Image source, PA

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says her biggest concern regarding the government's changes to the SEND system in England is financial.

Speaking during a meeting with apprentices in London, Badenoch questions where the money is coming from.

She says the government took out £6bn to pay for SEND provision during the Budget, and "what these proposals are covering is just about £4bn".

"We know that there is an issue with special educational needs but right now I think many parents are worried about these changes", she adds.

For context: The government has announced it will pay SEND costs currently covered by councils from 2028, a move that is forecast to create a £6bn pressure.

By 2035, education, health and care plans (EHCPs) will be reserved for children with the most complex cases.

EHCPs are legal documents that identify a pupil's needs and set out what support they should receive.

Local authorities are responsible for ensuring EHCPs are followed.

Until 2015, the proportion of pupils with EHCPs in schools was relatively stable at 2.8%. Since then it has nearly doubled to 5.3%.

The government is worried that without changes, demand will only grow and it won't be possible to meet it.

At 14:30 GMT our experts will be answering your questions following the announcement of major changes to the system for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in England.

On our panel of experts will be:

• Vanessa Clarke, our senior education reporter, who's at Ninestiles, An Academy - a secondary school in Birmingham
• BBC political correspondent, Alex Forsyth who joins us from Westminster
• Bill Revans – SEND spokesperson for the County Council Network, he's also a Liberal Democrats councillor for Somerset and Taunton
• Anna Bird is chair of of Disabled Children’s Partnership – a coalition of over 130 organisations who campaign for better education, health and social care for SEND children
• Margaret Mulholland, SEND and Inclusion Specialist for the Association of School and College Leaders

You can send us your questions via email or WhatsApp, external.

We've been hearing reaction from some charities and organisations following the government's announcement of major changes to the SEND system in England:

The Institute For Public Policy Research says the SEND system is "broken", with thousands of young people "waiting more than a year" for an initial assessment. Investing more in early support "will ensure more children get help sooner", says the organisation's executive director Harry Quilter-Pinner.

The Autism Service, a provider of ADHD and autism assessments,says "providing earlier, school-based support through Individual Support Plans may help some children access help more quickly". Its founder, Dr Lisa Williams, says "moving through tiers can be frustrating for families", which means "clear pathways and timely reviews will be crucial".

Amanda Allard, Director of the Council for Disabled Children, says the charity welcomes the scale of the Schools White Paper and its "vision for an inclusive education system". The proposals "set out the basis of a system that fully values children and young people with additional needs and their families, and commits the resources to make it happen", Allard adds.

The BBC's Education Editor Branwen Jeffreys has spoken with Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson following her speech at a school in Peterborough.

She puts it to the education secretary that Labour may not still be in power when the main changes to SEND come into effect in 2029. "So how do you know they will be seen through?" she asks.

In response, Phillipson says "the money starts going in from this year," pointing also to the extra expert support she says will be commissioned for schools to draw down on from later this year.

"I'm confident parents will see that change, but we want to do it carefully," she adds.

The government has outlined planned changes to the SEND system in England. If you're just joining us, here's an overview:

What is SEND?

SEND stands for special educational needs and disabilities. It applies to children and young people who need extra support to meet their physical, communication, social, emotional or mental health needs.

In England, if they need more support than is typically provided in mainstream schools, their parent or carer can apply for an education, health and care plan (EHCP) which sets out the extra support they are entitled to.

Rising costs, extra funding

Overall spending on SEND has risen by two-thirds in the past decade, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). Despite this, in 2024 the National Audit Office described the system as "broken".

Today,the government has announced around £4 billion of extra funding, and set out plans for a wider overhaul of the system in its Schools White Paper.

What's been announced?

• By 2035, EHCPs will be reserved for only the most complex special educational needs

• Children who currently have an EHCP will keep them until they reach the next stage of their education
• Children will be reassessed for EHCPs as they move up to their next stage from 2029
• Under the changes, the government projects that the proportion of children with SEND on the current highest level of support in school will start falling each year from the end of the decade

Emma Jacobs
BBC Panorama

Image source, Kellie Bright

EastEnders actor Kellie Bright's son is autistic, has ADHD and is dyslexic.

Kellie, for BBC Panorama, speaks to parents who say they’re exhausted by the fight to get the right education for their children.

"To try and get the support that you need, you have to fight every step of the way," she says.

She follows three families who are applying to their councils for an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), a crucial document which can say where a child goes to school and what extra support they should get.

• Kellie Bright - Autism, School and Families on the Edge is on BBC iPlayer now.

"It's devastating to watch your child struggling", says Laura Jerram, a mother of two children with SEND, one who attends a mainstream school and another who receives specialist provision.

While the government's plans for inclusion bases in schools "is not a bad thing", Laura says people with different kinds of needs require different kinds of support from a range of different professionals.

She says too little detail has been provided regarding the government's plans to know whether it will work in practice.

In response to a question regarding the number of tribunals,, external where parents disagreed with a refusal to offer support for their children, Laura says: "If you have a fully funded school with excellent inclusion facilities, then more children will receive support earlier, that's fair to say."

"But the worry is it places parents and children in opposition with each other, which is not a healthy dynamic."

For context: The process for parents and children to get an EHCP can be lengthy, with fewer than half issued within the 20 week legal deadline in 2024. There was a record number of tribunals, external in 2024/25, where parents disagreed with a refusal to offer support, or were challenging the level of support offered.

As we've been reporting, part of the reason changes are being made to the SEND system is the increasing cost.

Overall spending on SEND has risen by two-thirds in the past decade, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS).

In 2024 the National Audit Office described the system as "broken", warning it was "financially unsustainable" for councils and saying that although costs were rising it was still not delivering better outcomes for children.

