Commenting on the inspectorate’s third and final set of reports
on the Covid-19 pandemic’s impact on children and young people,
Nansi Ellis, Assistant General Secretary of the National
Education Union, said:
"It is hugely concerning that Special Education Needs and
Disabilities (SEND) children are not doing as well as their peers
in terms of coping with remote learning. However, the playing
field is not level in terms of students having access to IT
equipment at home. Many SEND students will require assistive
technology and programmes which schools are unable to provide.
"We know that repeated periods of isolation will be harmful to
students in general, but particularly for those with SEND, and
that the lack of access to external support services, such as
speech & language therapies and delays to assessment
processes and EHC plans, is having a harmful effect on young
people. This again is not the fault of schools, but of a
Government which is consistently underfunding SEND support.
Ensuring every child gets the education they deserve and need
cannot be done on the cheap.
"We are concerned that more children are being taken out of
school to be home-schooled because of parental concerns about
Covid safety, increasing unsupported mental health issues and
undiagnosed special needs due to CAMHS and local authority
services cuts. Many parents of pupils who need mental health
support and do not get it remove their children due to fears of
being fined or worse. We agree that Ofsted is right to be
concerned about these out of sight students and believe that they
should be pressing the government to improve mental health
services and support to these schools, young people and families,
many of whom have reached a crisis point made worse by Covid."
