Special educational needs and disability (SEND) funding is complicated. I heard a talk once where the speaker tried to explain it using a cake analogy, and I sort of understood him, but then, once the cakes were gone, I was lost again.

In many schools, not even the SEND coordinator knows how much money they have to spend. I don’t usually think about it much. It makes my brain (which doesn’t like numbers overly much) hurt.

Not a ‘win’ for students

But we’re all clear that there isn’t enough money for SEND. And this issue came up again this week after a series of tweets from the solicitor’s firm Baker Small. Celebrating a SEND tribunal “win” for a local authority, the author of the tweets placed themselves at the centre of a media storm by showing a complete lack of respect for parents of children with SEND (the firm has since apologised).

Looking into these tribunals - decision-making processes that exist to decide what support a child gets and where and how they get it - it turns out that million of pounds are being spent by LAs in the direction of lawyers who are tasked with defending decisions not to help students.

That money could - and should - be directed towards the children they are supposed to be supporting.

And it is not a level playing field. Instead of working together, schools, teachers, parents and LAs find themselves locked into an adversarial system where, to compound injustice, the erosion of legal aid means that only a few have access to legal support and advice.

Wasted resource

While we are all fighting, money that could be spent on educational psychologists (perhaps the most harried and time-pressed of all education professionals, whose skills that could help those of us in the classroom to teach our vulnerable children more effectively are squashed out of the equation by the need to complete assessments and transform Statements to EHCPs), is instead spent on the tribunal.

I don’t think that getting rid of the lawyers is the way to go. The law covering SEND is detailed, and, for a start, LAs need advice on how to implement it without breaking it. Families from all sorts of backgrounds need access to them and children need their advocacy skills and knowledge.

But it seems to me that we have got ourselves into a situation where the focus has shifted from where it should properly be (the interests of the child) to where it shouldn’t (the interests of the LA). 

There is another way

It seems to me (and I am lucky here, because I have lawyer friends who are willing and able to explain things to me in simple terms, the sort that the humble classroom teacher will understand) that we have other options. 

We can carry on as we are, with tribunals and heartache and children missing out, or we can forge a new path, one where the child’s interests, rather than the parents’, or the school’s, or the LA’s, are the primary concern. We know how to do this; the family court already does it. Perhaps we could ask them how.

Of course, deciding what is in the best interests of the child is something we need to have a proper, grown-up conversation about. If experience has taught me anything, it’s that the world, his wife and his dog will each have a different opinion on what is best for a child with SEND. But with a little care and consideration, some mature reflection and a step out and away from the fight, we could all be an awful lot better off.

Nancy Gedge is a primary school teacher and SEND columnist for TES. She tweets as @nancygedge

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