Inclusion Now 69

The Children and Families Act 2014 Ten Years On

Is Government Working Against the Presumption of Mainstream Education?
By Edmore Masendeke, ALLFIE’s Policy and Research Lead

Image: Edmore Masendeke, Author. Close-up shot of Edmore, a Black man, smiling at the camera.

This year marks the 10th Anniversary of the Children and Families Act 2014. The Act introduced the ‘presumption of mainstream education’, requiring local authorities to ensure that Disabled children and Young people, including those labelled with special education needs, are educated in mainstream settings. The Act also replaced statements of Special Education Needs (statements of SEN) with Education, Health and Care plans (EHC plans). This reform was intended to ensure that Disabled children and Young people receive more holistic assessments and support from local authorities, the National Health Services and other stakeholders. Together, these provisions should have improved Disabled children and Young people’s access to education and their experiences in mainstream settings.

On the contrary, today, ten years on, too many Disabled children and Young people are structurally and systematically excluded from mainstream schools. Some mainstream schools do not even have the resources or desire to include Disabled children and Young people. Meanwhile, the Government has failed to adequately support the education of Disabled children and Young people in mainstream settings. It has also failed to address the intersectional experiences of Disabled children and Young people, resulting in further marginalisation. This has been highlighted in ALLFIEs recent research on lived experiences of Black and Global Majority Disabled pupils in education. In fact, many of the Government’s actions over the past ten years appear as though it is working against the ‘presumption of mainstream education’. Is it?

Since 2014, when the Act came into force, more special schools have been built, the proportion of pupils labelled SEND (special education needs and disabilities) attending special schools, alternative provisions or excluded from mainstream education has grown and SEND budgets have reduced in real terms. In addition, Disabled children and Young people have been driven out of mainstream schools due to reasons such as league tables and inaccessible curriculum and assessment techniques. This article discusses how each of these issues has contributed to Disabled children and Young people’s exclusion from mainstream settings.

As I discuss these issues, it is also important to remember that this year marks the 30th anniversary of the Salamanca Statement on Inclusion in Education. The Salamanca Statement recognised that all children should be included in mainstream education settings: “All children should learn together, wherever possible, regardless of any difficulties or differences they may have. Inclusive schools must recognise and respond to the diverse needs of their students.” This was a clear call for countries around the world to adopt more inclusive education systems.

Building New Special Schools and Increasing Alternative Provisions

The drive to build new special schools began before the Children and Families Act 2014 was enacted. The Government has opened 108 new special schools since 2010 and plans to open another 93 in the future. Thus, the Government continues to invest continues to invest in the construction and maintenance of special schools, having made a commitment to invest £2.6 billion for local authorities to open 133 new free special schools between 2022 and 2025. In May 2024, the Government announced the opening of 16 new special schools for over 2,000 Disabled children.

In addition to more pupils attending special schools, a growing number of Disabled children and Young people are attending alternative provisions or being excluded from mainstream education. Disabled children and Young people are overrepresented among those in Pupil Referral Units (PRUs) and Education Other Than at School (EOTAS). Additionally, there were 1,260 pupils with EHCPs of compulsory school age not in education and more than 15,000 Young people with EHCPs were not in education, employment, or training (NEET). This data needs to be approached with care as it does not cover all children and Young people labelled with SEND. It just covers those with EHCPs, representing about a third of them.

Resourcing Issues for EHC Plans

Inadequate funding for the implementation of the 2014 legislation has been an issue from the start. Although the age range of Disabled children and Young people to be supported by local and health authorities (through EHC plans) was broadened from 3-16 to 0-25, the SEND budget remained the same until five years later. The Act also shifted responsibility for resourcing of SEN support from local authorities to schools, reducing the support available in mainstream schools, particularly for children and Young people without EHC plans. Consequently, demand for EHC plans have increased in recent years as it has become the only way for some children and Young people to access support in mainstream settings.

