(UK) Liverpool Walton: 31% of students have special needs; more than doubled since 2020

July 26, 2026, UK Times: In England’s SEN capital, one in three children have special needs

Cases have risen dramatically since the pandemic. This is how two schools manage the load

Twice a day at St Francis de Sales Catholic Junior School, a quarter of pupils take a “sensory” break to calm their nervous systems so they can return to the classroom. The ten-minute circuit might involve throwing or kicking a ball, doing star jumps then lying under a weighted blanket.

Thirty-three per cent of pupils at this mainstream primary school have special educational needs, a rate which has more than doubled from 15 per cent in 2020-21. 

Welcome to Liverpool Walton, which across all its schools has the highest proportion of SEN pupils in England at 31 per cent. Nationally the average is 21 per cent.

These figures include children with formal education, health and care plans (EHCPs) — a legal mandate for support — as well as children whom the school has identified as needing extra help, whether or not they have a diagnosis. 

At St Francis de Sales, which is rated “outstanding” by the regulator Ofsted and is for children aged 7 to 11, children most commonly present with communication or social, emotional and mental health needs, ADHD or autism.

Holly Edwards, the inclusion lead, said a lack of special school places meant it was now taking pupils who previously would have left mainstream education. This includes children in year 3, when they are aged seven or eight, who are non-verbal or not toilet trained. 

“A few years ago they might have been in specialist provision, but there is no space for them,” Edwards said. “I have seen EHCPs requesting equine therapy. We can do a lot but we cannot build a paddock.”

There are many possible reasons for the huge increase in SEN support across the country, from better diagnosis to deprivation, the impact of the Covid pandemic and excessive screen time at a young age. 

Professor Mark Mon-Williams holds a chair in cognitive psychology at the University of Leeds and his work includes examining education inequalities for children in the north of England. He said: “The most passionate, caring, brilliant parent will struggle to find the type of spaces and resources that middle-class children will be able to access on a regular basis.

“Disadvantage compounds disadvantage. We have children growing up without access to green spaces, libraries and nutritious food. Of course, then society just pays a bill for this downstream because we’re not really providing the sort of support in our most disadvantaged areas to give children the best start in life. This is how we end up with young people not in employment, education or training.” 

New analysis reveals huge regional variation around England, from 0 per cent in Rushcliffe, Nottinghamshire, to 29 per cent in North Norfolk and 28 per cent in South Dorset.

The approaches of individual schools may partly explain the disparities. Some prioritise assessment and identification and therefore have more SEN pupils, while others informally adapt their teaching. 

Private psychotherapists work in St Francis de Sales for three full days a week and a pastoral mentor provides full-time emotional support. This could involve helping children at drop-off and pick-up, or talking to them when they become dysregulated. . . .

Seven of the top 20 constituencies with the highest levels of SEN support are in Liverpool and the wider Merseyside area including Knowsley, Bootle, Liverpool Riverside and St Helens North.

Pauline Janes, 57, a foster carer with children at Florence Melly, has an adopted 11-year-old daughter with ADHD and other medical conditions, and her eight-year-old old adopted daughter is autistic.

She believes the rise in special educational needs was exacerbated by the pandemic. She said: “I think lockdown did not help at all, especially if the interaction wasn’t there with a child or the parents didn’t know what to do, and they weren’t getting the stimulation they needed.” . . .

Reidel believes a lack of space at home and outdoors to play and socialise hinders development. The nearest park to the school is a 20-minute walk away and many parents deem it unsafe due to crime and antisocial behaviour.

He said: “We think our pupils are often not given the opportunities for physical and social development in early childhood. If children aren’t able to develop those gross motor skills through frequent and prolonged physical play, research shows us that it has an impact on how their sensory processing systems develop later on.” The school said that many families lived in poor, rented housing and in relative isolation so children had not always socialised much when they started school. 

At Florence Melly Community Primary School, an outstanding-rated school in Walton for children aged 3 to 11, 35 per cent of pupils have special educational needs. Based one mile from Goodison Park, the historic home of Everton Football Club, the head said it had become a “magnet” for children with special educational needs because of its excellent SEN provision. 

The school has created “the nest”, a classroom for 12 children of all ages who, if there were space, would most probably be in special schools. It is staffed by one class teacher and three teaching assistants. They also have “the den”, a space for ten children with a class teacher who can come in and out of the mainstream classroom when they need a smaller setting.

Christina O’Keefe, deputy head for inclusion, said: “Many children turn up with very delayed speech. They’re not in a leafy suburb, they’re not going to little classes [such as music, swimming or movement groups] or playgroups to promote those things and we are finding that a lot of time is spent on devices or looking at TVs, and they haven’t developed the communication or the speech skills. So we’re having to do referrals to speech and language specialists almost as soon as they get to school.”

The head teacher, Aaron Leach, said the “disproportionate impact Covid probably had on disadvantaged communities” had fuelled the rise in SEN, saying: “What we’re seeing with a lot of our youngest children coming through the door is a higher complexity of need and many are not toilet trained or school ready.”

To be “school ready”, a child starting school at age four should be able to use the toilet and wash their hands, put on and take off their coat and shoes, use cutlery, spend time away from their parents or carers, take turns with toys, take part in imaginative play and follow simple instructions, among other benchmarks. 

Leach assists year 5 pupils

Reidel, who visited Harrow and Eton College to get inspiration for how to raise aspirations and offer the children “exceptional” life experiences, said: “We cannot, as a society, see children with special educational needs, particularly in deprived areas, as a financial burden and give up on them. We must spend money on them and get them the support they need to give them the best chance in life.”

Jo Hutchinson, director for SEN at the Education Policy Institute think tank, said deprivation was a significant cause of special educational needs as it can leave children without adequate food, housing and sleep, and lead to issues with parents’ mental health. “That stress essentially breaks people and can lead to a not-ideal environment for child raising”, she said.