PA0178
Written evidence submitted by Becky Edwards and Heather Green
Contents
Persistent absence and support for disadvantaged pupils
Evidence focus:
Authors of evidence submission
Overview of evidence content:
Evidence to inform an understanding of the factors contributing to or causing persistent and severe absence among different groups of pupils
1. Breakdown in communication between parents and professionals
1.1 Battle
Parents consistently felt that they had to go into ‘battle’ with local authorities in order to gain a place at an appropriate setting for their child. When these battles were not successful, children and young adults would attend a school or FE setting that did not meet their needs and this in turn would lead to poor attendance or school refusal.
1.2 Lack of confidence to speak with professionals
1.3 Mixed messages
1.4 Hidden agendas
2. Financial Barriers
2.1 Socio-economic inequality
2.2 Transport costs
3. Ineffective Inclusive Practice
Summary and proposed solutions
Evidence focus: The voices of parents of children and young people with SEND. By Heather Green and Becky Edwards
Authors of evidence submission: Heather Green and Becky Edwards are Senior Lecturers from the University of Chichester. Heather and Becky carried out research between December 2020 and February 2021 which aimed to understand better the lived experiences of families living with children and young people with disabilities (categorised as disadvantaged).
Overview of evidence content: The following evidence is based on the information gained from interviewing parents of children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). The interviewees were:
- From diverse socio-economic backgrounds
- Lived in the South East of England
- Were parents of children and young people aged 6-25 with a variety of special educational needs and disabilities, ranging from moderate to severe and including autism spectrum condition. All children and young people are supported in their education or training by an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP).
Children and young people with SEND face multiple barriers to accessing education but our findings suggest that these barriers can be grouped into three broad themes:
- Breakdown in communication between parents and professionals
- Financial barriers (including transport)
- Ineffective inclusive practice
These headings will therefore be used to summarise the relevant evidence in more detail. Direct quotations from parents are also included (italics).
Our data suggests that lack of effective communication between parents and professionals can lead to children being placed in inappropriate settings without the appropriate support. This leads in some cases to children being excluded because schools cannot provide the expected provision or cope with challenging behaviours or lack of attendance due to the belief and concerns of parents that their child’s needs are not being met
- “there's very much an opinion that if you were asking for something, … what you must be asking for as a parent must be unreasonable.”
- “at that point, the relationship between ourselves and the local authority ceased to exist. From there on, we knew always at the local authority was against us and you know, it was, us against them basically”.
- “he was in a mainstream school for a very, very traumatic five months and it really didn't go well. He ended up being excluded but thankfully, he got scooped up by the right special school and just flourished there. I think setting is so important because if they're in the right place, they've got the opportunities and they can work.”
Many parents lacked the confidence to speak honestly with professionals, which meant professionals did not have a holistic understanding of the child’s wants or needs. This also led to parents accepting inappropriate placements for their children.
- “What was also apparent was the children who had parents who didn't have the wherewithal either financially or educationally or cognitively or emotionally to fight for their child, those children were short-changed compared to our own”.
Parents reported that they had consistently experienced a disconnect between what was agreed at meetings with professionals and what was eventually offered to their children. This led to a breakdown of trust and lack of effective and appropriate support for children at school. The impact of this breakdown of communication and trust was poor attendance or a complete lack of attendance. Our analysis of data suggests that the root cause of lack of attendance in these cases was perceived by parents to be the school’s inability to cope with a child or parental concerns that their children would not be happy or safe.
- “I think there's often a gap between, you can have a conversation with somebody from the LEA or whoever you know, you have a meeting and yeah it all sounds okay and then the paperwork comes back and actually you think, well it's not representative of what was said”
- “they will try their hardest to write a document that really promises nothing at all”
- “on the one hand we were being advised that she should go to speech and language unit and she should have speech and language therapy as much and as soon as possible, but then we were told that the state can’t provide that or you will have to get that through the educational services”.
- “so they had two children who were severely autistic, pretty much non-verbal, didn't manage at any college, no college provision or school could support her, so she's been at home for at least five years”
- “she was refusing to go to school and just in huge amounts of pain, not able to get out of bed for days on end. I was getting letters saying if you don't send your child to school we're going to take it to court … the teachers were just on a one-track mind of thinking, ‘we've got to get this child into school’ rather than asking, what's wrong with this child, why can't she come, why isn't she wanting to come”
Professionals are consistently perceived by parents as delivering messages for Local Authorities focused on keeping costs as low as possible rather than focusing on best outcomes or the most appropriate setting for the child.
- “I sort of thought, they would be taking our daughter’s best interests and then you suddenly realise that they can't”
2. Financial Barriers
Socio-economic inequities mean that children from poorer backgrounds are less likely to gain appropriate school places. Parents who could afford private assessments and legal fees were more able to navigate to appropriate resources and challenge decisions. Those with less money and personal and educational confidence, reported that they did not feel able or equipped to ‘fight’ for their child to attend the most appropriate school. Our analysis suggests that this leads to inequality of opportunity for the children, and existing literature suggests that children with SEND from lower socio-economic backgrounds are less likely to attend school statistically (Menzies et al, 2016), and this could contribute to cumulative disadvantage over time (JFR.org.uk, 2023).
