Steve Witherden

Although education is devolved in Wales, I speak in my capacity as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for education and parliamentary convenor of the Socialist Educational Association. Before getting elected, I was a teacher for nearly two decades, so I know all too well the realities of our education system. Dyslexic, dyscalculic and completely illiterate until age 11, I was placed in bottom sets and written off by many teachers, so I also know all too well the pressures of going through the system with SEND, or additional learning needs, as it is called in Wales. As of January 2025, more than 1.7 million pupils in England have been identified with SEND, and the number of children with education, health and care plans has more than doubled since 2015. Despite that increase in identification, the Department for Education has admitted there has been no consistent improvement in outcomes for these children. Exam pressure is especially acute for students with SEND. Research from Omnisis shows that 88% of parents of children with SEND said their child was worried about this year’s SATs and one in five described their child as “very worried”—twice the national average. Our all-party parliamentary group’s “Loss of the Love of Learning” inquiry found that the stress of test preparation has serious negative effects: disrupted sleep, increased school refusal and declining self-esteem among SEND pupils. We must recognise the disproportionate effect of our current assessment framework on SEND children, and begin to prioritise children’s wellbeing and their love of learning, rather than just performance metrics. Though high-needs funding has increased since 2015, it falls short of what is needed. The 14 years of austerity have pushed our schools to the brink. The sharp decline in teaching assistants—often lifelines for SEND children—and the overworking of teachers, as they struggle to meet the diverse needs of all their students, have only deepened the crisis. What guarantees can be given that the SEND reforms promised in the schools White Paper this autumn will not simply be a vehicle for further cuts?