The SEND crisis has recently and rapidly become one of the biggest stories in town. It touches so many aspects of public life - it is bankrupting councils, driving the collapse in attendance, and causing political ructions left and right.

Most obviously, and perhaps worst of all, the crisis is affecting the education of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

This is why we at the Fischer Family Foundation believe the use of systematic early reading support for children who are falling behind in Year 1 and Year 2 is an idea that cannot, and must not, be inadvertently passed over in the mayhem. It is that important.

The importance of literacy

We know, because we’ve been doing it: we have supported literacy tutoring for more than 60,000 primary pupils over the past decade. We know for a fact that it is a vital way to improve literacy for mainstream children and those who need additional support.

In January 2025, we published the results of our four-year pilot of the Apex Project in schools.

This showed that by building an inclusion track in key stage 1 of targeted literacy interventions for every child falling behind, it is possible to reduce the number of pupils who are behind in reading by at least half and all but remove the disadvantage gap heading into Year 2.

Our new report, published today, builds on that case study by focusing specifically on SEND pupils.

It analyses the data from the Apex Project in more detail, demonstrating how early literacy interventions can systematically support children with additional needs.

We found that introducing support early in KS1 to all underperforming pupils ensures that any pupil who may have SEND is not left behind.

Put simply, it is a paradigm shift in the way we think about early literacy and SEND. The inclusion track in our Apex project proved instrumental in several ways:

• Nearly all pupils who had been identified as having SEND but did not have an Education, Health and Care Plan were felt by their teachers to be effectively supported by the sustained, low-cost reading inclusion track that was part of the project.
• SEND pupils generally made both phonics knowledge and fluency gains, demonstrating a strong basis for further work in key stage 2.
• SEND pupils particularly benefited from relationships and opportunities for talk and partner work within reading sessions, including aspects of fun and emotional comfort.

Why it matters now

Our report comes at a vital time for SEND pupils and the education sector more widely. National data shows that 59 per cent of SEND pupils leave primary school not at the expected standard.

This is backed up by our own report, which shows that 87 per cent of the pupils who were identified as having any SEND needs in Year 1 were struggling with the reading curriculum.

Part of what makes the SEND crisis so difficult to navigate is that so many of the ideas put forward are both expensive - the costs of SEND education are already spiralling out of control - and divisive.

Parents, students, teachers and, importantly, ministers desperately need ideas that can provide concrete support for children and are also realistic within the financial constraints that grip local and national government.

We believe the approach we are discussing - about 50 hours of small-group, personalised and high-quality early reading support for SEND pupils at the right time - could be part of the solution.

A worthwhile cost

We know what this costs - and to be clear, it is not free.

Drawing on the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) as a reference point for costings, we estimate that every child identified with SEND could be helped with 50 hours of reading support, for about £1,000.

This figure is based on scaling up the NTP’s provision of 15 hours of tutoring for more than 60,000 pupils between 2021 and 2023. This is a fraction of the long-term costs of inaction, both to the child and to the system.

We must support SEND pupils to learn to read as early as possible, so that they can read to learn and have access to the transformative power of education. This is a mission that can unite the education sector: literacy matters, and it matters for everyone.

Mike Fischer is founder of the Fischer Family Trust

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