The deeply uncomfortable truth about many special educational needs children that few people want to talk about, by DR MAX PEMBERTON

There’s a crisis brewing in our schools, and it’s not what you think. Yes, buildings are collapsing, music and art teachers are being laid off, physical education budgets are being cut, and class sizes are swelling.

But behind all this lies a deeply disturbing truth that few people want to talk about: a significant portion of the money that should be spent on educating all children is being usurped by the special educational needs system, which is increasingly being manipulated by sharp-elbowed middle-class parents.

A report published last week by think tank Policy Exchange reveals what many people working in children’s services have suspected for some time. SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) spending has increased by 58.5 per cent in real terms over the last six years; There was a larger increase (65 percent) in rich local governments compared to poor areas, which increased by 51 percent.

Seven of the ten councils that saw the biggest increases were in the wealthiest areas such as Hampshire, Kent and Surrey.

Half of new school funding since 2015 has been spent on SEND. Let that sink in. Half.

Almost one in five children in England are now classed as having SEND needs and the number of EHCPs (Education, Health and Care Plans) has more than doubled since 2015.

An EHCP is specialized to the needs of each child but may also include extra supports such as one-to-one teaching assistants, specialized learning materials and speech and language therapy.

Councils spend more than £2.6 billion a year on special school places for SEND children alone; this figure has increased by 106 percent since 2018.

Now I want to be very clear. There are children with severe and severe special educational needs who desperately need support. Children with severe autism, significant learning disabilities and complex physical needs.

These children and their families deserve every penny of funding and then some. The system is there for them but it is failing them. That’s the problem.

The reality is that SEND professionals are being overwhelmed by a wave of referrals from articulate, well-resourced parents who know how to work the system. I’ve seen this pattern play out again and again in my own mental health field.

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services are chronically overstretched, but colleagues tell me they are overwhelmed not with the children who are most seriously ill, but with the children whose parents are most persistent in demanding they be seen.

Kids from chaotic homes, deprived backgrounds, families where no one knew how to navigate the system? They fall through the cracks.

Part of the problem is that some middle-class parents fail to accept that their children may not be that smart, that social, or that talented. When two successful, high-achieving parents give birth to a distinctly average child, the idea that their responsibilities are mundane is unacceptable. There must be something wrong.

There must be a reason why he’s not at the top of his class. And so begins a frantic search for a diagnosis, a label, or something that explains why their child is not even what they expected.

It is not possible for every child to be exceptional. Diagnosing ADHD is much easier than admitting that your child finds math difficult because math is difficult.

What makes this worse is the tendency for parents to bypass the usual means of assessment altogether by going completely private. NHS waiting lists for autism and ADHD assessments can stretch for years.

A BBC Panorama investigation in 2023 revealed how some private clinics were diagnosing ADHD following rushed online consultations. A senior NHS psychiatrist told the program that almost everyone who paid for private assessment was diagnosed.

Of course, there is a clear financial incentive for private clinics to do this: Parents pay the clients, and what they pay for is the diagnosis. No diagnosis, no rework.

Once parents are equipped with the specific diagnosis they can use it to support their EHCP application.

Local authorities are legally obliged to take into account private reports and many parents know this.

So they employ SEND consultants and commission independent educational psychologist reports for over £1,000 each time, and if the council says no, they appeal to the SEND Tribunal.

It requires money, trust and time; the kinds of resources that affluent, entitled families have and that families in deprived communities do not.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned that the SEND system is financially unsustainable.

Cumulative council deficits could exceed £8bn by 2027. This is money that isn’t spent on fixing leaking roofs, hiring teaching assistants, funding school counselors, or keeping music departments afloat.

Something needs to change. The government’s independent review of mental health, ADHD and autism services, launched in December, is a start.

But nothing will improve unless we are honest about who is actually driving demand and why.

James’ wisdom on grief

The death of James Van Der Beek last week, aged just 48, was heartbreaking. The Dawson’s Creek star and father of six had been battling colon cancer for two years before passing away in hospice.

James Van Der Beek with his wife Kimberley in 2019

Van Der Beek left behind his wife and six children

But what impressed me the most was that a video he shot in 2023 after his death went viral. In it, she speaks poignantly about grief, marking the third anniversary of the death of her mother, Melinda. His advice is simple, wise and, in my opinion, clinically sound. ‘Be prepared for this process to mean zero,’ he said.

One of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to grief is to expect it to follow a steady path and get better each day. But pain doesn’t work that way. You can be fine for weeks, then a song, a smell, someone laughing completely knocks you out. The most important thing you can do is what Van Der Beek suggests: allow.

Motor Neurone Disease is one of the most brutal diseases that gradually destroys the nerve cells that control movement and leads to paralysis. There is no cure. But two game-changing discoveries announced last week by UK-based biotechnology company Vesalic may offer real hope.

The first is a blood test that can detect MND with a high level of accuracy, and the second is about how toxins damage motor neurons in the brain. Scientists are now developing antibodies to combat this.