Less and less special

6th June 2025 by Timo Hannay [link]

It is well documented that the number of children with special educational needs (SEN) has risen rapidly in recent years. As explained in this excellent post by Sam Freedman, the proximate cause has less to do with clinical or even social changes, and more to do with financial incentives for schools established in 2015 (through the Children and Families Act 2014 and subsequent SEND Code of Practice), though as ever with such things, the full range of underlying long-term drivers are multifaceted and complex. This post takes a look at the numbers to characterise the scale and nature of the changes taking place.

 

SEND up

SEN provision in England falls into two broad categories: SEN support, which is extra help provided by the pupil's school, and education, health and care (EHC) plans, which comprise of more substantial assistance funded and guaranteed by the local authority (though largely through increasingly unsustainable levels of debt).

Figure 1 shows the proportions of school pupils who received SEN support (blue line) or an EHC plan (red line). Notwithstanding a flat period during the pandemic, those receiving SEN support across all schools rose from 10.8% in 2018 to 13.6% in 2024. Meanwhile, the proportion assigned EHC plans went up from 2.9% to 4.8%. The increase in EHC plans has been steepest for primary schools, rising from 3.1% to 5.3%, while that for SEN support has been greatest among secondary schools, where it rose from 9.1% in 2018 to 13.0% in 2024.

(Use the menu below to switch between all schools, primary and secondary. Click on the figure legend to turn individual lines on or off; double-click to show one on its own. Hover over the graph to see corresponding values.)

Figure 2 shows the mix of needs for pupils receiving SEN support. 'Specific learning difficulties' (SpLD) and 'moderate learning difficulties' (MLD) make up large but declining proportions of the total. Meanwhile, 'social, emotional and mental health', 'speech, language and communication needs' (SLCN) and 'Autistic Spectrum Disorder' have been on the rise. (Show all needs again.)

These trends are similar across phases, though primary schools have much higher proportions of pupils with SLCN (light green), while secondary schools have higher proportions with SpLD (purple) and ASD (light red).

(Use the menu below to switch between all schools, primary and secondary. Click on the figure legend to turn individual lines on or off; double-click to show one on its own. Hover over the graph to see corresponding values.)

Figure 3 shows the the same data for pupils with EHC plans. Compared to those receiving SEN support, far higher proportions have 'severe learning difficulties' (pale blue) or ASD (light red). Conversely, lower proportions of these pupils have SpLD (purple), MLD (pink) or SLCN (light green). These patterns are broadly similar across both primary and secondary phases.

(Use the menu below to switch between all schools, primary and secondary. Click on the figure legend to turn individual lines on or off; double-click to show one on its own. Hover over the graph to see corresponding values.)

 

Special lists

A small but growing proportion of schools are registered with the Department for Education (DfE) as providing certain kinds of SEN services. This information is shown in Figure 4. Across all schools, these range from around 1% to 3% of establishments, depending on the kind of provision. But they are considerably higher for secondary schools, at around 4% to 10%. Across both primary and secondary schools, ASD (light red line) is the most commonly listed form of provision, but SLCN (light green), SEMH (dark blue) and SpLD (purple) have been growing rapidly too.

(Use the menu below to switch between all schools, primary and secondary. Click on the figure legend to turn individual lines on or off; double-click to show one on its own. Hover over the graph to see corresponding values.)

Of course, all this costs money and, as shown in Figure 5, SEN grants to schools have been rising rapidly. In 2024 they totalled nearly £4.6bn, up from £2.2bn in 2018, thus more than doubling in nominal terms. Most of this goes to special schools (grey line), but increasing amounts are being awarded to mainstream primary and secondary schools too.

(Click on the figure legend to turn individual lines on or off; double-click to show one on its own. Hover over the graph to see corresponding values.)

Increasing demand for SEN provision also results in higher levels of recruitment for the professionals who provide it. For many years SchoolDash has been tracking teacher and technician recruitment by monitoring secondary school and college websites. We therefore decided to search this huge cache of several million web pages for mentions of 'SENCOs' (ie SEN coordinators), as well as 'psychologists' or 'therapists'. This isn't exactly equivalent to finding recruitment adverts for these positions – we did not check the matches manually and it's always possible that such roles get mentioned for other reasons – but these results serve as a useful indicator of hiring activity. As well as showing the usual season cycles, with peaks in the spring and troughs in the summer, mentions of SENCOs (blue line) have climbed markedly, almost doubling between 2018 and 2025. Mentions of psychologists and therapists (red line) are rarer, but have also risen by a similar proportion.

(Click on the figure legend to turn individual lines on or off; double-click to show one on its own. Hover over the graph to see corresponding values.)

 

Special needs

These are special times in more ways than one, and the rise in demand for SEN provision doesn't look like tailing off anytime soon. The question is whether the necessary supply of money and staff will be able to keep up.

We welcome your thoughts. Please write to: [email protected].