Commenting on a new report by the All Party Parliamentary Group
(APPG) for SEND on the experiences of children with special
educational needs and disabilities (SEND) during the Covid-19
pandemic, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’
union NAHT, said:
“This cross party report should serve as an urgent wake-up call
to government.
“A decade of underfunding and an ongoing failure by the
government to properly get to grips with systemic failings has
been exposed by the pandemic.
“The report captures how children and young people with SEND have
too often been an after-thought for government during the
pandemic, and in many cases schools have been left to pick up the
pieces with little support. This report amplifies everything we
have been saying about the experiences of children with SEND
during the last year – and before.
“The government has been rightly criticised for the lack of
support it has given SEND schools, from being overlooked in
guidance that didn’t take account of SEND settings, to not being
given the correct PPE and resources.
“The government must learn from this. There is a pressing need to
put pupils with SEND at the heart of the educational recovery
agenda. The current SEND review being carried out provides the
ideal opportunity to do this.
“We agree entirely with the recommendation for greater
investment. The government has said that no child should be left
behind – now is the time to put its money where its mouth is and
make sure the most vulnerable children in society are included in
that promise.”
