{"id":634305,"date":"2026-06-12T05:14:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T05:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/634305\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T05:14:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T05:14:14","slug":"more-than-one-in-five-pupils-in-england-have-special-educational-needs-figures-show-special-educational-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/634305\/","title":{"rendered":"More than one in five pupils in England have special educational needs, figures show | Special educational needs"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than one in five pupils in England<\/a> now have special educational needs, as the latest official figures show a sharp increase in the numbers of children receiving extra support in school.<\/p>\n

The annual data<\/a> from the Department for Education (DfE) confirms predictions of an increase in families seeking education, health and care plans (EHCPs) \u2013 the individual agreements detailing extra support \u2013 before the government\u2019s efforts to overhaul funding and provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send).<\/p>\n

The number of children with EHCPs rose by 11.6% this year compared with 2025, adding 58,000 for a record total of 538,500. That means 6% of all schoolchildren now have active EHCPs.<\/p>\n

There was also a 3% increase in the number with special needs and support without an EHCP, to nearly 1.4 million children.<\/p>\n

Combining the two groups reveals that 21% of the school population is regarded as having special needs in some form.<\/p>\n

Paul Whiteman, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), said: \u201cBehind these figures are children and families still desperately struggling to get help from schools which simply don\u2019t have the funding, staff, space or specialist support to cope on their own with rising demand.\u201d<\/p>\n

A DfE spokesperson said: \u201cThese figures lay bare the scale of the challenge we inherited \u2013 a Send system under immense strain, record numbers of EHCPs and nearly half of those plans going to disadvantaged children.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why we are investing over \u00a34bn to bring specialist support directly into schools, to train every teacher to better support Send, and give mainstream settings the expertise and resources they need to meet children\u2019s needs earlier and more effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the proposals in the government\u2019s white paper, fewer pupils are likely to receive EHCPs<\/a>, and many will instead receive \u201cindividual support plans\u201d agreed between parents and schools.<\/p>\n

The government has said no changes will be made to support through EHCPs before September 2030. But in the meantime local authorities will have to absorb the effects of rising costs on their budgets.<\/p>\n

Harriet Edwards, a director of the disability charity Sense, said the latest figures should be \u201can urgent wake-up call\u201d for the government.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe number of disabled children needing specialist support to learn and get the best start in life is rising. Yet far too many are still being failed by a broken education system and left falling through the cracks,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cProperly funded support from specialist teachers has never been more urgently needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boys make up more than two-thirds of children with EHCPs but the number of girls is rising more quickly. One in three pupils with EHCPs have autism, while more than one in five have speech, language and communications needs.<\/p>\n

The reforms encourage mainstream state schools to educate more children with special needs, and the DfE\u2019s figures show that nearly 58% of children with EHCPs attend mainstream schools.<\/p>\n

More than 500 schools have internal Send units, while 1,300 have \u201cresourced provision\u201d for special needs.<\/p>\n

Rob Williams, a senior policy adviser at the NAHT, said: \u201cIn the absence of sufficient places and timely support, many mainstream schools have stepped in, creating their own specialist units to meet pupils\u2019 needs. This is a testament to the sector\u2019s commitment to inclusion but it is not sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than one in five pupils in England now have special educational needs, as the latest official figures…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-634305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634305","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=634305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}