This is excellent as ever from Nicole Dempsey 👇

The Lib Dems are calling for a new “national champion” to coordinate support for disabled children with the most complex needs as part of a £300m boost to end to the SEND “postcode lottery” of disparity in support offered in schools, linked to extra costs bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politi…

The answer to spending 1.4 billion on school transport for SEND children is to invest in schools so they can provide for all children in their community.

We're coming up for 10 years since Baroness Nicky Morgan started the 'Workload Challenge', but I think the demands of the job have shifted from admin to carrying the burdens of society.

It's true. So many children not getting the education they deserve and all school staff pushed to the limits.

This is such an important point. These children and young people won’t get their school years back, no chance to repeat time in the right setting. The lack of long term strategy is incomprehensible.

This is a rough-and-ready look at the numbers at LA level

Anything in light red is at full capacity, or very close to it: the darker the red shading, the further they're over capacity public.tableau.com/app/profile/ma…

Simon Knight The support for SEND pupils is in complete meltdown. Huge increase in numbers of children needing support, LAs SEND budgets are millions in deficit & predicting vastly increased deficits going forward! It’s a crisis & schools trying v hard to support kids & families! What next?

The note about primary special schools actually having spare capacity should be sounding alarm bells and highlighting questions.
The need for places is very real. So why are there spaces at primary level?
Because it takes too damned long to get assessments and agree EHCPs.

Simon Knight Based on work I do in schools I am finding at least 5 pupils in every mainstream school who are not appropriately placed due to the lack of spaces in specialist provision that is thousands of pupils not being appropriately educated. Schools doing their best - not sustainable!

These are not abstract numbers, these are children, families and schools being failed repeatedly by the lack of a coherent strategic plan to deliver the spaces required in a timely fashion.
schoolsweek.co.uk/two-thirds-of-…

Simon Knight This is spot on, I don’t know how many times recently I have heard of tribunals finding in favour of parents/children (which I have no fundamental issue with) but placing children in schools that are already over capacity or have already been clear they can’t meet needs.

What Sam is rightly flagging here is also not a Covid issue. It was entirely predictable. Back in 2018 I wrote that it was verging on being ‘cruel’ and it’s become *brutally* so.
But still, no one has a plan. Labour don’t. The Tories definitely don’t. schoolsweek.co.uk/without-more-m…

This is absolutely true, & one of the consequences of the Special School capacity issue in particular, is that is it pitting the legally protected rights of those already having their needs met against the legally protected rights of those who require their needs met. It's awful.

Such an excellent experience for our students and already some actions being fulfilled as a result.

Some amazing opportunities to come and work with me at our small school in south Oxfordshire. Assistant Headteacher, Behaviour and Culture and SENCO. We need two special people for these brilliant roles. maidenerleghchilternedge.co.uk/page/?title=VA…

New FREE webinars from StudioIII do share as you can & sign up too.

You can watch on playback if you cannot be online at the time 😎👍

Elly Chapple Founder #FlipTheNarrative©💜 Matt jessop T Pascoe- Matthews MEd, NPQH, CPT3A Shahana Knight Victoria Nunn Wellbeing_in_schools Andy McDonnell Margaret Murray Nicola Lavery Karen McGuinness

starlightmckenzie.wordpress.com/2024/03/06/sho… 4 second new blog if interested- Anne Gladstone Dr Carrie Grant MBE (hc) 💙 HLTA Hannah Lucy Hall Jo Hutchinson Rob Webster Cherryl-kd Amanda Keen Dyscalculia and Dyslexia Karen Knight Simon Knight Prof Katherine Runswick-C Diane Leedham Inclusion London Rosalind Luff Dr Charlotte Haines Lyon

⁦Joanna Grace⁩ ⁦Simon Knight⁩ ⁦Whole School SEND⁩ ⁦⁦TeachinCambs⁩ Be really grateful for any retweets to help spread the word…..thank you

It's easy to say, 'Don't give your teenager a smartphone.' But it must be EXTREMELY hard to tell your own child that they're excluded from the now-normalised immediacy & depth of cultural access & participation which a phone now represents. These things are very far from trivial.