Special educational needs children ‘segregated and left to struggle in wrong schools to save money’
Children with special educational needs are being “segregated” and left to struggle in the wrong schools because councils are trying to “save on costs”, parents have told Sky News.
Maire Leigh Wilson, whose four-year-old son has Down’s syndrome, says she “shudders to think” where he would be now had she not been in a “constant battle” with her council.
“I think he would probably just be at the back of a classroom, running around with no support and no ability to sign or communicate,” she said.
Mrs Leigh Wilson wanted her son Aidan to go to a mainstream school with additional specialist support, but her council, who decide what is known as a child’s Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP), wanted him to attend a special school.
The number of EHCPs being appealed by parents has risen “massively”, according to education barrister Alice De Coverley.
She said councils are struggling to meet the volume of demand with “stretched budgets”, and parents are also more aware of their ability to appeal.
Mrs De Coverley said more than 90% of tribunals are won by parents, in part because councils do not have the resources to fight their cases.
She said, in her experience, parents of children with special educational needs will put “anything on the line, their homes, their jobs”.
On whether she thinks the system is rigged against parents, Mrs De Coverley said: “I’m not sure it’s meant to be. But I think that parents are certainly finding it very tough.”
She added the number of “unlawful decisions” being made by local authorities means parents who can afford it are being “utterly burnt out” by legal challenges.
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Maire Leigh Wilson with her son, Aiden, four
Mrs Leigh Wilson’s case was resolved before making it to court.
Her council, Hounslow in southwest London, said they complete more than four in five new EHCPs within the statutory 20-week timescale, twice the national average.
Hounslow Council said they “put families at the heart of decision-making” and young people in the area with special educational needs and disabilities achieve, on average, above their peers nationally.
They admitted there are areas of their offer “that need to be further improved” and they are “working closely with families as a partnership”.
“We have a clear and credible plan to achieve this, and we can see over the last 18 months where we have focused our improvement work, the real benefits of an improved experience for children, young people, and their families,” a Hounslow Council spokesman said.
He added the council had seen the number of EHCPs double in the last decade and they “share parents’ frustrations amid rising levels of national demand, and what’s widely acknowledged as a broken SEND system”.
Emma Dunville wanted her son, Albie, to go to a special school but the council took too long to assess him
Emma Dunville, a friend of Mrs Leigh Wilson whose son also has Down’s syndrome, describes her experience trying to get the right education provision for her child as “exhausting mentally and physically”.
She said: “For the rest of his life we’ll be battling, battling, battling, everything is stacked up against you.”
Unlike Mrs Leigh Wilson, Mrs Dunville wanted her son Albie to go to a special school, but she had to wait more than a year for an assessment with an education psychologist to contribute to the council’s decision, which meant she missed the deadline for an EHCP.
“The people making these decisions just don’t see that all children with Down’s syndrome are totally different and can’t be seen as the same.”
The guidelines are that if there are not enough local authority-employed education psychologists they should seek a private assessment, but her local authority did not do that.
Mrs Dunville said her son has been “segregated” in a mainstream school, where they are “trying their best” but “it’s just not the right setting”.
Never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty. And besides, the pig likes it.
Looking at the festive ding-dong that’s broken out between Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage, you do wonder if the Tory leader should take on board this famous quote – because there was only ever going to be one winner from this spat.
The Reform UK leader has spent the thick end of three decades dragging his political opponents into fights that ultimately benefit his cause. This is no different.
What would have been a relatively low-key Christmas stunt has been elevated into literal front page news.
Reform UK insiders say that, in turn, is driving more people to the party and pushing up their member count further.
Nigel Farage has spent his career dragging opponents into fights. Pic: Reuters
Part of this is down to news editors grabbing on to any bit of politics that’s around during the quiet period between Christmas and New Year.
Why Badenoch and her team didn’t clock this and hold back will likely bewilder some in her party.
An argument the Tories should have swerved
What’s more, the Tory leader is also currently on the back foot regarding her central accusation that the Reform membership number is fake.
Reform agreed to show Sky News details of their account on NationBuilder – a platform that manages memberships and donations for many political parties.
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From September – Farage: I could become prime minister
The number of active memberships in the account portal matched the figure on the ticker – with their website count growing in size shortly after the NationBuilder tally increased.
Sky News also conducted its own analysis on the ticker and found nothing suspicious as it stands (read the full analysis here).
Kemi Badenoch has said Reform changed the coding when people began to point out the alleged discrepancy, but has yet to provide any evidence to back this up.
Either way, this is still an argument the Tories should probably have swerved.
All politicians need to pick their battles
Yes, signed-up members mean more income for a party, but they don’t necessarily translate into wider electoral success. After all, Labour’s membership surged under Jeremy Corbyn, but he still lost two elections.
But that’s not to say both main parties shouldn’t be looking very closely in their rearview mirror at Reform.
The party’s reaction to this row shows a far more professional behind-the-scenes operation than the previous, more ramshackle incarnations of the Farage-led political machine.
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Is Reform UK winning the ‘bro vote’?
