24/07/2026
What’s the real problem? 🤔
Last night David Reed MP held a SEN Workshop at Exmouth Community College, seeking to gather views regarding SEN young people and the current provision / mechanisms / opportunities / failures in East Devon.
I thought it was only fair to summarise the workshop for those who weren’t able to attend, and to be inclusive by sharing that David Reed MP has requested that parents / families / professionals who are able to share positives and negatives about the SEN system in Devon, email his team so that he can accurately represent SEN parents in East Devon, within parliament. His email address is as follows: [email protected], and his contact number is 01395 493213.
I am planning to request a 1:1 follow up with David Reed MP to ensure he is aware of the bigger picture, and the two fundamental key changes that are required at Government level, if there is any hope for our SEN young people.
It’s time to take a stand and create a movement at this time of Government ‘shuffle around’, and ensure we are aiming high enough to truly make a difference;
1. We need to change the National Curriculum that governs our education system; it is outdated, non-inclusive, rigid and does not cater for SEN successfully. It is overly relied upon as the pinnacle of education and inspection - forcing schools to be non-inclusive for many of those with SEN
2. We need to ensure that Local Authorities are held to account consistently for breaking the law, they need to be penalised when they break the law, to prevent legislative breaches happening on a daily basis
3. We need to ensure that the Government doesn’t think that inclusion is about the physical space that a young person attends, but is about being included, fairly, within the education system. Being inclusive, does not mean all children should attend mainstream schools, inclusion means providing equal opportunities to education that works for the individual child - taking their aspirations and desires into account - whether they have SEN on not. I am not sure where the idea of ‘inclusion = attending mainstream school’ comes from?
All other mechanisms that seek to reform SEN education will not have a long-standing impact, they all seek to make SEN young people fit into a broken and outdated system, which is full of illegal activity.
👆🏻THIS IS WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE 👆🏻
