SEND parents under surveillance… is your council watching you online?
For families of children and young people with SEND, social media is one of the greatest assets we have. It brings isolated families together, it gives us a chance to …
Could the SEND Review’s “big ideas” wither on the vine of political uncertainty?
Two Secretaries of State ago, back in the politically distant days of July, the House of Commons Education Select Committee wrote to the then Education Secretary, James Cleverly MP, about …
The stark inequalities of social mobility of disabled young adults in England
Childhood disability has been conspicuously absent from longstanding social mobility and intergenerational inequality debates. This is partly due to the persistence of medical interpretations of disability, which disregard the negative …
Is NHS England breaking a promise to roll out eye care for disabled children in all special schools?
with Aylee Richmond, National Eye Care Information Officer, SeeAbility A few years ago I woke up with vision loss in one of my eyes. It was frightening, but I was …
“Global wellbeing” is out of reach while children and vulnerable adults are routinely restrained in places of “safety”
This year’s World Mental Health Day 2022 theme is to make a global priority of mental health and wellbeing. It’s a good theme, and much needed, but at the same …
Parent-blaming to avoid professional accountability is a human rights issue
with Katherine Uher, parent and psychotherapist and Benji Uher We’ve run a number of articles that feature the injustice of staff in local authorities and health services using parent-blaming as …
10 top tips for moving local authority with an EHCP
with Liz Arriens Troy, a parent of a child with Down Syndrome The 2014 SEND reforms were supposed to have made EHCPs more easy to move between local authorities when …
New SEND Minister, Kelly Tolhurst: many responsibilities but none so important as disabled children’s futures
We’d begun to get a little paranoid at Special Needs Jungle that maybe no one really wanted children and young people with SEND. Three weeks have passed since a new …
Gendered misperceptions: Research shows girls with ADHD miss out on school support
Attention, Deficit, Hyperactivity Disorder, (ADHD) remains a controversial topic for all sorts of reasons. Research illuminates just by how much the ADHD debate is a can of worms; multi-layered, emotive, …
How will the government-funded RISE partnership improve local areas’ SEND provision?
with Anna Gardiner, Assistant Director – Health , Council for Disabled Children Earlier this year the Department for Education announced £12 million of funding to directly support schools and colleges to …
I’m a Dad with ASD and ADHD. Here’s why I’ll never give up fighting for my neurodiverse children’s educational rights
with an article from James Alexander, neurodivergent Dad of neurodiverse children **With Will Quince gone from SEND to Health, we will bring you a full update on the implications in …
What is “special educational provision” in law? How a case of electromagnetic hypersensitivity may help future appeals
Article by Ed Duff, HCB Solicitors A very interesting SEND appeal in the Upper Tribunal caught our eye recently. A family was appealing in a dispute over what could be …
SNJ’s response to the EHCP Annual Review Timescales consultation
The Department for Education consultation on EHCP Timescales closed last month. We put in our own response, and we’re publishing it today. It contains not only our answers to the …
An Employment Passport to young people with additional needs into paid work
with Richard Lamplough, My Employment Passport This autumn, thousands of parents will be waving off or delivering their young people to universities up and down the land (or even overseas). …
What influences the emotional wellbeing of young people with severe dyslexic difficulties?
with Claire Durrant, Researcher, University of Sussex When our child(ren) have a SEND diagnosis, they can be made to feel stupid, isolated, rejected by thoughtless peers and often, shockingly, by …
How The Wave Project makes surfing possible for disabled children
With Ian Bennett, The Wave Project A decade ago, I wrote here about a young Cornwall charity that was helping vulnerable young people find their feet—and get them wet—learning to …
Top tips for introducing a School Dog to help your students
with Cherryl Drabble, SEND educator Support and animals can have a very beneficial effect on children with additional needs or who have experienced trauma. But not every child who needs …
Helping Businesses Become More Inclusive with SEND Session Guides
with Dan Hughes I don’t think that there are many people reading this that would argue that inclusivity isn’t beneficial to everyone, but sometimes being exclusive is the best way …
Why the Down Syndrome Act ‘call for evidence’ is also relevant for people with other genetic conditions
Government consultations are like buses. No sooner has one gone by, than another arrives. In the same week the SEND Review consultation closed, the Department for Health & Social Care …
Special Needs Jungle’s #SENDReview Consultation response
A short post to share with you the SNJ SEND Review Green paper consultation response. It was quite a mammoth effort, weaving all the views we have published here over …