Less than two per cent of teachers have rated the government as being good or better at supporting pupils with SEND, according to a damning new survey.

The NEU teaching union  invited its members to give the government an Ofsted-style ranking when assessing the support it provides for SEND pupils.

More than two-thirds (67 per cent) of those polled ranked the government as being poor and another 31 per cent said it required improvement.

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Only 1.5 per cent of those questioned said the support was good and nobody considered it to be outstanding.

The majority of staff who took part in the survey work as Sendcos in their school, the union said.

Mary Bousted, joint-general secretary of the NEU, said that if these responses to the survey were an Ofsted inspection, the “Department for Education would be in special measures”.

The vast majority of respondents (92 per cent) also said the next government must provide more funding in order to improve the situation. 

Lack of SEND support

Other popular suggestions for improvement were better mental health provision (which was highlighted by 87 per cent of respondents), more effective early intervention and SEND support (80 per cent), more joined-up thinking (76 per cent) and quicker access to SEND assessment (75 per cent).

When asked about the barriers to effective support for SEND pupils: 

• 89 per cent highlighted that funding levels were a barrier, and said that this had worsened. Some 59 per cent of all respondents believed it had got “a lot worse”.
• 76 per cent said they had witnessed longer waiting times for SEND assessment, and 91 per cent stated that waiting times for access to support services had worsened, too.
• Respondents said the “inflexible curriculum” and “a toxic testing culture” were negative factors, with many saying they had got worse (46 per cent and 58 per cent respectively).
   

The findings of the snapshot survey of 318 NEU members were published today.

One-fifth of respondents were headteachers and 61 per cent served as special educational needs coordinators (Sendcos) in their school, according to the NEU.

Dr Bousted added: “It should be a point of shame for the government that so few education staff believe it is up to the task of providing for SEND pupils.”

A recent Commons Education Select Committee report warned that a generation of children with SEND were not getting the support they needed because of “a nightmare of bureaucracy, buck-passing and confusion”.

Local SEND area inspections carried out by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission have also highlighted the scale of problems in the provision of SEND services.

A Tes investigation revealed that of the first 100 areas to be inspected, more than half had been told to produce written statements of action in order to address weaknesses. 

The Department for Education has pledged to invest an extra £700 million in the education of children with SEND in 2020-21.

Education secretary Gavin Williamson has also called a review of SEND services, which is expected to report back next year.

The DfE has been contacted for comment.