Councils are making life-changing decisions over which children receive places in special schools based on the narrowest of margins, according to the father of identical twins with special needs who were awarded just one school place between them.
Twins Jasper and Reuben, five, were diagnosed as autistic from the age of three and were issued education, health and care plans (EHCPs). But when their parents applied for them to start at Hob Moor Oaks special school in September, they were stunned to learn that only Jasper was offered a place by City of York council, leaving Reuben to attend a nearby mainstream primary.
After almost a year of appeals and legal action, the council made a place for Reuben too, and he has now joined his twin brother at Hob Moor Oaks. But their father, Pete Hale, said the experience was draining and revealed the pressure that local authorities were under.
“There’s a series of milestones that two-year-olds are expected to hit, and that was the main red flag that they weren’t developing as typical two-year-olds would. They didn’t have any words then and they are still non-verbal,” Hale said.
“At that age you’re living in the hope that they will catch up. You go around thinking they will be all right in a mainstream school, and you’re the last person to realise that they won’t. When you finally make that decision that a special school is the best place for them, it’s a very difficult decision for a parent to take and it’s not something you take lightly at that age.
“Then you take that really difficult decision, you find that the places aren’t there. We got a phone call to say that one’s got a place and one hasn’t. It’s bonkers. These are twins that no one can tell apart, and one of them was going to have a lot more support than the other.
“It shows how desperate the situation is for parents. If you’ve got 120 applications that are all anonymised and you’re using them to decide who gets 25 places, then you’re talking very, very fine margins that they are having to draw to make that distinction and justify who gets a place.
“If you take Reuben and Jasper’s names off, then goodness knows how many children of a similar profile to Reuben are missing out by the finest of margins, by one word or something like that, because they simply haven’t got the places.”
Martin Kelly, the director of children and education at City of York council, said: “While it would not be appropriate to discuss individual children and families, we are able to confirm that places at Hob Moor Oaks [school] are limited. Allocations for the limited places are made on the basis of greatest need.
“In York, as across the country, the number of children with special education needs has increased significantly in recent years and our focus is on improving the breadth of provision in the city to meet the changing needs of our children and young people. While additional, specialist provision has been created over the last 18 months there remains an increasing demand for specialist support.
“We are ambitious about improving outcomes for all our children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities in York, while recognising the pressures created by increased demand and funding constraints.”
