Features / Education
SEND: The Bristol picture
Educational attainment among children with special educational needs and disabilities, known as SEND, has not improved since the introduction of the Families and Children Act 2014, despite increased investment.
Inappropriate school place allocation, insufficient transport funding, social isolation and extensive waiting times for education, health and care plans are but a few barriers to achieving a fully realised education and social life for those who need it most.
While it seems that continued discussion and debate on this issue in parliament means positive progress may be made in the near-future, varying levels of dysfunction within the system have been festering away for years and damaging the lives of families whose children require support.
is needed now More than ever
Lawrence Weston parent Sarah Warren has struggled to keep her son in school – photo: Hannah Massoudi
Sarah Warren of Lawrence Weston is a single parent to three children, including a son who was around 11 when he was diagnosed with autism. Since his diagnosis, he has been in and out of education over issues such as uniform and refusing to hand over his phone. Eventually, Warren was told the school just “didn’t have the right provisions” to meet his “complex behaviour needs”.
Now, at the age of 15, he has been permanently excluded from school and Warren has given up on the idea of him ever going back to a mainstream school. Since the exclusion, he has been attending an alternate learning provisions service in Fishponds, the travel for which the family has to pay.
Bristol City Council is currently trying to find schools but Warren says the options have been unsuitable due to the needs of the pupils being more complex than her son’s. One option was as far as Wales, for which the council offered to provide a taxi.
What Warren believes would improve her son’s quality of life right now is friends of his own age: “I just think I’ve been completely bloody let down really. I think they haven’t done much in regards to his social and intellectual life.
“One of my friends has got a group special educational needs coffee morning. Not many people go to that at all, I don’t know why.
“I’d love for my children to have a group of friends to come and play with them. It’s not like the old days. Every Saturday, my mum used to have two good friends come around.”
Many parents are struggling to get their children into schools suitable for their needs – photo: Hannah Massoudi
Warren has had to make many sacrifices as a parent and, now her son receives tutelage , she feels she needs to stay home more, having already given up volunteering and training for a British Sign Language certification.
She explains: “If I do leave him to go, will I get a phone call? ‘Mum, can you come home?’ I would love to get a job. But you feel like you’re in this box. I just feel like I’m locked in, you know.”
But she tries to remain optimistic, considering herself “lucky” that her son’s needs are not as severe as they could be, but also because she has managed to cling onto the things that give her her freedom. She loves playing piano and attending a local coffee morning. “For me, it’s gotten easier. He’s coming out more with me. Today is actually the first time he went to the coffee morning.”
Warren’s resilience seems to have transferred to her children. Despite challenges, her son is aspiring to be an electrician and hopes to get an apprenticeship in the near-future.
Beverly Watkins is the managing partner of Watkins Solicitor – photo: Watkins Solicitors
Meanwhile Watkins Solicitors has now brought a judicial review against Bristol City Council.
Working on behalf of a parent, the decision to challenge the council comes after they entered secretly into a so-called ‘safety valve agreement’ with the Department for Education in March, in order to get a £53.79m bailout.
Bristol’s current school fund deficit is over £53m, with warnings that, if not addressed, it could rise to more than £133m by 2025-26.
“It was not an easy challenge, because you couldn’t evidence that her child would be directly affected, because the full effects of the safety valve are not yet known” says Beverly Watkins, the managing partner of Watkins Solicitors.
She adds: “I’d love to be out of work doing SEND tribunals but that’s not the case.
“Local authorities are battling every decision with parents who have children with SEND.
“I do a lot of special needs cases, and about 98 per cent of cases are successful. So, local authorities are wasting a lot of money fighting parents. They could actually save more money if they acted lawfully and tried to resolve matters’
Watkins says if the judicial review is successful, the council will need to go back to the drawing board to decide if they still want to be part of a safety valve agreement.
If they are successful, she admits she does not know what the complete outcome will be. But Watkins is well aware that the problems don’t stop there: “Special schools are full. What happens to that child?”
Educational support can often be found outside of schools – photo: Hannah Massoudi
In a statement to Bristol24/7, councillor Christine Townsend, chair of the Children and Young People committee, said: “We are aware that the Safety Valve agreement entered into by the previous Mayoral led administration has been granted permission to proceed to judicial review.
“This will be the second JR relating to the area of SEND, the previous one in 2018 was also brought against decisions made under the previous administration.
“As this matter is currently before the courts, it would be inappropriate for us to comment on the specifics of the case at this time. We remain committed to ensuring that SEND provision in Bristol is sustainable and can meet the needs of children, young people, and their families.”
Main photo: Hannah Massoudi
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