This Week in SEN: Money Talks, Systems Strain, Families Wait
A personal take on this week's reporting from UK and Irish outlets. Original sources linked throughout.
Another week, another round of SEND headlines that sound promising until you sit with them for a minute. Here's what caught my attention.
Free Schools Scrapped, SEND Gets the Cash
The government's pulling the plug on dozens of planned free schools and putting that money into SEND provision instead. The pitch: adapt mainstream schools so kids don't have to trek across counties for specialist places.
Sounds sensible. Many parents have been saying exactly this for years. But there's a nervousness underneath it all - about what we're losing in the swap, and whether bolting specialist provision onto already-creaking schools will actually work, or just add another layer of strain.
£3 Billion Announced. Now What?
That policy shift comes with a number attached: £3 billion for SEND places in England. Councils are being told it'll help them meet demand and cut down on those eye-watering out-of-area placements.
Local leaders aren't exactly celebrating. They're pointing out what most of us already know: brick and mortar mean nothing without trained staff, specialist services, and actual follow-through. New classrooms are great. Empty ones with no support? Less so.
Ireland Drops Routine SEN Assessments
Meanwhile, Ireland's making a big move: scrapping the requirement for routine "Assessment of Need" reports from 2027.
The logic tracks - waiting lists have become unmanageable, and thousands of kids are stuck waiting for paperwork before they can access help. Removing the bottleneck might speed things up. But it also opens up questions about how needs get documented, who decides what support looks like, and whether dropping the formal process creates more problems than it solves.
When Waiting Lists Become Protest Camps
Those questions hit harder when you see what's actually happening on the ground. This week, a teenager announced they're sleeping rough outside the Irish parliament to draw attention to the thousands of children still waiting for autism assessments - some well past the legal deadlines.
It's the kind of thing that reminds you: these aren't policy debates. They're kids. Families. People fighting to be acknowledged.
Same Story, Different Week
The pattern's depressingly familiar now. Systems under pressure, trying to reform themselves mid-crisis. Funding gets announced, structures get tweaked, but the gap between announcement and impact just seems to widen.
Money matters. Infrastructure matters. But so does trust. So does getting it right the first time instead of constantly retrofitting. So does not making families wait years for what should be straightforward.
If you're living this - whether as a parent, educator, or young person - you already know none of this is theoretical.