Critical shortage of Ed Pychologists and lack of plan to expand training numbers puts #SEND reforms (Experts At Hand) at risk of being undeliverable.

“Slowly but surely, the state is retreating from individual entitlement-based support for disabled people across both employment and education, reframing it as a provider responsibility, without increasing provider funding, hoping we don’t notice”

Whitehall is continuing to tighten its grip on councils’ SEND functions by forcing them to agree to prioritise mainstream specialist places or face having capital cash withheld https://schoolsweek.co.uk/send-whitehall-to-leverage-capital-cash-to-force-council-mainstream-focus/

NEW POST: @captaink77.bsky.social explains the Government's carrot and stick funding strategy as it steamrollers over dissent to its SEND reforms, without waiting for evidence or consultation www.specialneedsjungle.com/c...

New from me Things Can Get Worse. Why I'm so worried about the SEND reform direction of travel. bennewmark.wordpress.com/2026/03/26/t...

Thread #SEN : I’ve been contemplating the SEN reforms. With a limited budget, how will government ensure all schools have equal & fair access to Experts at Hand? The single Case Study cited as an example of EaH in practice has given me cause to think. It’s screenshotted below with link in ALT text /

Two-thirds of special schools (inc NMSS) over capacity ~11,000 pupils over capacity, special school places in the capital pipeline won't be enough Median number of spare places per school, in special schools that aren't over capacity = 4

💸 Investigation: Councils are spending up to four times as much per pupil on private special schools as state special schools, with private placement costs growing twice as fast over four years https://schoolsweek.co.uk/soaring-cost-of-private-provision-revealed-as-ministers-plan-curbs/

‘often by exploiting parents’ would be true if 99% of cases that reach a SENDIST tribunal hearing were meritless… …but 99% of these cases are successful, & there’s no meaningful data on what difference paid legal help makes to those outcomes: most parents are unrepresented

This definitely tracks with the way that SEND capital grants are being spent: lots on temporary / modular buildings, sometimes not even on the main school site because space is so tight www.specialneedsjungle.com/exclusive-la...

Exclusive: More than half of free specialist school projects put on hold by the government are set to go ahead, as councils turn down alternative funding offers https://schoolsweek.co.uk/more-than-half-of-special-free-school-projects-set-to-go-ahead/

NEW POST: @captaink77.bsky.social & @tanialt.bsky.social have some words about answering the Government’s 39 Step White Paper SEND consultation, including their—and your—use of AI www.specialneedsjungle.com/3...

Some councils will remain in financial trouble even after the government intervenes on SEND deficits – and could face clamour from families and schools to get statutory support before reforms come into effect https://schoolsweek.co.uk/will-reforms-fix-the-send-funding-crisis/

NEW POST: We take a close look at the proposed “Specialist Provision Packages” and discover they’re more of a Trojan horse, reducing the #EHCP rights of children with SEND. www.specialneedsjungle.com/s...

I wrote about the SEND proposals in the White Paper, and my view of how we got here politically. V personal - no one's views but mine. open.substack.com/pub/jimlaude...

Children's deaths due to failures of state provision should be a massive story.

A tale of two Times SEND stories on X, the everything app: same paper, same journalist, 48 hours apart Story about spending on equine therapy - 136,000 views, 111 RTs, 95 comments, many foam-flecked Story about 20+ system-induced teen suicides - 4,000 views, 30 RTs, 7 mostly scornful comments

There’ll be lots of references to different pots of SEND funding today: some new, some not. Here’s a table showing recent announcements

NEW POST: Children died. The system looked away... On the day the Government seeks to slash the support rights of most neurodivergent children, accountability group Measure What Matters publishes evidence of the lethal cost of unmet need Part 1 www.specialneedsjungle.com/c...

Breakdown of the £4 billion figure leading headlines… …plus some extra work assigned to special schools that doesn’t appear to have any earmarked funding

I’m only a simple SEND parent who feels things. I don’t understand big complicated policy concepts like ‘perverse incentives’ or ‘unintended consequences’ But if you make pledges like this, & you don’t implement your reforms for 3-4 years, how exactly do you expect people to respond from 2026-2030?

“remember, there are always two sides to a debate”

NEW POST: SNJ’s @captaink77.bsky.social has dug behind DfE research data into #EHCP creation times. He’s found some “deranged” numbers that can’t be real—but does the government really care as long as it gets what it wants? www.specialneedsjungle.com/s... #EHCP#SaveOurChildrensRights #SENDSky

'Mainstream school appears 13 times in the new DfE estates strategy. Special school doesn’t appear once' https://schoolsweek.co.uk/dear-dfe-dont-marginalise-special-schools-and-ap/

NEW POST: We’ve had a few #SEND funding-related announcements recently. SNJ’s @captaink77.bsky.social explains the cash splash: What it means and if it’ll improve provision… www.specialneedsjungle.com/s... #SEND #Disability #SENDSky

