Special education is at breaking point

Ashowdown between parents of children with special needs and the UK government is coming. Three families from different parts of England have won the right to a judicial review of the funding allocated to local authorities to fulfil their obligation to educate the 14.6 per cent of the school population assessed as having special needs.

Such budgets have been stretched beyond breaking point; in December the Local Government Association predicted a funding shortfall of £1.6 billion by 2020-21. And there is another aspect to the special needs crisis in England. Namely, that decades of progress towards an inclusive model in which, as far as possible, all children are educated together, are being rolled back. Last week’s announcement that the government plans to open 37 new special free schools appears to confirm that the direction of travel has changed.

Moves to divide children according to their needs more frequently rather than less should be vigorously opposed. Properly resourced, inclusive education benefits not only the children being included, but everyone else. What we have is a fragmented system in which vulnerable children are falling through the cracks, and councils are loaded up with duties they lack the resources to fulfil. That families are taking ministers to court shows it has reached breaking point.