Can Britain's State Schools Deliver for Children with Special Educational Needs?

Dr Tim Yan

In the middle of a phonics lesson, a child rushed into the room, struck another pupil on the head and then ran to my computer, hitting the keyboard at random. It was a scene from the London state school in which I was training. The child, in Year 1, had significant special educational needs.

He found noise intolerable and bright light overwhelming. Remaining quietly in a busy classroom was, for him, almost impossible. Children with needs of this kind are not unusual in mainstream schools.

The children behind the acronym

In the seventh week of my placement, I was asked to focus my observations on pupils with special educational needs and disabilities—SEND—and to build inclusive support into my lesson planning. The class teacher has primary responsibility for every pupil. Alongside the teacher, the school's special educational needs co-ordinator, or SENCO, plays a central role in identifying needs, planning support and bringing together staff, families and outside professionals.

At my placement school, that person was Kexen. She knew the circumstances of every pupil receiving support. I tried for more than a week to find time in her diary; she was one of the busiest members of staff in the school.

There were 40 pupils on the school's SEND register, about 13 per cent of the roll at the time. Eight had needs sufficiently complex to require close adult support through much of the day. Kexen did not teach a regular class, but that hardly made her role less demanding. She advised teachers, helped to shape provision, monitored progress, met parents, liaised with the local authority and health services, and followed up whether agreed support was actually taking place.

SEND is one of the defining questions in English education. It tests the system's commitment to inclusion, but also exposes difficult trade-offs involving resources, teacher workload and the relationship between home and school. Policy establishes duties and entitlements. Practice reveals how hard they can be to realise.

A child with additional needs may call out without warning, leave their seat while others are writing or become distressed by sensations that most classmates barely notice. Wherever appropriate, that child learns in a mainstream class rather than being separated from their peers. The principle is important: children should be able to learn and grow in an inclusive community.

But inclusion cannot be secured by placement alone. A class may contain a wide range of attainment, language, behaviour and sensory needs. If specialist advice is delayed and teaching-assistant time is scarce, the class teacher can be left carrying responsibilities that no single adult could meet well. Commitment then gives way to fatigue—not because the teacher rejects inclusion, but because the promised support has not arrived.

The scale of the issue is substantial. In England in 2025/26, more than 1.8 million pupils had an identified special educational need. About 538,500 had an education, health and care plan, or EHC plan; a further 1.32 million received SEN support. More than half of pupils with EHC plans in state-funded primary and secondary education attended mainstream schools.

“There is nothing wrong with my child”

Teaching the child is not always the hardest part. Families are indispensable to effective support, yet recognising that a child needs something different can be painful.

Parents may initially fear that a SEND label will define the child, narrow their future or mark them as somehow less “normal”. That language itself is part of the difficulty. Difference is not a verdict on a child's worth. But it may take families time to separate a need for support from the stigma they believe will follow it.

A SENCO provides educational assessment and co-ordinates provision; they do not issue medical diagnoses. Where a possible health or developmental condition requires clinical assessment, a school may encourage a family to speak to their GP or another qualified service. Yet a medical diagnosis is not a universal prerequisite for support. Schools can identify emerging needs and begin a graduated cycle of assessment, planning, action and review. A statutory EHC needs assessment, where one is required, is led by the local authority and draws on evidence from the child, family, school and relevant professionals.

This distinction matters. Children should not have to wait for a clinical label before a teacher responds to an evident barrier to learning.

In a city as diverse as London, schools work across many languages and assumptions about disability. Kexen had encountered families in which a father blamed the mother when a child's needs came to light. Situations of this kind require more than a conversation between teacher and parent. Schools may need to work with community organisations, health professionals and social care while protecting the child and maintaining the family's trust.

Even after a child's needs are recognised, families may hesitate over specialist provision. Places in special schools are limited, and not every child who could benefit from one can obtain one promptly. Other parents fight to keep their child in mainstream education, fearing separation from siblings, neighbourhood life and a wider peer group.

Neither mainstream nor specialist provision is inherently right for every child. Mainstream schooling can offer a broad social environment and a sense of belonging. Specialist settings can provide expertise, therapeutic support, smaller groups and an environment adapted to complex needs. As Kexen put it, the most painful cases are those in which a mainstream school cannot meet a child's needs, but no suitable specialist place is available.

Mainstream or specialist: the wrong question on its own

Kexen described a pupil in a neighbouring class. He was highly able, particularly in mathematics and writing, and he was autistic. A teaching assistant supported him throughout the day.

Despite sustained effort, he had almost no interaction with classmates and had made little social progress. In her judgement, the mainstream setting was not enabling him to flourish. A specialist school might have offered the expertise and structure through which his abilities could develop.

The point was not that autistic children belong in special schools. Many thrive in mainstream education. It was that inclusion has to be judged by the quality of a child's participation, learning and wellbeing—not by the name above the school gate.

Assessment and statutory decision-making can take months. During that time, the school must continue teaching the child. If several pupils in one class need intensive support and there is only one teaching assistant, what is the class teacher to do?

I asked whether parents might volunteer in school and help with the daily work of a class. Kexen was wary. Children need to develop some independence from their parents, and goodwill is not the same as professional preparation. Volunteers also require careful recruitment, safeguarding, training and supervision. A rotating supply of parental help cannot substitute for a stable, properly funded support system.

Schools need close partnership with families, but partnership does not mean transferring professional provision to them. Nor can a family regard behaviour at school as the school's concern alone. Kexen recalled children who had hit or bitten classmates, while their parents insisted that it could not be a shared problem because it did not happen at home. A child's behaviour can vary sharply by environment. That is a reason for careful joint enquiry, not for either side to withdraw.

Inclusive education is intended to support pupils with SEND. It can also enlarge the moral world of their peers. My placement school was running activities around appreciating difference. I noticed that Kexen was wearing two socks in deliberately mismatched colours.

She smiled. “Every child is different. That is simply what the world is like.”

The sentiment is generous. The task for policy is to ensure that it is backed by enough people, expertise and time. Inclusion without resources can become a promise made to a child and quietly broken in the classroom.

About the author

Dr Tim Yan is a philosopher and teacher educator specialising in Philosophy for Children and comparative education. He has taught in Guangzhou, Shanghai and London, and writes on the institutions and everyday practices that shape children's lives.

Sources

- Department for Education, Special educational needs in England, 2025/26: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england/2025-26

- Department for Education, SEND: guide for schools and alternative provision settings: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-guide-for-schools-and-alternative-provision-settings