Parents reflected on financial and structural barriers to children or young people attending school or training, and identified the impact of this for their child and their child’s education. Many parents identified inequality between the experiences of families with and without financial and social resources, and suggested that navigating to support was a ‘game’ with exclusionary rules:
- “What was also apparent was the children who had parents who didn't have the wherewithal either financially or educationally or cognitively or emotionally to fight for their child, those children were short-changed compared to our own”
- “the system doesn't have the intelligence to offset early higher costs against lifetime expenditure”
- “everyone who works in special educational needs knows that it's a game and those who can afford to play the game well get the most points for their child”.
When young adults transition from child to adult services (16 years old for many services) transport is no longer paid for children to get to their educational setting. For many families this is inhibitive and means that their children are no longer able to attend school. This can be seen as contradictory to government plans to have high aspirations for every young person and ensure barriers to continuing in education are removed.
- “We were very happy with the school, there were no problems until she was 16, at which point she was no longer entitled to free transport. They [Local Authority] said, ‘we're not transporting her there anymore, you'll have to pay for that or you'll have to get her to and from college. It was suggested to us, one of us gives up our job in order to transport our child to and from the school… Her EHCP, clearly stated her [Specialist Setting], so that was legally binding. The local authority had to educate her at [Specialist Setting] but didn't have to transport her there…. She was then getting transport in a shared taxi with another child, which we paid for. This worked well even though both of them had slightly longer time in the taxi than they otherwise would have. We were then told that this was impossible because of the liability of transporting a child... we couldn't pay for her to travel in the same taxi as a child who is being paid for by the local authority without the local authority taking legal responsibility for anything that happened while she was in the taxi with this other child. Then we [heard], ‘yes she could go in the taxi with the other child, providing you make the parental contribution which is set at £460.00 a year’.”
3. Ineffective Inclusive Practice
Placement of children with SEND in mainstream settings can sometimes be a barrier to school attendance, if the school is not sufficiently equipped to meet the child’s needs. In our data, parents reported a sense of isolation for themselves and their child. There was a perceived lack of acceptance of difference and an understanding that inadequate funding and large class sizes meant that their children often felt excluded. The belief that their children are not being educationally supported and are socially excluded resulted in parents choosing to keep their child with SEND at home. Such ineffective inclusive practice can lead to poor relationships between family and school, lowering of children and young peoples’ self-esteem and self-confidence which can cause poor mental health (EEF, 2021). This can also lead to long-term poor attendance as the children travel through the education system.
- “there’s an image I wish I could shake forever from my mind: That glimpse through the classroom window, of Tom (whose hands didn’t work properly when it came to holding a pen) waving a picture printed from an ordinary colouring book at the ceiling, alone in the corner, while the rest of the class had a literacy lesson on the carpet”
- “he's just going through diagnosis of autism at the moment and he is extremely high functioning, what we would call Asperger’s really.,,, he is 13, but he almost didn't go back to school in September because he can't physically wear a mask ..and he goes on the school but actually, he would have a panic attack. But actually, it’s stuff like that because he looks completely normal and yet would have been really distressed...You just think, ‘well yeah, I think as a society we haven't yet got that empathy”
- “I remember one sports day when James ran in the opposite direction to everyone else, as in right the other field away, just thinking, this is the journey that you go on with a child with special needs, you always feel like you’re running in a different direction”
- “he was about 3 three years old at nursery. The nursery would call us… like the first thing is the exclusions. They would ring and say, ‘come and take him out of nursery,’ And then the behaviours, they were reporting to us that there's no eye contact, and there's no speech. He had started off speaking but then he just lost everything. It just became confusing, it escalated very quickly, to a point where Early Help were called in. For us I think, Early Help were a blessing because only then we could see the end of the process in that respect.”
Our data suggest that from parents’ perspectives, the roots of poor school attendance or non-attendance for children and young people with SEND often lies in the inadequate provision within school to ensure their child is safe, that their educational needs are met, and that parents are meaningfully involved in their child’s education. Economic and social disadvantage exacerbates adversity already faced by parents of children with SEND, and parents in this study experienced multiple barriers to securing appropriate provision and support for their child, feeling as though some parents could navigate the ‘rules of the game’ more easily than others, potentially perpetuating disadvantage.
Parents in this study want to:
- Feel valued
- Feel that the views of their child or they themselves as an adult matter
- More joined up working between education, health and care sectors, including parents being involved in meaningful ways in decisions about their child
Recommendations:
In addition, the government should consider:
- Working with mainstream schools within local communities, to provide alternative educational provision and thereby enable more children with SEND to attend educational settings within their local community, closer to their homes. This would enable greater access to education for all removing barriers to school attendance.
- Providing transport for pupils aged 16 – 25, to their specialist settings agreed within their EHCP.
- Involving parents (and their children where appropriate) more meaningfully in shaping policy and legislation that has an impact for children and young people with SEND. Working in this participatory way will lead to more sustainable solutions that remove barriers to school attendance and help children to stay in schools that are effectively meeting their needs.
Acknowledgments
This response has been prepared by Heather Green and Becky Edwards.
February 2023