\n<\/p>\n
T<\/span>he advent of fully comprehensive education. Raising the school leaving age to 16. The introduction of a national curriculum. Each of these reforms reflected the growing value we placed on education as a society, and the growing sense that it was critical \u2013 not just for individuals, but for the country \u2013 that each and every young person was given the best possible chance to succeed.<\/p>\n Opportunities to define the future of education don\u2019t come around very often. That is the opportunity we have this week.<\/p>\n Over the past decade, we have seen exponential growth in the number of children with special educational needs and disabilities. And despite the best efforts of schools and teachers, our system has failed to grow with it. The result is a mismatch, with a generation of young people emerging into the world without the foundations they need for life and work.<\/p>\n It has to change, and this government is fiercely ambitious for children and young people with Send, but to realise that ambition, education must change. Over the past 18 months, we have carried out hundreds of hours of engagement online and in person with parents and campaign groups in England, to make sure that change is shaped by the people it will affect the most.<\/p>\n We have already set out the foundations. There\u2019s a \u00a3200m investment \u2013 and a new requirement \u2013 so that every teacher is trained as a teacher of children with Send. Also a new \u201cinclusion\u201d judgment as part of Ofsted reports, so schools are held to account for their support for children with Send, just as they are for their wider teaching and curriculum. There is also \u00a33.7bn to build 60,000 new school places for children with Send, and intention for every secondary school to have an inclusion base.<\/p>\n And importantly, our investment to put a Best Start family hub in every community, and a Send expert in every Best Start family hub, giving parents support and advice in their child\u2019s earliest years and helping stop needs escalating.<\/p>\n Now is the moment to build further. Our reforms will deliver a school system unrecognisable to the one we have today. One where brilliant support is no longer hidden behind layer upon layer of conflict and bureaucracy, but available in classrooms, where children need it and when they need it. We will offer the opportunity for families to choose their local school without having to worry. Children and young people with Send will spend time in classrooms with their peers, experiencing enrichment and stretch, with a specialist area down the corridor for the points in the day when a smaller group would better meet their needs.<\/p>\n It\u2019s exactly this type of support, the type our reforms will make available on demand, which is too often only available today when children have an education, health and care plan <\/strong>(EHCP). That cannot be right. So the reforms I am setting out today will see a major expansion of children\u2019s rights in England, and of the support children with additional needs, and their families, can access.<\/p>\n Many people have said \u2013 including in this newspaper \u2013 that the only way to achieve this is with significant new investment. That is exactly what we are doing. There is \u00a34bn, for example, to build up the support available in mainstream schools, with more cash for heads to spend on what works, plus experts such as speech and language therapists on hand where and when schools need them.<\/p>\n That\u2019s improved support, not removed support: a landmark moment for families, and a landmark moment for education in this country.<\/p>\n Detractors say money alone would fix this broken system \u2013 but be in no doubt: it can\u2019t. There will be investment, followed by reform, for this is a reforming government: fixing brick by brick the crises left behind by our predecessors. It is hard to think of one greater than this. Any parent or teacher who has experienced the Send system will say change is the right thing. Inaction \u2013 or indeed action that falls short of genuine change \u2013 is itself a choice, because children with Send have been let down time and again over the past 10 years and more. Now is the time to turn it around.<\/p>\n This is our opportunity, as a country, to deliver lasting change for a generation of children and generations of children to come. Let\u2019s grab it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The advent of fully comprehensive education. Raising the school leaving age to 16. The introduction of a national curriculum. Each of these reforms reflected the growing value we placed on education as a society, and the growing sense that it was critical \u2013 not just for individuals, but for the country \u2013 that each and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45010,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[2986,166,1018,747,2987,1017],"class_list":{"0":"post-45009","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-bridget","9":"tag-children","10":"tag-educational","11":"tag-ends","12":"tag-phillipson","13":"tag-special"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45009","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=45009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}