‘My autistic son was rejected from 17 schools

Until July last year, single mother Angie Matthias, 43, was working full-time while her adopted son, Drew, was at nursery.

But since then, five-year-old Drew – who has non-verbal autism – has been rejected from 17 special schools, forcing his mother to leave behind her 10-year career to homeschool him.

Ms Matthias claims that Drew has been “failed” by the Government, leaving him at risk of developing behavioural issues and eventually relying on adult social care, due to the lack of early intervention and support.

“His opportunities are being taken away as early as five,” she said. “If he doesn’t have the right support now, you could kiss goodbye to his future.”

Drew has an education, health and care plan (EHCP) from Staffordshire County Council which says that he requires one-to-one support – but no appropriate local school has been able to give him a place.

MPs on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) have warned that Drew is part of a “lost generation of young people” who are at risk of leaving school without vital support for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

In a damning report, they found that families are struggling to access care they “desperately need”, highlighting long wait times for assessments as well as an increase in the number of parents appealing local authority decisions over EHCPs via tribunals.

Almost all – 98 per cent – of the cases taken to tribunal were found in favour of parents, which the PAC report said “undermines families’ confidence in the system”.

As previously revealed by The i Paper, overstretched local authorities are being accused of using the legal system as a “delay tactic” to deny parents of SEND children requests for council-funded support.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chairman of the PAC, said the SEND system has reached a state of “emergency” but accused the Government of failing to act with any sense of urgency.

He said: “Urgent warnings have long been issued to Government on the failing SEND system from every quarter. This is an emergency that has been allowed to run and run.

“Families in need of help have been forced to spend precious energy fighting for the support they are legally entitled to, and local authorities to bear an unsustainable financial burden.

“The fact that 98 per cent of cases taken to tribunal find in favour of families is staggering, and can only demonstrate that we are forcing people to jump through bureaucratic hoops for no good reason.

“It is long past time the Government took action matching the gravity of this situation. And yet our inquiry found no sense of urgency amongst officials to do so.

“The immensity of this situation cannot be overstated. As a nation, we are failing countless children. We have been doing so for years.”

Sir Geoffrey, the Conservative MP for North Cotswolds, said the report should be a “line in the sand for the Government”.

“Every day that goes by, for families not receiving the right support, is another day closer to a lost generation of young people,” he added.

Ms Matthias said her son is likely to become part of the “lost generation” without an urgent school placement as he has been out of education for nearly two years.

“It’s been horrendous,” she said. “Because you grieve the life that you had with your child. When I was working, he was at nursery and we were enjoying the weekends together. Now I’m having to homeschool a child who does not learn typically. He’s not interested in being homeschooled.”

An appropriate school would be “life-changing” as it would enable Drew to pursue his interests in IT, music and television while also offering speech and language therapy and skills to function in the adult world, Ms Matthias said.

“The Government bangs on about wanting fewer people on benefits but they’re pushing children like Drew into being an adult who will have to live on benefits and be looked after if he doesn’t get the right support,” she said.

She said the Government has “failed an already vulnerable child” – especially as Drew was adopted meaning he was already known to the care system.

Claire Dorer OBE, CEO of the National Association of Special Schools, said the PAC report reiterates what those working in SEND already know: “The system is dysfunctional and not routinely serving the children and young people whose needs it sets out to meet.”

She called for the Government to announce its plans to address the SEND system without further delay, including a “strategic review of the role of special schools in a system ostensibly moving towards ‘inclusion’”.

“The Government cannot afford to maintain the status quo – the cost to children and their families is too great,” she added. “I want to see Government embrace evidence-based system change and to move away from simplistic cost-cutting measures.”

Hayley Harding, a solicitor and co-founder of the campaign group Let Us Learn Too, welcomed a report that “truly reflects how bad the situation is”.

She said: “Families and more importantly their children are being massively let down. All they are asking for is for their children to go to school, learn, be safe and happy.

“At the moment that feels like the Government believes that is too much to ask and expects families to reach breaking point before getting the bare minimum of support.”

The Government has been contacted for comment.

A Staffordshire County Council spokesperson previously said that councils across the country have seen a “significant increase” in the number of children with EHCPs and they are working hard to “try to meet the needs of our children within the resources we have”.

The Schools Minister Catherine McKinnell said: “The system we’ve inherited has been failing families with SEND children for far too long – this is unacceptable and that’s why we set out our Plan for Change to ensure no child is left behind.

“These problems are deep-rooted and will take time to fix but we remain steadfast in our commitment to deliver the change that exhausted families are crying out for by ensuring better earlier intervention and inclusion.

“We are already making progress by investing £1 billion into SEND, £740 million for councils to create more specialist places in mainstream schools and through our Curriculum and Assessment Review which will look at barriers that hold children back from the best life chances.”