🔗 Share this article

For ages, I was eager to create a documentary about special educational needs and disabilities.

You might know me as my EastEnders role, but I am equally a mother to an autistic child diagnosed with dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Required many months of determination and effort from my husband and I to secure the right education for him. At times, it felt like a struggle.

This is the reason I wanted to create this documentary, so I could meet other parents experiencing the similar situation, and speak to teachers, local authorities, and the government about how Send children are supported in the UK.

Understanding Send in England

There are more than 1.7 million young people in the country with Send. This represents a wide-ranging group, including autistic children and individuals who struggle with speech and language, have attention disorders, and mobility issues, among other conditions.

Schools in England do offer assistance to these pupils, but if families think their son or daughter requires additional support, they can apply to their council for an EHCP.

An Education, Health and Care Plan is a vital legal document because it is enforceable by law, specifies where a pupil should attend, and outlines how much additional help they should get.

My husband and I spent hours filling in the application forms to apply for an plan, and numerous parents find the procedure very frustrating.

Buddy and Tunde

Not long after I encounter 15-year-old Buddy, he presents his favourite stuffed animal, his comfort object.

Buddy's autistic, meaning his brain experiences and responds to the world in a different way from many people's. He faces difficulties in socializing his own age, managing his feelings, and nervousness. Buddy likes to keep his toy close to him.

Following their move to London from north of the border in October 2024, Buddy's mum, the parent, started applying for schools. She says she tried at least 11 schools, but many of them failed to respond, and the ones that replied said they were full or could not give her son extra support without an EHCP.

At the start of the current year, over 638,000 EHCPs had been granted to children and young people in the country, a 10.8% rise on the year before and an substantial growth in six years.

This rise is in part because parents and schools have got better at identifying pupils who have special educational needs, especially autism spectrum disorder, as rather than there being an increase with Send.

This marks the repeat Buddy and Tunde have applied for an EHCP. Their first application was turned down before he was evaluated. Councils reject about a quarter of requests at the evaluation phase, according to official figures.

During their time in Scotland, the mother says they were not required to apply for the equivalent of an EHCP. Buddy's secondary school provided assistance for his academic needs, but not for his emotional needs.

The Scottish system has a alternative approach for helping children with Send; schools there aim to offer more support without the requirement for parents to apply for the similar of an plan.

"It's chaotic," she says. "[Getting extra support] was straightforward, and it could be simple to repeat."

While Buddy is not able to go to school, the council is offering him with nearly 20 hours of tuition per week in the local library.

The mother tells me the procedure of applying for an plan has been so demanding she had to pause her career as a midwife and health visitor for a time.

"I am unable to manage my duties. I cannot take him to these appointments, and work at the same time… I couldn't secure appointments for my child in the appropriate timeframe and attend to other people's babies in the necessary period. It became a difficult choice - and he prevailed," she comments.

We catch up with Buddy after a lengthy communication evaluation.

"Draining… that's all I have for you," he remarks as he rests on a barrier, his toy tucked under his arm.

A School for the Teenager

As autumn begins and while countless children start term, Buddy is continuing to be educated in the public library. Two months after I first met him, he's getting an Education, Health and Care Plan but his education is still not settled.

The council approved the mother's appeal that he attend an independently run school that works with pupils who struggle in mainstream schools.

Prior to Buddy can begin there, the institution has assumed responsibility for the sessions he receives in the library. But Tunde's currently uncertain the school will be able to provide what she believes her child needs to improve his social skills and self-assurance with peers his own age.

"We were all prepared for the start of term… and he remains without a school place, he's still having individual instruction," she stated.

"I think … getting ready to be with other kids and then still only having solo with instructors has set him back and made him not want to go to school."

The local authority says it takes the family's worries with utmost importance and it will continue to support her family to ensure they obtain the provision they require without additional waiting.

Officials note it understands how hard it can be for parents to navigate the process, and how upsetting holdups in securing support can be.

It says it has invested in a dedicated information and advice service, and currently guarantees pupils are assessed by expert educators at the earliest stage, and it is open to reassessing the situation when families are worried about education placements.

Existing Framework is Failing

I know there is a different perspective to this story.

The huge rise in the quantity of EHCPs is putting councils under intense budgetary strain. It is estimated that UK local governments are set to accumulate a combined special needs shortfall between £4.3bn and £4.9bn by spring 2026.

The government states it has committed a significant sum to assist authorities fund plans and further investment on new Send school places.

I traveled to West Sussex County Council to speak with one of few people in local government prepared to talk to me publicly about Send funding.

The councillor is a Conservative councillor and cabinet member for education and youth.

"Today's framework is in fact very adversarial. Our parents are more and more tired and worried and frustrated of fighting… Employee absence rates are really, really high at the present time," she says.

"The current system doesn't work. It has failed. It's not delivering the optimal results for students."

Demand for plans is now outstripping resources in West Sussex. In a decade ago, the council had about 3,400 pupils with an EHCP. Today there are more than 10,000.

As a result the Send deficit has been growing annually, so that at the conclusion of the fiscal year it stands at more than £123m.

"That [money] is primarily intended for community resources. {That would have|