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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Jedidajah Otte

‘The worst it’s ever been’: teachers decry Send crisis in England’s schools

Teaching assistant talking to pupils in a classroom.
Parents and teachers said mainstream schools had no hope of supporting the growing number of children with special needs. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

“The Send [Special educational needs and disabilities] system is broken: completely and irrevocably,” said David Wilson, a deputy headteacher at an inner-city Manchester primary school where there are between six and 10 children with Send in each classroom. “This impacts everyone – children with and without special needs.”

Wilson, who spent eight years of his career as a Senco [special educational needs coordinator], was among hundreds of people who shared their experience of SEN provision in the UK. Parents, teachers and Send specialists from across the country overwhelmingly agreed that things had become the worst they had ever been.

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