The proportion of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities has increased for the third academic year in a row in 2019-2020, newly released statistics show.

Total figures had been decreasing since 2010, but had started picking up again in 2017, according to statistics from the Department for Education.

Read: 5 tips for SEND-friendly knowledge organisers

News: DfE moves to prevent schools rejecting pupils with SEND

Coronavirus: Pupils with SEND excluded for ‘spurious reasons’

Students with SEND now represent 15.5 per cent of all pupils, a small increase from 14.9 per cent in 2019.

Of these pupils, 294,800 have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), an increase of 8.7 per cent on 2019 figures, while the number of those with SEN support has increased by 3 per cent to 1,079,000.

However, the proportion of secondary school pupils with SEND out of all pupils has slightly increased to 32 per cent from 31.4 per cent, while that of primary school pupils has decreased to 49.9 per from 50.8 per cent last year.

The percentage of pupils with an EHCP increases with age: from 2.4 per cent at age 5 to 4 per cent by age 15.

The most common type of need for pupils with an EHCP, as in 2019, was autism spectrum disorder, while for pupils with SEN support, it was for speech, language and communication.

Similarly to the previous year, the statistics also show that the proportion of pupils with SEND is higher among those whose first language is English: 16 per cent, compared to 12.6 per cent of pupils whose primary way of communicating is in another language.