Written evidence from J McGrath (SEN 96)

Education Committee

Solving the SEND Crisis

I am an ex teacher who worked as a teacher across EYFS, KS1 and KS2, in a schools in Bristol, between 2010 – 2023.

My experience as a teacher is that the job was always hard. Providing the right provision for children with SEND was always challenging and getting to the point where you could truly help the children in your class with SEND was always an uphill battle. However, this was part of the job and something worth fighting for as it was imperative for the child, for the other children in the class and for me to be able to do my job effectively. It wasn’t easy but it was certainly accomplishable and most definitely rewarding.

Unfortunately, in the last 5 years, the ability to get the provision needed to truly help children with SEND and their families has seriously diminished. It is no longer the case that ‘getting somewhere’ is accomplishable.

The first problem is that budgets have been dramatically cut. This means that teachers and TA’s have been stretched to breaking point trying to deliver a curriculum without the staff and resources to do so. Having an overwhelming amount of children in a classroom with SEND needs the resources to cope with this. This includes manpower. It is impossible to deliver a curriculum when there are children with complex needs who don’t have support. I’ve been in too many situations where I’ve been teaching 30 children, my TA has been pulled to cover a different class and I have had children with SEND becoming violently disruptive. I’ve had to evacuate classrooms and call for help. I’ve seen children become hurt and I’ve been hurt. This situation would have been exceptional 10+ years ago. If there were violent children in a classroom, the teacher wouldn’t be left alone. A child with violent tendencies would be supported, even without an EHCP. Now, it happens all the time.

My experience with the Bristol local authority hasn’t been very positive. For instance, our SENDCO was once asked to deliver training material to us entitled ‘quality first teaching’ which basically relayed to us that if we were good enough teachers we could cope with every child and all children could make progress. This was soul destroying, especially considering situations like the one I’ve detailed above. The LA says it is overwhelmed with applications for help with SEND so they need to be better staffed to deal with the numbers. They can’t turn it round and point fingers at the teachers not being good enough. It shows real lack of understanding for the real situations within schools. The benchmarks for receiving an EHCP are also constantly changing. Not only does it take a really long time (18 months +) to see an EP or OT for example, the LA has at times claimed that children can’t receive support at the moment as their family situation doesn’t make the threshold. For instance, if parents are coping then they can’t be considered for an EHCP. I firmly disagree with this from a parents’ perspective, all parents deserve support regardless of their circumstances. However from a schools’ perspective this is a serious misjudgement. Just because a child with SEND can cope at home when they are with a competent caregiver, has no bearing on whether they are able to cope at school. It’s an entirely different situation and shouldn’t be considered when it comes to an EDUCATIONAL health care plan. What’s more, the paperwork we need to fill in to capture evidence and detail our provision is needlessly complex, repetitive and very time consuming. It acts as a deterrent to teachers seeking help, rather than a tool to receive the help a child needs.

It’s also an issue that teachers and SENDCO’s have less authority over the needs of a child with SEND, than a professional who sees them once or a few times at most. So many times, I’ve had a child visited by an EP or SALT who has not picked up on the child’s complexities as they only have a very small snapshot of them. However, their word when it comes to receiving an EHCP somehow means more. Teachers and SENDCO’s spend hours with individual children with educational needs every day, however their reports seem to carry a lot less weight when it comes to receiving an EHCP. I also feel as if health care professionals do not respect the work that teachers and SENDCO’s do and there’s a real lack of understanding of our job role. I have had an EP describe herself as being ‘parachuted in’, as if she was coming to save the day. When, in reality, she was needed for a signature on a piece of paperwork so that I could get the provision I needed to help a child. I wasn’t floundering, I was doing my job.

The final issue I wish to bring to your attention is that of the changing ratios when children move from nursery to reception. When the ratios are higher in nursery, children with SEND are supported well as there are more adults to give support. Unfortunately, this means that nursery staff are less likely to submit paperwork to help support children with SEND. Nursery staff are in the prime position to notice when children have SEND but don’t necessarily proceed with paperwork as they cope better due to their ratios. When it takes so long for paperwork to be processed, this culture of ‘coping’ needs to stop. Nursery staff must become more forward thinking to support the reception teachers and TA’s who will have these children in a far less supported environment (ratios of 15:1). When they don’t, it leads to a reception classroom where teachers aren’t prepared for the level of need. When paperwork takes 18 months or so to process, the essential manpower just isn’t there. It’s an unfair situation to put reception teachers in. I do understand that nurseries are under immense pressure at the moment and want to highlight that this issue can only be resolved by nursery staff having the time and training to do said paperwork.

The paperwork that teachers are expected to complete to get anywhere with the LA is arduous, unnecessarily complex and uncomprehensive. The ‘Bristol Support Plan’ makes such little sense to the parents I’d have to share it with that I’m almost sure that it was set as a deterrent.

January 2025