{"id":593928,"date":"2026-05-20T07:23:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T07:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/593928\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T07:23:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T07:23:12","slug":"attainment-at-all-costs-approach-could-undermine-send-changes-school-leaders-in-england-say-special-educational-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/593928\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Attainment at all costs\u2019 approach could undermine Send changes, school leaders in England say | Special educational needs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Changes to special educational needs provision in England<\/a> could be thwarted by \u201cacademic attainment at all costs\u201d policies that prioritise exam results and punish inclusive schools, headteachers have said in response to a government consultation.<\/p>\n

The Association of School and College Leaders said the government\u2019s emphasis on academic goals conflicted with its measures designed to help mainstream schools accommodate more children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send).<\/p>\n

The union said the adherence to \u201chigh-stakes\u201d assessments, including a proposed test of year 8 reading, \u201call create perverse incentives for school and college leaders where they are penalised for any lower academic outcomes for some pupils with Send. This cannot be addressed with reform of Send in isolation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its formal response to the schools white paper, the ASCL said: \u201cContrary to the strong focus on inclusion in the early chapters of the white paper, the \u2018ambition\u2019 section of the paper omits Send and broader outcomes and is still focused on academic attainment at all costs. This critical inconsistency will be the basis upon which the reforms will succeed or fail.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we want an education for all then that principle of \u2018for all\u2019 must apply to all areas of education policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Margaret Mulholland, the union\u2019s Send and inclusion specialist, said: \u201cThe government\u2019s reforms have the potential to do a huge amount of good but they must help schools deliver them. Guidance must then be backed up by adequate staffing, funding, and time for preparation \u2013 including training where necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout this, there is a serious risk that schools will be placed in an impossible position, relationships with parents will be damaged and children will be left without the support they need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the proposed changes, mainstream schools will be expected to have an \u201cinclusion base\u201d for children with special needs, but the ASCL said there was little detail on how the bases would operate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe inclusive base should not encompass rooms which host children excluded from classrooms on the basis of behaviour \u2026 Inclusion bases should not become holding pens, standalone units or exclusion by another name,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

The Coram group of children\u2019s charities responded to the consultation by warning against narrowing parents\u2019 grounds for appeals to specialist Send tribunals.<\/p>\n

\u201cSchool complaints processes are not an adequate replacement for legally enforceable rights,\u201d it said. \u201cThis is likely to cause significant tensions between schools and parents-carers, adding more stress on the school system and parents. It is also likely to result in more litigious action, such as judicial reviews of decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

New research from the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) found that the changes could be hampered by the increasingly high concentration of pupils with Send within a small number of mainstream schools.<\/p>\n

The study found a huge gap between mainstream schools with the least and most Send pupils: the lowest fifth averaged just 10% of pupils with Send while the highest fifth averaged 26%.<\/p>\n

The NFER said \u201cstructural steering\u201d meant families were attracted to schools with good reputations, while other schools discouraged pupils with Send from applying. The report quoted one school leader as saying: \u201cWe\u2019ve always tried not to have a reputation for being good at Send so parents don\u2019t tend to seek us out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union, said: \u201cThis report shows there is a clear case for a stronger role for local authority-controlled admissions, with oversight to ensure that placement decisions are made fairly and transparently.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Changes to special educational needs provision in England could be thwarted by \u201cacademic attainment at all costs\u201d policies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-593928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}