A Ramsgate mum says she has reached breaking point over the inability to get her four-year-old son a school place.
Mum-of-three Jo Keeler had to apply for mainstream schools with special educational needs (SEN) units because of a delay in being granted an Educational Health Care Plan (EHCP) for son Remy but says nowhere has agreed to take him.
Remy is autistic with global development delay and severe pica – a condition where a person compulsively swallows non-food items. He was supposed to start school in September but is still without a placement.
He was initially not put forward for an EHCP assessment as his nursery had reported that he was progressing well but, after mediation, the assessment and then care plan were granted.
Remy needs 1-1 at school, including during play breaks, because he cannot be left unsupervised – but many mainstreams schools do not have the resources to provide this for every requested placement.
Jo, who says the situation has aggravated her own disabilities and impacted her mental health, said: “He now has an EHCP but due to the delay we were forced to put down a mainstream school.
“We have applied to all schools with a SEN unit and have been refused because they cannot meet his needs.
“He has to have a 1-1 all day at school, he cannot be left alone. Remy has severe Pica, he once got a toy lodged in his throat and went blue in my arms, he will just eat anything he can get his hands on.
“This has been going on for weeks and weeks now, there isn’t one place anywhere. We got an email allocating him a place at Newington [ primary] but Kent County Council was forcing the school to take him and they are refusing because they can’t take any more children needing 1-1 and so are now fighting KCC.
“My poor boy has no school so I have him all day and all night and I am exhausted. I have got services like Early Help involved because I am run into the ground.
“I have been in tears every day over this and just don’t know what to do while KCC and Newington battle it out. I have even been told he might have to go to Ashford or Folkestone but we can’t do that every day.”
Jo, who is also mum to Lilly,8, and Lewis, 18, says the situation has taken such a toll on her health that she is now under care with mental health services at the Beacon.
She added: “It is affecting my sleep, weight and eating. I’m crumbling.”
Jo says the system for SEN children is falling apart and is not fair on children, parents and mainstream schools which do not have the resources to take additional children with special needs. She says her son needs a SEN school and not a mainstream placement.
She said: “I really feel we have been let down by KCC and that this is a massive problem, one that will only get worse with all the autistic children that can’t get into schools.
“Autism is on the rise and we have all these new houses being built and new families moving into the area but where are all the new schools?
“Money is spent in the wrong places, it’s not fair on the children, the families and the people at mainstream schools that are being forced to have children they cannot help or cope with.”
Jo has now contacted the office for East Thanet MP Polly Billington to ask for her help.
Newington Community Primary School Head Teacher Hannah Tudor said: “Newington is an inclusive school, committed to meeting the needs of our children.
” It is vital that schools are open and honest with parents and the Local Authority when they do not have the capacity or resources to meet the needs of individual children so that a more suitable placement can be found as quickly as possible.”
Kent County Council has been asked for comment on Remy’s situation.
Increase in demand for Autism and ADHD services
Kent County Council’s Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee was told this month that there has been a “rapid increase” in demand for autism and ADHD services since 2022.
The Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board (KMICB) reported: “Over the last few years, demand for autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) assessments in England has risen at such speed that services are unable to keep up.
“This increase in demand is partly due to more widespread awareness of autism and ADHD, as well as the impact of Covid-19 on people’s mental health and wellbeing. In Kent and Medway, some children and adults are waiting many years for an assessment and not getting the support they need. We therefore need to prioritise people with the greatest need when offering appointments.”
Changes for SEN provision
Meanwhile KCC is planning to radically change special educational needs (SEN) provision in Kent with proposals that could see some SEN pupils sent to mainstream schools.
KCC has been exploring ways to reform its SEN offering while aiming to reduce a massive £170m deficit at a time the council is under increasing financial pressure.
Since March 2023, KCC has been subject to one of the government’s SEN “Safety Valve” agreements. This requires the county council to “control and reduce its SEN deficit.”
Education chiefs say the county has become over-reliant on special school places and wants to change the system to give places only to students with the severest needs. Youngsters who do not meet new criteria could be sent to mainstream schools instead of an SEN setting.
