麻豆淫院

The recent schools and the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) reform highlight what we already know: children and young people with SEND continue to be sidelined compared with their peers without SEND. Many of them achieve lower attainment in school and are more likely to experience low attendance, suspension and exclusion than those without SEND. As highlighted in the and the Johnson Conservative government’s own , these factors contribute to a wider achievement gap between them and their peers. For many children and young people with SEND, . This is why the proposed SEND reform and the consultation process are indeed important.

Despite the important plans for the future of children and young people with SEND, previous unsuccessful attempts to reform the SEND system serve as a reminder of the ongoing challenges. Failed promises raise concerns about what might become of the latest proposed plans for the SEND system or whether it would lead to any substantial change. While the SEND reform consultation document brings hope of a better future, also brought hope of a better future, promising to ‘ensure that children’s special educational needs are identified as quickly as possible and that early action…’ and ‘consistency of approach is taken to meet those needs’. However, the promises were met with challenges that, to some extent, constrained their implementation.

Under the previous Conservative government’s , the ambition put forward then was to create a ‘bright future for our children and success for schools’ through ‘high-quality’ provisions and greater control for children and their carers. The goal was to foster inclusive practice that would remove barriers to learning; a commitment that was reiterated in the ‘SEND Review’ where the government expressed its determination to level up ‘opportunities for all children and young people without exception’.

However, evidence from conducted by the author for her PhD studies shows that systemic challenges continue to impact the learning experiences of many children and young people with SEND. Despite the promises made by the previous government, issues such as inadequate funding have pressured schools to make difficult decisions about which students with SEND should be prioritised for specialist support. Additionally, inadequate teacher training, lack of time and postcode lottery created inconsistencies in how schools can respond to children and young people with SEND across local authority areas.

‘Despite the promises made by the previous government, issues such as inadequate funding have pressured schools to make difficult decisions about which students with SEND should be prioritised for specialist support.’

Now, we see similar ambition from the Labour government to ‘build an education system where inclusion and high standards are two sides of the same coin’. Like the previous government, there is a that ‘every child deserves high-quality, inclusive education close to home’. However, by framing the‘problem’ as the quality of inclusive education received by children with SEND in their area, it creates a shift in responsibility from the government to the school for the ongoing failings of the SEND system. It suggests that the proposed ‘solutions’, such as inclusive mainstream funding, early intervention, national SEND training, national inclusion and strategies, will resolve years of longstanding issues affecting the SEND system.

Such taken-for-granted assumptions expose a concerning level of intellectual amnesia in the development of policies relating to children and young people with SEND. ‘’ that have previously failed to address the SEND system are carefully packaged, persuasively as ‘new’ promises for the future of the SEND system (see also Lingard, 2021). This approach creates an impression that the future of the SEND system will be a step forward from the past (Webb et al., 2020).

Without understanding why past reforms have consistently met challenges, and confronting the uncomfortable tensions that those reflections may bring, there is a risk of history repeating itself. Promises may result in no significant change, only to be recycled as future promises in subsequent reforms. This could lead to a future where children and young people with SEND continue to be sidelined.

References

Lingard, B. (2021). Multiple temporalities in critical policy sociology in education. Critical Studies in Education, 62(3), 338–353.

Webb, P. T., Sellar, S., & Gulson, K. N. (2020). Anticipating education: governing habits, memories and policy-futures. Learning, Media and Technology, 45(3), 284–297.