When Gillian Keegan admitted “we haven’t got the right service for SEND children”, we can only hope that “lose, lose, lose” turns into ‘win, win, win’ for teachers, schools, local authorities and most importantly, some of society’s most vulnerable children and young people.
A turnaround will inevitably take time, and, more ambitiously, any system transformation will take long-term planning and joined-up thinking.
Whilst we wait, and hope, for this to happen, thousands of children and young people are being damaged. We have no choice but to continue to challenge the system through its legal framework to access the rights and support to which SEND learners are entitled.
As Keegan recognises, SEND diagnoses don’t happen early enough. We know that getting an assessment, let alone the right diagnosis, can take up to two years.