In the analysis of the Department for Education’s (DfE’s) latest annual statistical summary of Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) in England, Matt Keer noted that:

  • The number of children and Young people labelled with SEND who get support through a statutory plan has more than doubled since the SEND reforms were launched in September 2014.
  • In mid-January 2024, there were 575,963 active EHCPs, 11% more than last year.
  • In the first few years after the 2014 reforms, most of this growth was down to the expansion of plans in the post-16 sector. These days, the growth is largest amongst school-aged children – not just in primary, but also in secondary too.

Keer also noted that the number of pupils with EHC plans grew faster in mainstream schools than in special schools in 2023. In January 2024, the number of pupils with EHCPs in mainstream schools rose by 17% on the previous year, while the number of pupils with EHCPs in special schools rose by 8% on the previous year. The growth in demand for EHC plans among school-aged children can thus be partially attributed to the dwindling state of SEN support in mainstream schools and the creation of new state special school placements.

Systemic Issues

Due to inadequate funding from the Government, most local authorities have financial deficits in their overall education budgets – known as Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) – and are failing to meet the rising demand for EHC plans and to provide support to Disabled children and Young people with EHC plans. The Department for Education (DfE) forces local authorities with the largest DSG deficits to address their spending through the Safety Valve and the Delivering Better Value programmes. These programmes require local authorities to cut spending on SEND provisions and reduce the number of EHC plans approvals. This is concerning as the number of children and Young people with EHC plans is rising and local authorities are already failing to meet this demand. Keer noted that local authorities receiving support under these programmes were slightly more likely to refuse than other local authorities and almost all of them had higher EHC needs assessment refusal rates in January 2024 than they did the previous year. Related to this, a report by Pro Bono Economics revealed that more than £60m of public funds was spent on SEND tribunals between 2021 to 2022 and councils lost 96% of these court disputes. These funds could have been used to support more children and Young people with EHC plans in mainstream settings instead.

Driving Disabled children and Young people out of mainstream settings

Over the past decade, mainstream schools have also become less welcoming and more hostile to Disabled children and Young people as they strive to improve standards. Schools have increasingly faced a lot of pressure to maintain their status on league tables, including through reducing absenteeism levels after COVID-19. This has led to increased exclusions/off-rolling (removing a pupil from school without using permanent exclusion, when this is in the interests of the school rather than the best interests of the pupil) of Disabled children and Young people. These practices contradict the child’s human right to education under both domestic law and international treaties, such as the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

Another factor that has contributed to Disabled children and Young people’s exclusion from mainstream settings is the curriculum and how it is assessed. The curriculum is inaccessible, linear and focused on equipping pupils for productivity and international competitiveness. This is what is behind the Government’s plan to replace A levels and T levels with a Baccalaureate-style qualification called the Advanced British Standard in England. The introduction of this qualification is thus likely to worsen the exclusion of Disabled children and Young people in education.

Education for All

Ensuring education for all in mainstream settings promotes social justice, citizenship, and equity for Disabled children and Young people.  Over the past decade, efforts to ensure that Disabled children and Young people are educated in mainstream settings have been hampered by increased investment in special school places, less spending on support and the failure of mainstream schools to be inclusive. This has clearly undermined the ‘presumption to mainstream education’ enshrined in the Children and Families Act 2014 and, more importantly, goes against Article 24 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which the UK Government ratified in 2009.

More…

Image description There are three Disabled people in the scene, and the cartoon is a strip of five images. Person 1 is a white woman with glasses, wearing a purple top and seated in a wheelchair. She has orange hair tied at the back with a red hair band. Person 2 is a white man wearing a yellow top. He had brown hair. Person 3 is a Black woman wearing a pink top. She has black hair. Image text Image 1 Person 1: Did you know that it’s the tenth anniversary of the Children and Families Act (2014)? Person 2: Is that the one where they introduced the ‘presumption of mainstream education’ for Disabled children and Young people? Person 3: Yep, along with a more ‘holistic assessment’ and support Image 2 Person 2: So what went wrong? Image 3 Person 1: Well, 10 years on and we’re still being systematically excluded from mainstream schools… Image 4 Person 3: Driven away by League Tables and inaccessible curriculum! Image 5 Person 1: In fact, many of the government’s actions are working against the 2014 Act! Person 3: Along with them having built 108 new special schools over the past 10 years! Person 2: What?!

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