Autism Alliance UK responds to SEND consultation in England
The Autism Alliance UK is calling for systemic change for autistic children, young people, adults and their families. Developed with autistic young people and adults, parents/carers, researchers, clinicians and charities, and led by the Autism Alliance, the public policy report A New Path Ahead recognises the deep barriers autistic people continue to face - stigma and misunderstanding, weak or non-existent accountability, failures of planning/funding - and makes recommendations for governments across the UK.
The Autism Alliance has responded to the SEND consultation in England to highlight the systemic barriers autistic children and young people face in education. Without addressing these barriers, autistic children and young people will continue to be disbelieved, marginalised, and excluded, and children and young people with SEND will continue to experience unacceptable outcomes.
Central to this is the deep culture of the education system: while there are many excellent examples of inclusive practice in mainstream schools and settings, in large parts of the sector a narrow view of attainment and rigid views about how children learn dominate. In this context, there are serious questions about how far the Government’s plans will address this systemic barrier, whether through the Ofsted inspection framework or proposed up-front investment in inclusion and teacher training.
To succeed, recognising and meeting children and young people’s individual support needs has to be the foundation for learning, with schools approaching this by working differently, not by layering more and more process and cost. There is a risk that in a system under huge pressure, the mechanisms included in the reforms will be used to ration and restrict access to support and adjustments, rather than understand and meet individual needs.
We are also deeply concerned about plans to weaken rights for children and families and shift legal duties from local authorities to schools, which in this context could simply reinforce a focus on rationing. Equally, changes to the design, content, and commissioning of specialist education could be implemented before there is evidence of real change in mainstream education, further increasing risks for autistic children and young people.
Although some aspects of the Government’s proposals point in the right direction - including the high-level focus on meeting needs, the prioritisation of belonging and inclusion, and the Experts at Hand initiative - overall the proposals lack a definitive plan to address the systemic barriers children and families face: and it is hard to avoid the conclusion that cost control ultimately carries greater weight than inclusive education for all children and young people.
You can read the Autism Alliance UK’s response to the SEND consultation here. Our recommendations are:
To maintain all current rights for children and families.
To co-produce a Vision for Culture in Education and re-align all planned reforms around this.
To push back changes to specialist education until there is evidence that mainstream education is working for children and young people with SEND.
To introduce a Children’s Voice Charter, and the ‘commitment to listen’ to parents/carers and neurodivergent young people recommended by the Neurodivergence Task and Finish Group.