When will children with autism stop missing out on education?

Rather quietly this week – three years on from the publication of the special educational needs and disability green paper, Support and Aspiration – the Children and Families Bill finally received royal assent and passed into law. 
 
I suspect there were sighs of relief across Westminster and Whitehall, after what’s been a long slog for officials and parliamentarians alike. But there is growing anxiety among parents and professionals about what the act’s reforms will mean in reality.
 
We all know the real work starts here: turning this legislation into better lives for young people with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities. We await the guidance that will interpret the act into everyday action with bated breath. It has a big job to do to clarify the legal duties for professionals, and reassure families their support will be bolstered through these reforms, rather than attacked.
 
The act has been hailed as delivering “the biggest reforms to the special educational needs system for a generation” and is intended to create “a more effective, transparent and accountable system of support for children and young people with special educational needs”. The act certainly takes a step forward by creating a holistic 0-25 system for the first time, rather than cutting off young people's chances by moving to an entirely separate system when they reach 18. But will it change the most basic injustice: that 70 years on from the introduction of universal education in 1944, children with autism are still missing out on their fundamental right to go to school?
 
Research conducted by Ambitious about Autism revealed four in 10 children with autism have been illegally excluded from school during a 12-month period. It also found 20 per cent of children with autism had been formally excluded, and half of parents said they kept their children out of school for fear the school was unable to provide appropriate support.
 
This is why Ambitious about Autism launched the Ruled Out campaign last month. We have heard from far too many parents whose child has been sent home from school because staff didn’t know how to support them. One parent told us she was asked to collect her son “because a fly was bothering him”. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so unfair.
 
We know that many schools can and do support pupils with autism fantastically well and many children with autism benefit from attending a local school alongside their peers. Making sure children with autism get the specialist support they need is vital and this is why Ruled Out calls for every school to have access to a specialist autism teacher; every local authority sets out in its local offer what support is available in its area to ensure children with autism have access to quality full-time education; and for every family of a child with autism to know their educational rights.
 
When 40 per cent of children with autism are missing out on full-time education we cannot claim to have a system of SEN support that works. Whether or not the government’s reforms tackle this issue will be a critical test for whether the reforms have achieved their aims.
 
Kate Williams is head of policy and public affairs at Ambitious about Autism

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