One of the very best things we did at Wales High School in Rotherham during my 11 years as headteacher was set up The Bridge.
The Bridge isn’t a unit or a special school, it’s simply a place where pupils with additional needs can get the support they require and stay part of the mainstream school’s community.
Pupils spend time there when they need one-to-one support, and many rejoin their classmates for lunch and other lessons.
It works because The Bridge is very much part of the school community, can be adapted to a pupil’s needs and staff have training to use it with confidence.
A bureaucratic and adversarial system
But models like The Bridge are becoming harder and harder to sustain now. It’s not that schools don’t see a need for them - quite the opposite - they just can’t access the funding, in my case from the local authority, to offer this kind of provision.
Instead, families are pushed into long, exhausting battles to secure support through, for example, an education, health and care plan (EHCP), when everyone already agrees on what it is a pupil needs.
Families who don’t have the time, resources or stamina for this kind of battle barely stand a chance.
Right now, the process for securing support for pupils with additional needs is hugely bureaucratic and adversarial. Families often have to appeal or take their case to a tribunal to get the right help for their child.
School leaders are meanwhile stuck in a system where funding is only unlocked after an EHCP is secured, even when they and their staff can see exactly what support a pupil should receive.
It’s a system designed for conflict. Parents forced to battle schools. Schools forced to ration support. And the children at the heart of it? They’re left waiting.
Hardly surprisingly, delays often turn minor additional needs into major ones. A pupil’s mental health deteriorates, behaviour issues escalate, and soon, those who could have thrived in mainstream school communities, if given the right support, are excluded, moved to costly specialist provision a long bus ride away or lost to our education system.
Reform our system with targeted, early interventions
We can do so much better than this.
Of course, clearly not all SEND can be supported fully by targeted, early interventions. We must not undermine support for pupils with EHCPs; some pupils need more specialist provision than a mainstream school can offer.
But there is strong evidence, from the Education Endowment Foundation, for example, that targeted early interventions can effectively address a high proportion of pupils’ social, emotional and mental health difficulties and some speech and language needs. If only schools were given the flexibility and resources to offer these interventions.
At Wales High School, when it came to setting up The Bridge, “the stars aligned”: we had an inclusion-focused culture, well-trained staff and the backing of a local authority. Many school leaders aren’t so fortunate.
This is why I chair the , an expert group tackling the rise in school absences and exclusions, particularly among disadvantaged pupils. Our work focuses on tackling the rise in school absences and exclusions, particularly among disadvantaged pupils, and addressing the lack of political and policy solutions on this issue.
The Council was founded following the publication of - the first report of the Who is Losing Learning Coalition, founded by Impetus, the think tank IPPR, Mission 44 and The Difference.
The report diagnosed the scale of the challenge in the system and made the social and economic case for whole school inclusion.
Over the past six months, we have gathered evidence from school leaders, parents, carers and inclusion experts, and we will be publishing a report later this month with a range of policy solutions aimed at making sure mainstream schools can meet the majority of pupils’ needs without unnecessary legal fights or funding delays.
Rethinking investment
More struggling children can be helped to thrive in mainstream schools, reducing the acute pressure on the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system and meeting pupils’ needs before they reach crisis point.
But to do this, the Department for Education must promote a whole school approach to inclusion by rethinking how we invest in the system so that it provides effective universal and targeted support.
The government’s SEND task force and the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill have an opportunity to do this. But their goal mustn’t be efficiency savings; it should be using the resources in the system to invest in the best interests of our children and young people.
We all know our current system isn’t working. Policymakers must act now to ensure mainstream schools can support the majority of pupils without forcing families into exhausting legal battles and tying schools up in red tape.
Pepe Di’Iasio is general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders and the chair of the Who’s Losing Learning Solutions Council
For the latest education news and analysis delivered every weekday morning, sign up for the Tes Daily newsletter
