DYT has submitted written evidence to the Education Select Committee’s inquiry on Special Educational Needs and Disability.

The Committee’s inquiry is intended to review the success of the 2014 reforms, how they have been implemented, and what impact they are having in meeting the challenges faced by children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.

Read our submission.

Our top three lines to the committee: 

  • Although it is important for the committee’s inquiry to investigate the impact of the 2014 SEND reforms, if the inquiry focuses purely on this it will miss the bigger picture of how unprecedented upheaval in the education sector has affected children and young people with special needs. We recommend that the committee fully considers the impact of school accountability measures, reforms to pupil assessments and the level of school funding in their inquiry.
  • We have made a series of recommendations for the committee to consider on a policy-level, our main message to the inquiry is that policy-makers must make SEND learners a priority. Too often, the 1.2 million learners with SEND are overlooked by the government and in the education system. 8 in 10 of SEND learners are in mainstream schools, however, rather than being treated as a mainstream policy issue SEND is often “bolted on” rather than being “built-in” to the core of educational reforms and strategies.
  • The Department for Education should support schools through extra targeted funding, rewards for inclusive schools and by strengthening the accountability framework so that it focuses on improving outcomes for SEND learners. There is already a precedent of this through the introduction of the Pupil Premium fund.