SEND parents face battle for teachers as Ofsted complaints surge by 60%

Complaints to Ofsted over provisions for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in state schools have surged by nearly 60 per cent in recent years.

The schools watchdog received 3,929 complaints about special needs provision in the last academic year, up 58 per cent from 2,487 in 2021/22, according to a Freedom of Information request by the Lib Dems, shared exclusively with The i Paper.

A lack of access to dedicated staff, teachers and tailored education for SEND children, and long waiting lists to access local government funding to pay for it, are among the most common complaints, according to sector experts.

SEND experts blamed the surge in complaints on a lack of trust in the SEND system, budget pressures facing schools, and long-term underinvestment in early intervention.

• Secondary schools saw the biggest increase in SEND-related complaints, from 956 in 2021/22 to 1,758 in 2023/24 – an 84 per cent rise.
• Complaints about primary schools rose by nearly 50 per cent from 1,173 to 1,734, and even special schools saw a 23 per cent rise in complaints related to their SEND provision.

Only a small percentage of complaints qualify for investigations and these typically involve either whole-school issues or safeguarding matters.

Parents said they had been left terrified by the prospect of a forthcoming shake-up of the way children with special educational needs are supported in England’s schools.

Ministers have refused to rule out scrapping or tightening restrictions on who gets education, health and care plans (EHCP), which are legal documents guaranteeing council-funded support for SEND children.

Without EHCPs, headteachers have already expressed fears they could lose teaching assistants as the care plans guarantee their funding.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson warned parents they will need to “think very differently” about SEND as she plans a system “overhaul” designed to improve inclusion in mainstream schools and reduce the financial burden on local authorities.

But parents are concerned the changes will mean their children could lose tailored support plans, at a time when complaints to Ofsted are already on the rise.

Dr Will Shield, an educational psychologist and researcher at the University of Exeter, said many parents have voiced a “significant lack of trust in the wider SEND system” triggered by a “notable reduction” in support available for children with additional needs.

He said a reduction in local authority budgets has led to fewer specialist teachers who support schools and outreach teams, while pressurised school budgets have forced headteachers to make “difficult decisions to reduce their numbers of support staff”.

“Schools can rarely afford to buy support at the level they need this… this leads to less support for families at an earlier level and results in more applications for education, health and care needs assessments,” he added.

Eleanor Wright, Legal Officer at charity SOS!SEN, blamed strict behavioural and uniform policies at secondary schools, saying that “very rigid discipline policies… don’t allow any sort of exceptions for disability”.

She said this is a particular problem at academies, which often have uniform policies that “won’t allow exceptions for children with sensory problems” or behaviour policies that will not make reasonable adjustments for forgotten homework or equipment for children with neurodiversity.

‘My son has been out of education for weeks’

The mother of a 15-year-old boy with special educational needs and chronic fatigue syndrome said she complained to Ofsted after her son lost access to council-funded tutors.

Phillippa Lovell, 43, from Devon, has battled for her son’s education for years after he developed chronic fatigue syndrome aged 12. He also has severe dyslexia and is on the waitlist for an autism assessment.

Max*, who has been given a false name to protect his identity, had been progressing well after receiving a Section 19 statement, meaning the local authority must make arrangements for the provision of suitable education for a child who cannot attend school. Under the Section 19, he had been getting English and maths tutoring.

But in April, Ms Lovell said the local authority pulled the one-to-one tutors, replacing them with an online education system. She said Max is unable to access the online system due to his dyslexia.

She said: “At the point where it said all children under a Section 19 are moving to [the online education system], I made the Ofsted complaint because you need to look at them individually. That’s what the law states.

“It was a complaint to Ofsted that the local authoroity’s provision wasn’t suitable and that it wasn’t the same or better than having an education [in school].”

Ms Lovell said she fears Max might not be able to take his GCSEs, potentially killing his dreams of becoming a paramedic.

“He’s been massively let down, and if he had an option of a career that’s now gone,” she said. “If we don’t get either Key Skills or GCSEs under his belt, then he’s got no future.”

Education unions said schools are working hard to support SEND pupils, but are “increasingly hamstrung by inadequate funding”, which forces them to reduce the number of specialist staff members.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders’ union NAHT, said: “We know parents are getting increasingly frustrated with a system that is struggling to meet the needs of pupils with additional needs.

“School leaders are equally frustrated that they don’t have the resources or access to the support many children require.”

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), pointed to “a growing trend of parents seeking to bypass school complaint policies and escalate them” for the rise in Ofsted complaints.

Sir Martyn Oliver, Ofsted’s chief inspector, told the education select committee in January that SEND is the “biggest issue” affecting schools, with the system’s high costs and poor outcomes representing a “lose-lose situation”.

Ofsted’s new report card inspection system, which will be introduced in September in place of single-word judgements, will include an assessment of how schools support children with SEND.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “The evidence is clear that this government inherited a SEND system left on its knees – with too many children not having their needs met and parents forced to fight for support.

“It will take time, but as part of our Plan for Change, we are thinking differently about what the SEND system should look like, to restore the confidence of families up and down the country and deliver the improvement they are crying out for so every child can achieve and thrive.

“We are already making progress by investing £1bn into SEND and £740m to create more specialist places in mainstream schools while expanding support for early speech and language needs and neurodivergent children, paving the way for significant, long-term reform.”