It's a year since my extraordinary daughter died unexpectedly. Re-sharing her obituary because it matters so much that the world understands who children w/ SEND actually are - especially right now when their right to the support they need in education is at risk. www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

“Under one plan discussed in government last year, the indicative threshold above which a council would fund a specific pupil would rise from around £6,000 to upwards of £40,000, £50,000 or £60,000” If implemented, that would probably impact 90%-95% of kids who currently have EHCPs

Major news on SEND funding this evening… All the details here ⬇️⬇️

Looks like Whitehall will absorb 90% of local authority cumulative DSG deficits racked up until March 2026 [conditions apply] That'll be roughly £6 billion absorbed, with a remaining ~£600m for LAs to find down the back of the sofa before April 2028

With a white paper expected within weeks, leaks to national newspapers offer only a piecemeal glimpse at what might happen with SEND reform. But in the background, local officials have been quietly instructed to start the wheels in motion now for a reformed system… schoolsweek.co.uk/revealed-dfe...

The least insightful, least accurate, and most annoying SEND label my kids & their cohort ever received? That label was ‘low-ability,’ bestowed by a team of Ofsted inspectors www.politicshome.com/news/article...

If they curb rights to statutory SEND provision, then curbing legal appeal rights 👇 will be part of the policy package too - they’ll want to choke off ‘perverse incentives’ OTOH, the source here doesn’t understand SENDIST’s remit & approach: the decision-making process is precisely what it examines

The Door to Hell in Turkmenistan: a generation-spanning toxic fire visible from space, ignited by unaccountable specialists, left to fester for decades by feckless bureaucrats, is now close to being extinguished Whereas this tyre fire, on the other hand, is not 👇 www.ft.com/content/e1aa...

NEW POST: “We are living on a knife-edge” @sharonlsmith.bsky.social reviews new #SENCo research that sounds the alarm about the high cost of under-funded and under-resourced mainstream inclusion www.specialneedsjungle.com/k... #SENCo#SENDCo #Disability #SENDSky #SaveOurChildrensRights

“I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of peace”

yes but now all of these executives have a hungry ghost that will do whatever they want bsky.app/profile/jsla...

A lovely and honest thread about one deaf person's experience of a cochlear implant.

NEW EXCLUSIVE: Our hero, @captaink77.bsky.social has followed the money via FOIs, discovering LAs largely ignored the Government’s “strong recommendations” to spend SEND cash on mainstream places: www.specialneedsjungle.com/e... #SEND #EHCP #saveourchildrensrights #Disability #SENDSky

Provisional local govt financial settlement & DSG/SEND deficits: £3.8bn now, est £14bn in 2028 “We will provide further detail on our plans to support local authorities with historic & accruing [DSG] deficits & conditions for accessing such [unspecified] support later in the Settlement process.”

On SNJ Today: @captaink77.bsky.social crunched numbers on the DfE's £3 billion #SEND funding extravaganza. Is it new money? And how you can set them against the 5 reform principles to ask the right questions in the "National SEND Conversation": www.specialneedsjungle.com/g... #SEND #Disability #SENDSky

This looks like a continuation of a SEND capital grant pipeline (HNPCA) that's been in operation since 2021. If so, it's being funded at a slightly lower rate in real terms than the previous government did under the 2021 Spending Review

Running the numbers, looks like ~2,500 planned special school places have definitely been axed, with a further ~6,900 places subject to an undefined CeX-style trade-in

‘Purple Hayes’ was right there

Two things from the DfE SEND 'conversation' docs: - The 'conversation' will be about five single-word principles, & ideas raised by stakeholders - not the Department's own specific proposals - In a novel take on the word 'conversation,' the DfE may use AI to parse written responses from families

NEW POST: In an SNJ exclusive, @rachel.stopsafetyvalve.uk highlights how ADHD and Autism “Right to Choose” assessments have been paused in at least nine NHS areas, as ICBs tell their contracted private providers to stop offering new appointments www.specialneedsjungle.com/a...

This article's a mess - largely because comms around the funding change has been a mess Allocation of the educational component of SEND funding is the ultimate responsibility of the DfE, and always has been Thread (apologies in advance for the 'stop getting Bond wrong!' energy)

Yeah, they're fucked. Proportionately, BCP has a bigger DSG deficit than anyone other LA in England, by miles But these guys seem to have fucked up in a uniquely bad way, in comparison to close statistical neighbours: BCP is under a DfE statutory direction to improve its SEND services

At most, 1.4% of pupils in mainstream independent schools have an EHCP Pupils from mainstream independent schools make up 1% of local authority EHCP caseloads These percentages have not changed in years

🚨 Exclusive: A damning inquiry will reveal tomorrow how NHS leaders ignored warnings over unsafe hearing tests 12 years ago leaving 300 children permanently disabled. @camillakingdon.bsky.social labels it a "disaster" and calls for a change in leadership: www.thetimes.com/article/2f23...