The desire to improve parental choice lies at the centre of the government’s ambition to overhaul provision for children with special educational needs (SEN).
The aspiration to reform services has been applauded, with charities, parent campaigners
and providers backing the government’s assertion that the SEN system "often works against the wishes of families".
But a year on from the publication of the green paper Support and Aspiration: A New Approach to Special Educational Needs and Disability – and as the government sets out its next steps for delivering the reforms – there are questions about how barriers to parental choice will be overcome.
Philippa Stobbs, assistant director at the Council for Disabled Children, says parents are often denied a choice from the outset, since local schools are unable or reluctant to meet their child’s needs.
"Parents are seeking the relevant expertise to meet their child’s needs," she says. "If those needs are not being met locally, they will look elsewhere and keep looking until they do, which can be a long, hard struggle."
Equal choice
In the majority of cases, parents choose specialist independent sector SEN provision for their children.
But independent providers fear that the government’s reforms place too little emphasis on their role.
A spokeswoman for the Department for Education says parents will continue to be entitled to "make representations" to send their child to an independent or non-maintained special school, and to have those requests considered, adding: "We are not limiting choice".
But in a briefing published last month, the Children’s Services Development Group (CSDG) argued that children with the most complex needs could suffer unless parents are given an equal choice between state and independent provision.
Tommy MacDonald-Milner, spokesman for the CSDG and chief executive at education provider the Options Group, says conflict between local authorities and parents could increase, unless independent providers are better involved in the reforms.
"At the moment, a local authority may say that it can provide support through the state-funded sector, but the parent will look deeper and say that more specialist support is required from an independent provider," he says.
"The local authority can disagree and this is where tension arises."
According to the government, the expansion of academies and free schools will be central to improving choice for parents of children with SEN.
Specialist expertise
Jenny Thompson, senior lecturer in education studies at the University of Derby, is sceptical as to whether free schools are the solution to improving local provision.
She claims that any parent group hoping to set up a SEN free school would need to acquire a significant degree of in-depth specialist expertise.
She admits that "there is an argument that parents know their children and their needs", but she warns that parent-led SEN free schools would be hard to maintain in the long-term.
"The ideal should be that mainstream schools and existing special schools should be able to meet all local parents’ needs," she says.
The green paper pledges to improve the information that parents receive about local providers.
Una Summerson, policy officer at disability charity Contact a Family, says this information must include independent providers, so parents get a truly comprehensive picture of what is on offer in their local area.
But the real problem is that too many schools are either reluctant or poorly equipped to take children with special educational needs.
"Parents need to be properly informed and that means having access to information about all providers, whether they are independent or state-funded," she explains. "But unless all schools are willing and happy to take all children, then parents do not have any real choice."
CASE STUDY: THE STROWGER FAMILY
When Amanda Strowger was searching for a secondary school for her autistic son Zak, who is now 15, she admits she faced a limited choice near their home in Suffolk.
"We looked at the schools and came to the conclusion that the only one that was suitable was Farlingaye High School, Woodbridge, because of its excellent special educational needs unit. I also spoke to the special educational needs co-ordinator there and was very confident that this was a school that listened to parents," says Amanda.
To ensure they could secure a place at the school, the family took the step of moving into its catchment area.
Two years on, Amanda is happy with the support Zak receives, but looking back she wishes more information about all the local choices had been made available.
"There was no central place or website I could use. For example, it was only afterwards that we found out about Beacon Hill [a special school in Ipswich]," she says.
She is calling for a national "one-stop shop" service where parents can access information about disability support, including a list of local providers and, crucially, the quality of the SEN support they offer.
Contact a Family, the charity Amanda volunteers for, offers a national helpline for families. Although this is unable to give parents a list of all local providers in terms of SEN support, it does offer advice on questions they should ask education providers.