The aim is to create ‘clusters’ for Special Educational Needs provision in mainstream schools to work together and share resources.
It will also mean the redesignation some of the county’s special schools, so admissions arrangements will be rewritten to reduce the numbers of pupils eligible for a special school place to only those with the most “complex needs”.
In November 2023, Kent County Council [KCC] launched a consultation on its proposals. The results showed that majority of respondents did not accept the model would drive improvements to mainstream education and inclusion for children and young people with SEN in Kent.
Parents expressed concerns the exercise is merely to save money and may be detrimental to many children who have education health and care plans (EHCPs). They say some children who currently attend SEN schools are not at the severe end of the needs spectrum but would fail to cope in a mainstream environment.
KCC proposes to implement a graduated change starting from September 2026. However, many SEN school heads say the proposals contain no financial commitment to help mainstream schools to meet the needs of pupils in future who would previously have attended a special school.
In Kent, there are approximately 269,791 school-aged children. Of these, 44,921 children have identified additional needs, and 14,143 have an Education, Health, and Care Plan (EHCP). Approximately 35% of pupils with an EHCP in Kent attend a mainstream school compared with 48% nationally.
KCC says completion of EHCPs within the statutory 20-week deadline has continued to increase and is currently at 51.6% (August 2024) in comparison with the national average of 50.3%
Your views wanted
KCC is currently asking for views on Kent’s updated Strategy for Children and Young People with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) 2025 to 2028.
The consultation is open until 11 November 2024. All feedback will be reviewed and considered, and a consultation report will be produced. It is expected that the draft SEND Strategy for 2025-2028 will be discussed at the Children and Young People’s Cabinet Committee in January 2025, following which, a decision will be made on the future of the strategy.
Visit www.kent.gov.uk/sendstrategy to have your say.
This child clearly needs to be constrained within a specialised environment to prevent him from doing harm to himself.
A mainstream school (even with SEN provision) cannot be expected to cope with this level of behaviour.
The child’s problems go way beyond anything that could reasonably described as ”Special Educational Need”. Additional educational support is a million miles from the need for a full-time, one-on-one ”minder”.
The EHCP tells all what needs the Autistic child needs, that’s if you can get one. It took a year going to CAMHS for assessment, then a year waiting for the EHCP for our child to be produced. After all that there was no place for him in Thanet. He eventually went to Thanet College but was thrown out for not being like the other teens because of his needs they were unable to cope with, this is not just lack of SEN teachers in schools but colleges as well.
This was 7 years ago and nothing much has changed now. It’s very important to family that a suitable placement is earmarked for their child with SEN. Inclusion in a unit in a mainstream school is only useful if there are enough trained staff and teachers to cope. What Thanet actually needs is a new special school for Autistic children. One where these children get proper 1-2-1 help with their education.
I am saddened that after all these years that things still have not changed since the headache and stress we had with our kid. Schools and Social Services needs changing but this won’t happen with the lack of funding and stress of helping never ending streams of children coming into the area as well, from immigration and all the thousands of new homes built in Thanet. It can only get worse without intervention from government.
WELL SAID.COULD NOT AGREE MORE.
But with regard to Kent Resident’s final comment – Government has intervened.
Government has stated that more new houses shall continue to be built.
Government sends out lifeboats and Border Force to bring more immigrants to our shores to be housed in hotels.
And it remains the same regardless of whether it is a Labour Government or a Conservative Government.
It’s the RNLI that sends out the lifeboats.
Strictly speaking, it’s the Coastguard.
But the reason for the existence of the RNLI is to save lives at sea. Any life. Any one in peril.
While it’s a sorry state of affairs, that it takes so long to get a echo, it means nothing, it’s a set of instructions that the educational system must provide, but ifbthey can’t provide, then it’s not safe for the child to be in there environment, what happens when the child is harmed or causes harm in a school that was forced to take them, the teachers are held accountable and that is wrong, and that is why a ehcp is meaningless, it treated like an entitlement, forward 20 years and employer won’t care about it
Teachers are leaving education in droves