Talk to long time allies of the Reform leader, and even they sound somewhat surprised by how slick their project has got.
They also point to electoral milestones on the horizon where the party’s results at the ballot box can be objectively tracked – beginning with May’s local elections next year and running through the Welsh Assembly vote in 2026.
There’ll be many more attempts by Nigel Farage to wrestle with his political opponents before then.
The task for the Tory and indeed Labour leaders is to pick their fights and judge how dirty they are prepared to get.
UK
Nigel Farage threatens legal action if Kemi Badenoch doesn’t apologise for saying membership ticker was ‘fake’
Nigel Farage has threatened to take legal action against Tory leader Kemi Badenoch if she does not apologise for accusing him of publishing a “fake” ticker showing Reform UK’s membership increasing to overtake the Conservatives.
The Reform UK leader has reacted furiously to Ms Badenoch’s assertion that he was “manipulating [his] own supporters” with a ticker that is “coded to tick up automatically” after it showed the insurgent right-wing party had gone past 131,680 members – the number of eligible Conservative Party members in its leadership election in the autumn.
He is demanding an apology from Ms Badenoch for the “accusations of fraud and dishonesty” that he labelled “disgraceful”, and said he is “not going to take it lying down”.
Asked by Sky News in a call with journalists if he is going to sue the Tory leader for libel, Mr Farage said: “I’m going to take some action in the next couple of days. I’ve got to decide exactly what it is, but I’m certainly not going to take it lying down.”
“I think it’s an absolutely outrageous thing for her to have said,” he continued. “I know she’s got a very bad temper. I know she’s well known for lashing out at people, but I am not at all happy, and I’m going to take some action.”
He added that he will confirm within two days exactly what this action will be if she does not apologise for the “intemperate outburst”.
Analysis: Badenoch needs to pick her battles
Reform showed Sky News the coding used to link the ticker to the member count within their account on the platform NationBuilder. The demonstration provided strong evidence that the ticker was not automated. Scroll down for the full analysis.
A Tory source told Sky News: “Fake Farage is clearly rattled that his Boxing Day Publicity Stunt is facing serious questions over a fake clock and hundreds of ‘members’ seemingly joining in the middle of the night.
“Like most normal people around the UK, Kemi is enjoying Christmas with her family and looking forward to taking on the challenges of renewing the Conservative Party in the New Year.”
‘It’s a fake’
The row started after Reform UK said on Boxing Day that it officially had more members than the Conservative Party, which Mr Farage, party leader and MP for Clacton-on-Sea, hailed as a “historic moment”, describing his party as “the real opposition”.
Reform UK also shared a video of the membership tracker being projected on to the Conservative Party headquarters in London.
But Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch accused the party of issuing misleading figures: “Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel?. It’s not real. It’s a fake… [the website has been] coded to tick up automatically.”
Posting on X, she added that the Tories had “gained thousands of new members since the leadership election”.
Reform UK hit back at Ms Badenoch, publishing a screenshot of an online register claiming to show “active memberships”.
Reform UK chair Zia Yusuf also waded into the row, claiming that people whose memberships of the Tory party had lapsed voted in the autumn leadership election that saw Ms Badenoch elected to the role.
In a call with journalists earlier, he repeated the assertion, and after putting out a call on social media for people to contact him if they had voted in the leadership election but are no longer party members, he said he has received “just so many” that he has not yet been able to verify their claims.
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Ms Badenoch and the Conservative Party have been contacted for comment.
Reform UK has said it will submit to an audit of its membership numbers by one of the “big four” accountancy firms if the Tories do the same.
Farage gets personal
Speaking to journalists earlier, Mr Farage was very critical of Ms Badenoch personally, saying her claim that their membership number ticker had been faked “reflects her personality”.
He labelled her “aggressive” and “liable to lashing out”, and said he thinks she wrote her tweet out of a “slight sense of anger”.
“She’s got to fully disprove this, and she’s going to find life a lot more difficult and bitterly regret putting this out on Boxing Day afternoon,” he added.
A man has been charged with four counts of attempted murder after a car collided with a group of people in London’s West End on Christmas Day.
Anthony Gilheaney, 30, will appear before Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday and has also been charged with causing serious injury by driving whilst disqualified, driving a motor vehicle dangerously and possession of a bladed article in a public place, the Metropolitan Police said.
Forensic investigators collect evidence at the scene on Christmas Day. Pic: PA
Items of clothing and blood are seen on the pavement. Pic: PA
Four people were taken to hospital after the incident, with one in a life-threatening condition.
Metropolitan Police officers were called to reports of a crash and a car driving on the wrong side of the road at 12.45am.
The incident occurred outside the Sondheim Theatre, which is the London home of the musical Les Miserables.
Shaftesbury Avenue is at the heart of London‘s West End and the city’s theatre district.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Cundy said the suspect was arrested within minutes of the incident “in the early hours of Christmas Day”.
“Since then, investigators have worked tirelessly to build the case and have today charged Anthony Gilheaney with four counts of attempted murder.
“Our thoughts now are with the victims, one of which remains in critical condition in hospital.”
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