Government announces £780m SEND capital funding

2 mins read

Thursday 5 December 2024

The Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, has this week announced extra capital funding to help mainstream schools in England better support children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

The government says the funding – which will go to local authorities – will help thousands of children. It’ll allow schools to adapt classrooms to meet SEND pupils’ needs and to create specialist facilities, such as sensory rooms, within mainstream schools for more intensive support.

The funding announcement follows a damning report that found a SEND system in urgent need of reform.

Contact CEO appears on BBC Woman’s Hour

Yesterday our CEO Anna Bird appeared on Woman’s Hour in her capacity as Chair of the Disabled Children’s Partnership.

Anna said: “We do welcome the commitment on capital investment. We know that sensory areas, specialist units for neurodivergent children, ramps and lifts are the difference between children being able to get and be and school, and not. So it will make a big difference, and this is positive.”

Anna said there will be questions to answer as to how money will flow from local authorities to schools – given demands on staff time – and how far the money will go.

She continued:

“For parents thinking about the support available to their children, how are schools going to be held to account for providing adequate support? At the moment, local schools aren’t held to account in the same way specialist schools are.

“You can have the most beautiful school with the best physical environment. But if you haven’t got the training for staff, if you haven’t got specialist provision on hand – occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, education psychologists – if the school don’t understand the needs of the children, then all of that is still not going to deliver what families need.”

You can listen to Anna’s full interview on the BBC Sounds website (story begins at 01:30).

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