The Children’s Law Centre has published an open letter, raising alarm around significant and potentially damaging changes to the system that provides support to children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND).
The open letter, published on Wednesday 22nd April and endorsed by 14 other organisations – including unions – states that the new direction undermines decades of work with expert stakeholders, fails to address the issues around capacity and resources and places increased pressure on schools.
This is despite repeated critical reports highlighting failures within the Education Authority, which will not be properly addressed.
The open letter calls on the Education Minister, Mr Paul Givan to stop the potentially damaging SEND implementation.
The letter states: “The implementation of the revised SEND framework must now stop to allow sufficient time to assess whether the current trajectory requires to be significantly altered, so that reforms comply with the law, are effective and deliverable, and are capable of achieving the aims legitimately expected by children and families and all those that work closely with them.
“For almost 2 decades, the Children’s Law Centre (CLC) has worked tirelessly for and with children, young people and their families to influence longstanding reform processes in relation to special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
“The failure to properly operate the SEND framework, and the impact on children with SEND and their families, has been the subject of numerous critical reports. Many children with SEND have been left sitting in classrooms, or increasingly, outside of classrooms or schools, struggling to learn, whilst the majority of their peers progress, leaving them behind.”
Specialist SEND Legal Adviser at the Children’s Law Centre, Rachel Hogan, BL said: “The Children’s Law Centre is seriously concerned that the current reform to the support for children with special educational needs and disabilities is repeating the failures of the past. Rather than address the issues that have been well researched and articulated over past decades, the proposed reforms run the risk of undermining the legal framework that supports children, compounding the current failures.
“The Children’s Law Centre and others have committed many years of work to the Education Authority and the Department of Education to ensure the SEND system provides the proper support for children and young people. However, this sudden change of direction has abandoned that work and risks rushing through reforms that potentially make the situation worse, with very little scrutiny.
“These changes do not reflect what has been recommended in numerous reports and by expert stakeholders, including the Children’s Law Centre, other specialist organisations, teaching professionals and parents. They seek to shift the responsibility to schools and water down children’s individual rights. The implementation of the revised SEND framework must now stop”.
The letter has been endorsed by the following organisations, including teaching unions:
- CiNI
- SENAC
- Angel Eyes NI
- National Autistic Society
- The Fostering Network
- ADD-NI Children’s Charity
- The Centre for Children’s Rights, Queen’s University Belfast
- Northern Ireland Teachers’ Council
- NASUWT
- INTO
- UTU
- NEU
- NAHT
- UNISON