Here's a look at the figures:

Just over 1.7 million (about one in five) pupils in England's schools receive support for special educational needs.

As of January last year, 639,000 young people up to the age of 25 had education, health and care plans (EHCPs) in England - the number has more than doubled in a decade.

Phillipson said the changes would be phased in over a decade.

"We'll do this carefully," she said, adding her aim was to "build up the system now ahead of a bigger change".

"This time of opportunity doesn't come across very often, and I'm determined that we seize it," she adds.

Phillipson has finished speaking, before doing so she took questions from journalists.

She was asked how the government is going to ensure children with SEND flourish at a time when more teachers were leaving the profession due to workloads.

Phillipson says retaining and recruiting brilliant teachers and support staff is "absolutely critical to delivering better education for all children".

She says that the government is setting out its plans today to reach its target of recruiting 6,500 new teachers, which it committed to in its manifesto.

She adds that retention numbers in teachers is the "best they've been since around 2010", so the government is making progress but there is more to do.

Reiterating what we reported earlier, Phillipson says education, health and care plans (EHCPs) for children with the most complex needs will stay.

She says these plans will be "guided by nationally defined, and evidence-based specialist provision packages".

She says that what is crucial is "that support starts early", adding that the government's "best start hubs" for younger children will now also cover SEND.

Phillipson says the government is investing £200m in these hubs so that more of them have dedicated SEND professionals.

Phillipson says she wants to deliver great local schooling with high standards and inclusion, driven by ambition for every student.

"I want your child to achieve, I want your child to thrive," she says. Where deprivation is deepest, she adds, that's where she'll "be boldest".

The government will work to drive funding to where it's needed most, adding that "we have a moral responsibility to work together on this".

She says the government will ensure there's support that "stretches from birth to the workplace".

As the government unveils its planned changes, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson starts her speech at Midlands school by saying her approach is one "for all children".

She says that despite the heroic efforts of staff the "disadvantage gap is still wide, children with SEND are sidelined and bright children from ordinary families are still not achieving all that they should".

Phillipson says our current education system "works well for some children but not all".

"When it comes to opportunities, background still counts for too much and hard work too little," she says, rejecting the idea that "excellence is only possible for some children".

Branwen Jeffreys
Education Editor

The government has just revealed its full planned changes to the system supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in England.

It says that by 2035, education, health and care plans (EHCPs) - the legal documents which set out the extra help children are entitled to - will be reserved for only the most complex special educational needs. This will help the government manage the costs of delivering an expensive part of the system.

Children with SEND will fit into two levels of support: Targeted, which will apply to all pupils in mainstream schools, or Specialist, which will be for children with the most complex needs. That Specialist level of support will be the basis for EHCPs in future.

Children who currently have an EHCP will keep them until they reach the next stage of their education, such as secondary school or sixth form and college. Children will be reassessed for EHCPs as they move up to their next stage of education from 2029.

We're now hearing from Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, who is making a speech in at a school in Peterborough about the government's plans.

We'll bring you updates here, and you can watch live at the top of the page.

Russell Clarke is the head teacher at Haslingden High School and Sixth Form in Rossendale, Lancashire, where over 300 students are on the SEND register.

Russell says he needs more specialist staff, better facilities, and more training to broaden the school's provision - things he hopes will be addressed in the government's upcoming white paper.

The biggest issue with the SEND system is the funding, Russell says, "both the amount and how it's distributed".

"Schools need more funding to provide inclusive teaching and timely access to specialist support," he says.

He adds that there also needs to be more practical consultation between schools, families, and the authorities on how to deliver the support a child needs.

SEND in the Spotlight is a weekly podcast from the team behind Woman's Hour.

It explores why the special educational needs system is so widely considered to be broken and how it might be fixed.

Hosted by Nuala McGovern, the podcast provides a platform where families can share their experiences of raising a child with special educational needs.

Share your story with the team: send@bbc.co.uk.

'Everything is an uphill struggle': Adam, from Milton Keynes, whose eight-year-old son is autistic and non verbal, says he's experienced first hand how "broken" the SEND system is.

He tells BBC Radio 5 Live that when it comes to getting support for his son, who "is on the higher end of his needs", "everything is an uphill struggle".

"I don’t think there is a mainstream school that can suit him. But he’s been turned down by pretty much every special needs school in the area anyway", he says.

'A constant battle': Debra, from Sidcup in south-east London, tells Radio 5 Live the government's SEND reforms don't sound "new or revolutionary at all", adding that it "just seems different language for the same provision".

As a special educational needs coordinator, Debra says "I’ve got a constant battle of knowing what the children in my school need to flourish and learn, but not having the resources available to me to properly achieve it".

She says "that's where the investment needs to go, into training people and having enough adults available with the right level of training to understand the needs of the children".

Marsha and her three children are autistic and have ADHD.

She founded Black SEN Mamas in 2020, a peer support network bringing together families with similar experiences, and it now supports thousands of parents across the UK and abroad.

She says non-white families, particularly those from low-income backgrounds, face "additional barriers at every stage".

She believes her own daughter has been treated unfairly in the past and says her experience, working with parents through Black SEN Mamas, is that unconscious biases may play a part in the way decisions are made about children's needs.

But that is hard to prove.

She wants the government's reforms to include specific training for staff to help tackle racism and unconscious bias.

Marsha also fears vulnerable children could lose support once they leave year 6 and says she is disappointed by proposed plans to reassess the support children are entitled to after they finish primary school.

"Children's rights are being compromised, and their needs don't disappear - they escalate when unsupported," she says.