Education Policy Institute SEND report: Three groups of children whose special educational needs more likely to go unrecognised

• A new analysis has found special educational needs may be more likely to go unidentified in certain demographic groups
• What type of state school pupils attend may also be playing a part
• Recommendations for fixing it include mandatory teacher training, better information sharing between schools on children who move, and early in-school testing

Blind spots are stopping children with special educational needs getting the extra help they need to succeed at school, new research has suggested.

The report, released today (February 11) by the Education Policy Institute (EPI), has identified a number of factors that may play a part in a child being more or less likely to have their Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) identified. It found that local authorities only had a limited impact on SEND identification, with inconsistencies in how different primary and secondary schools spotted children in need of help playing a much bigger part in their chance of receiving support - such as an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP).

The education thinktank also made a series of recommendations to the Government, including making learning about child development and different types of SEND a mandatory part of teacher training, and introducing national personal, social and emotional development assessments for children in Key Stage 2 and early secondary school as part of its National Curriculum review.

Here are three of the key groups of children that the report identified as more at risk of SEND going undiagnosed, as well as how the EPI recommends schools and policymakers can fix the problem:

Girls

The report found that girls were less likely than boys to be identified as having special social, emotional, or mental health needs during secondary school, despite similar chances of having behavioural or emotional disorders.

Social, emotional and mental health needs are considered to be one of the four main types of SEND. But researchers found that of children working with NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) for more than four years, boys had a 63% chance of being identified as having special educational needs at school, while girls only had a 44% chance.

The report said this may reflect differences in how distress is presented by boys and girls in the Year 7 to 11 age group, with studies suggesting girls are more likely to internalise it. Other possible reasons mentioned in the report included teachers having poor recognition of mood and anxiety disorders compared to behaviour disorders or ADHD, and access to targeted mental health support at school often being skewed towards children whose needs impacted others, another study found, and away from those that only impacted the child.

The authors recommended that CAMHS should start sharing information and advice with schools about how to support the young people it works with, to “minimise the risks of lost academic potential due to working memory problems, to enhance attendance and participation, and to respond to school-based risks to recovery such as exam stress”.

Children whose needs are ‘hidden’

Pupils whose needs were hidden, whether that be due to frequent absences or changing schools a lot, were less likely to be recognised as having SEND in primary school, the report found. It suggested they may be “less visible to the SEND system” than children who were otherwise similar.

Children who faced language barriers because English was not their first language also had a lesser chance of being identified with SEND at both primary and secondary school, compared to their peers.

The authors also made a number of recommendations on this front, including considering whether a child might have undiagnosed SEND automatically when responding to emerging school attendance problems. Better information sharing systems between schools and local authorities could help them share evidence gathered in SEND assessments when a child moves, they continued, while considering SEND alongside language barriers as a possible contributing factor for low attainment could help rule out more serious issues for children who speak English as a second language.

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Children attending academies

The report also found that pupils attending academy schools - or living in areas where many schools had become academised - were less likely to be identified as having SEND, all other factors being the same. On top of that, its analysis found that schools that became academies then became lower identifiers of SEND compared to local authority-run schools.

Academies are a type of state school funded directly by the Government, which are run by a trust rather than by the local authority. Legally, they have to follow the same rules on admissions and special educational needs as other state schools and students sit the same exams. However, they do have other freedoms, including setting their own pay rates for staff and not having to follow the national curriculum - although this could soon change. While some schools choose to become academies, other under-performing schools can be forced to.

The paper suggested several reasons there might be lower rates of SEND identification for children attending academies. These included fewer SEND pupils enrolling in academies, academies meeting their needs without formal identification, or delays in getting EHCP assessments due to reduced local authority capacity. Researchers said that more research was needed into both the cause of this - and the potential consequences.

If you think your child may have special educational needs or need extra help at school, the Government has an online guide with advice on how you can work with their school and your local authority. You can find this here.