(UK) SPED 'national crisis'; one in five students have special needs

Mar 9, 2026, The heavy cost of SEND in schools | The Week

Educating children with special educational needs has been dubbed a ‘national crisis’ with soaring numbers being diagnosed with conditions like dyslexia, ADHD and autism.

A staggering one in five of all pupils – over 1.7 million – are estimated to have such special educational needs and disabilities, known commonly as SEND, according to the latest Department for Education figures.

Councils are increasingly being crippled by the costs of provision and meeting the legal and financial requirements of educating children with SEND under education, health and care plans (EHCPs), which more and more children are being issued with.

In mainstream independent schools, the numbers of children with SEND have also mushroomed, driven by the lack of state provision and by the same escalating rates of diagnosis.

Where once a special educational needs department might have been something of a peripheral add on, it is now central.

Rachel Mackenzie, head of learning support at Roedean School near Brighton – which is experiencing “a rising number of diagnoses, in particular of autism, ADHD and dyslexia as well as anxiety related needs” – says there had “definitely been a real cultural shift in independent schools over the past decade” with SEND “visible, openly discussed and celebrated”.

At open days, schools report SEND is a frequent and regular topic. “Parents increasingly want clear, practical information about learning support, assessment processes and how the school supports individual needs within a high-achieving environment,” she explains.

At Wellington College in Berkshire, Headmaster James Dahl says all schools were dealing with “increasing numbers of children with educational psychologist reports or children with EHCPs”.

“Of course, it is challenging for all schools whenever you have more stuff to deal with and the same human resource or financial resource, and you have to meet that demand,” he says.

At the co-ed boarding and day school, Dahl says “more people were working in our academic support department than ever before, and people with more specialisms including an ADHD specialist and an autism specialist”. The row over student loans: is the system unfair?

“You go back 25 years and you maybe had one person who had done a course on dyslexia and that was your academic support department.

“The burden is heavy and unfortunately most schools in this country – state and independent – don’t have the financial or human resources to be able to deal effectively with the wave of diagnoses that are coming through the system,” he warns.

At Hanford School in Dorset, Headmistress Hilary Phillips says one reason diagnosis had increased was because we are “a lot better at diagnosing now”, although she urged real caution in diagnosing children too early when other factors might be involved. “More pupils are getting such a diagnosis as they are going through the system when it could just be a developmental stage. It could be the experiences they had at home or it could be how they have been brought up.”

Hand in hand with this, she believes it is very welcome that the past stigma some parents felt about having their child labelled has dissipated, partly because “younger parents are much more comfortable and open and aware that this is a thing”. . . .

However, schools also warn that while provision and resources in independent schools tend to be far better, both sectors are hampered by the sharp rise in diagnosis because of the need for external help. . . .

 “With these increased diagnoses, we have the same number of people trying to deal with this huge volume of children,” she says. . . .

At Stowe School in Buckingham, special educational needs co-ordinator (SENco) Caroline Bagshaw says the co-ed senior school was seeing increased numbers of children with special educational needs – both pupils with diagnosed needs applying but also existing pupils being diagnosed after concerns were flagged by staff or parents.

Bagshaw believes that increased awareness of conditions like ADHD and autism continues to drive greater diagnosis.

“Teachers are trained to meet the needs in the classroom and, of course, the more they are trained to meet those needs, the more they are becoming upskilled and the more they notice children with undiagnosed needs.” . . .

At Wellington, over 10 per cent of the pupils have an ADHD diagnosis, although official figures just a few years ago estimated the nationwide figure at only 5 per cent.

“We have seen a rise in ADHD and autism diagnoses over the last five years. I have no doubt that the figures we see at Wellington reflect what is happening nationally,” says James Dahl. “It might be that we have a higher proportion than is the case but, talking to colleagues in the state sector, I suspect the 5 per cent figure is an under-estimation.”

Meanwhile, medical intervention for children with SEND is a strong bone of contention.

“I have seen the positive benefits of medication with neurodevelopmental conditions like ADHD, and also the judicious use of medication in and around young people with chronic anxiety or depression, being an important part of their road to recovery,” says Dahl. . . .