Hope for progress on improving special needs education with new blueprint for Bristol

-Credit:Amanda Cameron
-Credit:Amanda Cameron


A new blueprint for special needs education in Bristol has sparked hope that the city can start improving support for disabled children. For years Bristol has suffered severe problems with special educational needs and disabilities, but councillors hope the city is now turning a corner.

More than 13,000 children and young people in Bristol have special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). This includes struggling to learn, communicate and manage emotions, as well as physical disabilities and hearing and visual impairments.

Over 10,000 pupils receive SEND support, while 2,877 have an education, health and care plan (EHCP), and numbers are rising. Bristol City Council has set out a new SEND strategy, covering its plans for the next four years to improve this support and deal with the increasing demand.

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The strategy was approved by councillors on the children and young people policy committee on Thursday, January 23. Dan, who didn’t give his surname, volunteers for the Listening Partnership run by the West of England Centre for Inclusive Living, and spoke about the plan.

He said: “As a group of disabled young people we’ve been working hard to make sure our voices are heard and our views are part of the conversation shaping the SEND strategy. We took time to look at how other local authorities approach their SEND visions, discussed them among ourselves and then shared our thoughts on what would best support us.”

Another unnamed member of the Listening Partnership added: “What’s most important to us is that this strategy isn’t just put together and then forgotten about. We want to make sure that the voices of young people, particularly disabled young people, are never lost in this process.

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“We want our input to remain at the heart of everything that happens next. Our hope is that this strategy marks the beginning of a lasting partnership where our voices always matter.”

Ofsted found “significant areas of weaknesses” in Bristol’s SEND provision in 2019 in a damning report. Inspectors returned in 2022 to check on progress in improving these areas, one of which that stuck out was the broken relationship between parents, carers and the council. But there are early signs this relationship is beginning to improve, and the strategy pledges to go further.

Liberal Democrat Councillor Sarah Classick said: “There does seem to be a real improvement in the relationship between the council and parents. I hope we see a reduction in parents coming to us, desperate at the situation with their children. I really hope that this strategy is a starting point in seeing a genuine drastic reduction in that.”

The top priority of the strategy is identifying and assessing children’s needs more quickly, and reducing the time families wait for assessments. Many families currently face long delays in getting an EHCP, with some battling the council in court to get one. The latest figures show only three per cent of new plans were finalised within the legal deadline of 20 weeks.

Demand for EHCP assessments was already rising in Bristol, and this has been exacerbated by a decision last year to cut the budget for supporting SEND pupils, known as “top-up funding”. The latest figures, from last November, show that 1,183 children are waiting for an assessment, almost double the number from November 2023.

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Another key pillar of the strategy is creating new specialist school places, with 95 new places due to open this September. Extra focus will be put on making mainstream places more inclusive for SEND pupils too. Details of how all the priorities will be achieved are included in an action plan, which hasn’t been published yet.

However, not everybody was optimistic about the new strategy. Jen Smith is a SEND mother whose social media was monitored by the council after several critical posts, sparking cross-party calls for an inquiry.

She said: “Since 2018 there’s been around six cabinet leads for education, five executive directors responsible for education, and five directors of education. This will be the second SEND strategy during this time; the previous one was a catastrophic failure. The launch of the new strategy is being lauded as an exciting beacon of hope.

“This might be fun for the council but it’s not fun for the families waiting a year for EHCPs, those getting stitched up for transport bills, and those whose children are still missing education. We have 18-year-olds in Bristol who cannot read or write, through either neglect or a lack of access to education - it’s diabolical and completely shameful.

“Bristol has missing children, illiterate young adults and pupils pushed to self-harming and wanting to end their own life. But as long as the council pays over a grand for some fancy illustrations, it’s a tick-box job done.”

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Despite the recent turmoil among education bosses in Bristol, the current politician in charge promised to stay in her position for much longer. While SEND support is in crisis nationally, she also admitted Bristol’s problems predated this.

Green Councillor Christine Townsend, chair of the children’s committee, said: “I intend to be in this position until I’m kicked out by my peers, so there’s some stability. I’m hoping that the senior officers we have in place now feel that they want to stay, and that they have the support at the political level that I feel has been inconsistent over the last few years.

“We can only pick up what’s in front of us and take it forward in the best way that we can, within the constraints that are put in front of us. I’m sure we’ll get some of it right and we’ll get some of it wrong, but I really hope that we take it forward.”

Funding remains a glaring issue in Bristol and beyond. The council is still waiting for the government to clarify plans for addressing the growing deficits in special needs education. The former government’s plans to bail out Bristol and many other councils, known as the Safety Valve deal, will be challenged in court later this month, due to a lack of public consultation.

Last October, the government announced an extra £1 billion for SEND support, which means Bristol has received a seven per cent increase in funding for its high needs block in schools. Despite this, and the bailout, Bristol’s deficit continues to spiral. There also remains a dire national shortage of educational psychologists, who play a key role in granting EHCPs.