This week I had the absolute pleasure (read: emotional exhaustion wrapped in admin) of attending my daughter’s EHCP meeting.
As any parent of a SEND child knows, these meetings are more stressful than OFSTED, job interviews, or trying to teach Year 9 last period on a windy Friday.
Enter the SALT team — “Speech and Language Therapy.”
Except, in our area, there’s very little therapy and quite a lot of “we’ve decided to discharge her because we don’t know what else to do.”
You know… exactly what you want to hear about your autistic child.
The Great Disappearing Act
The SALT team — whose job title literally contains the word therapist — have offered, and I quote, zero therapy.
Not reduced therapy, not interim therapy, but zero.
The same amount of therapy you get from a traffic cone.
Their grand conclusion?
“She presents as PDA, so there’s nothing we can do. She has met her targets. We want to reduce provision.”
Reduce. Provision.
For a child who isn’t meeting her targets — she’s simply not letting them in the door.
Imagine a fire alarm inspector coming to your house, not being allowed inside because the dog barks at him, and declaring:
“Well, everything seems fine. No fires here. I’m signing you off.”
That’s the level of logic we’re working with.
If She Was Meeting Targets… Isn’t That the Point?
Let’s pretend for a moment that she was meeting every target.
Gold stars everywhere.
Progress chart looking like an impressive stock market climb.
Wouldn’t that be because — oh, I don’t know — the provision was working?
If a child is thriving because of support, the correct response is not:
“Fantastic! Let’s remove it.”
That’s like taking antibiotics for a chest infection, feeling better, and the GP saying:
“You seem fine now. We’ll stop medication immediately and permanently. Try not to breathe too deeply.”
SEND Reform: The Great Disappearing Provision Scheme
With all this talk about SEND reform and “reviewing EHCP thresholds,” it doesn’t take a genius to see what’s happening.
We’re slowly, quietly drifting towards:
Cutting funding by cutting support.
And who’s first on the chopping block?
The most vulnerable cohort in the country — disabled children and young people.
Cost-saving by targeting those with the least ability to fight back.
It’s brutal. It’s predictable.
And it’s depressingly in line with the direction this country is going.
The Loudest Parents Win — And That’s Not Equality
Here’s the ugly truth:
The parents who shout the loudest get the EHCPs.
That’s not a system — that’s a competition.
Getting an EHCP is like running a marathon made out of paperwork, acronyms, and thinly veiled hostility.
Maintaining an EHCP?
That’s the Ultra Marathon.
Barefoot. In the rain.
With Ofsted running behind you shouting about “impact.”
But there aren’t enough of us.
We’re a loud bunch — but not a big one.
And many parents of SEND children don’t even know help exists, let alone how to navigate the labyrinth of referrals, panels, tribunals, and reports.
That’s the terrifying bit:
So many children are unsupported because their parents don’t know where to start, or they’re overwhelmed, or they’ve been fobbed off so many times they’ve given up.
A Society Splitting Down the Middle
The gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots” is widening — and fast.
And SEND families are watching that chasm grow from the wrong side.
It’s starting to feel like a class-driven, quietly autocratic system where:
- Those with knowledge and stamina fight
- Those without fall through the cracks
- And those who should be supporting them claim they’re meeting targets they’ve never meaningfully assessed
We’re not building a society.
We’re building a hierarchy.
One where the quietest, smallest, and most vulnerable voices are being drowned out by budgets, bureaucracy, and the desperate need to “save money.”
Final Thought
So when the SALT team cheerfully suggests my daughter should be discharged — not because she is thriving, but because they don’t know how to reach her — it’s hard not to feel like the whole SEND system is being gently and quietly dismantled.
And the people who are supposed to help us are walking out with clipboards saying,
“We’ve done all we can.”
When they haven’t even begun.
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