Hundreds of children with SEN missing from education – analysis

“For every student that comes with any EHCP, that’s an extra resource of a good couple of weeks on a member of staff that we don’t have,” Mrs Baker said.

“So we have to be really creative and work closely with our families to make sure that child gets the support they really need.”

But only a fraction of SEN children get an EHCP – plans which are funded by local authorities.

Some parents even go to tribunals to secure one, with many local authorities forecasting large shortfalls in their SEN budgets.

According to a survey by the charity Support Send Kids, 41% of parents with SEN children say they have had to leave their jobs to spend time pursuing their children’s legal rights to support.

However, even those with an EHCP can struggle to find specialist school places and often cannot be provided for in mainstream education.

The children’s commissioner’s data suggested 13,100 children had left the state education system during the period between the spring terms of 2022 and 2023, and had subsequently been taught at home. Nearly one in three of those were SEN children.

Stephanie Darrah quit her job in December last year and moved her family from Staffordshire to Norfolk after her seven-year-old son Glen, who was diagnosed with autism and has an EHCP, struggled to fit in with mainstream schooling.

Glen is now taking part in an outdoor education placement and receives nine hours of tutoring per week but is still without a permanent school place.

She said children had been failed by a lack of funding but added that there were a “lot of great people out there fighting the system from within and doing their best to support these kids”.