","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-costs","9":"tag-crunch","10":"tag-educational","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-provision","13":"tag-rising","14":"tag-send","15":"tag-special","16":"tag-thinktank","17":"tag-time"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}