19. Parents’ confidence that their child’s needs are being met is vital to making the system feel less adversarial. A central piece of this jigsaw is the capacity and commitment of the education system to give every child and young person the chance to succeed. Every child, whether in a mainstream or special setting, deserves a world-class education to ensure that they fulfil their potential. Everyone who works with disabled children and children with SEN should have high expectations of them and the skills to help them to learn.

20. But the system doesn’t always work in the way it should for disabled children and young people and those with SEN. Too many face significant barriers to their progress and achieve less well than their peers at school and in further education. Disabled children and children with SEN are more likely to be bullied or excluded than their peers. They also tell us that they want to be educated by people who understand their impairments, without fear of being stigmatised by their peers and in an environment where poor behaviour is not tolerated.

21. To provide the best opportunities for all children and young people, we must confront the weaknesses of our education system. Children’s needs should be picked up as early as possible, but teachers tell us that they have not always had training to identify children’s needs, or to provide the right help. Head teachers have been overwhelmed with top-down initiatives rather than having the freedom to drive improvements.

22. Previous measures of school performance created perverse incentives to overidentify children as having SEN. There is compelling evidence that these labels of SEN have perpetuated a culture of low expectations and have not led to the right support being put in place

23. In our Schools White Paper, The Importance of Teaching, we set out our vision to match the best education systems in the world. Building on that, our proposals in this Green Paper will mean that:

  • teachers and other staff in schools and colleges are well trained and confident to: identify and overcome a range of barriers to learning; manage challenging behaviour; address bullying; and intervene early when problems emerge;
  • schools will have additional flexibility to support the needs of all pupils, and will have additional funding to support disadvantaged pupils through the pupil premium;
  • teachers feel able to identify effectively what a child needs to help them to learn and to plan support to help every child progress well, reflecting the specific needs of children with SEN and those who may just be struggling with learning and need school-based catch-up support which is normally available;
  • parents have the information they need about how the school is supporting their child;
  • schools are more clearly accountable to parents, governors and Ofsted; and
  • special schools share their expertise and services to support the education, progress and development of pupils in other special and mainstream schools, leading to a greater choice of specialist provision.

24. To work towards this:

  • we intend to tackle the practice of over-identification by replacing the current SEN identification levels of School Action and School Action Plus with a new single school-based SEN category for children whose needs exceed what is normally available in schools; revising statutory guidance on SEN identification to make it clearer for professionals; and supporting the best schools to share their practices. This will help teachers to spot quickly and accurately any barriers to learning and provide the right support to help each child progress;
  • we will introduce an indicator in performance tables which will give parents clear information on the progress of the lowest attaining pupils;
  • starting with those judged by Ofsted to be outstanding, all maintained special schools will in due course have the opportunity to become Academies; and
  • parents and members of local communities will be able to establish new special Free Schools.