We had been sitting in the review meeting for over 90 minutes, and I had that familiar sinking feeling. Like most teachers, I’m wary of meetings. Time in school is precious and not to be squandered on debate about how to reduce the photocopying bill.

But if some meetings are more important than others, then reviews for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) sit right at the top. So why do I so often come out feeling dissatisfied?

After all, the premise is good: a group of responsible adults come together to check in on how a child is doing and discuss what else can be done to support them.

So why do these meetings sometimes feel like an act of betrayal? Defining a child’s needs and producing an action plan of support is important but reductive; it tends to compress the delicate, complicated changeability of the child into something two-dimensional. And the bigger the crowd, the worse this can be. New social workers who have never met the child; ed psychs with overloaded casebooks; support workers with one eye on the clock.

Frustrations arise from the gap between what experts say the child with SEND needs and what is possible

As adults talk it can become harder and harder to recognise the child you know: sat in the classroom being taught by a teaching assistant because her teacher had to go to a meeting.

Sometimes the frustrations arise from the gap between what the experts say the child needs (counselling, physical therapy, more one-to-one tuition) and what is possible on the dwindling budget. Sometimes it’s the knowledge that this child’s problems are simply too complicated to be unravelled by well-meaning adults sitting around a table. Sometimes you find yourself agreeing to action things that you know will prove nigh-on impossible to sustain within a class of 30.

I came into the classroom at the same time as the “Every Child Matters” motto. I didn’t understand it. Of course every child mattered. Now I realise that stating the obvious in education can be vital, especially if there’s a risk that “Every Child Matters” might be less than true.

Because it is not just the paperwork that doesn’t always fit: it’s the reality. It’s the knowledge that some of your children with SEND don’t get many party invitations; that John’s new foster parents are well-meaning but just not right for him; that outside the school there’s an avalanche of cuts and a world leader who mocks disability.

So even if the paperwork and action plans seem imperfect, the support just not quite enough, the effort put in for your most vulnerable pupils must never be less than perfection. If every child matters then any child in danger of mattering less to the outside world must matter all the more to you.

Jo Brighouse is a primary school teacher in the Midlands. She tweets @jo_brighouse