Dec 15, 2022, Manchester Evening News: 'Schools just don't have the staff' to manage children with disabilities and special needs https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/schools-just-dont-staff-manage-25754348
"When you look at overspend in other authorities it is quite frightening."
NW England
Schools just ‘don’t have the staff to manage’ children with special educational needs and disabilities due to a lack of resources in Wigan.. The borough’s SEND programme is currently in deficit as well as being in higher demand, the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee was told.
“The financial position in schools is terrible,” Coun Debra Wailes told Wigan Town Hall. “When children are arriving with quite severe needs they just do not have the staff to manage.
“Some are coming in with quite complex needs and the work hasn’t started in nursery.” …
“Just to reinforce that many issues to do with SEND and provisions are to do with resources and that is not an excuse it is fact,” She told the committee. “In Wigan we don’t have overspend, but when you look at overspend in other authorities it is quite frightening.
“Until it is properly resourced we will always be struggling with this. It makes me mad because we could do so much more but we do need more resources.
“We have strategies in places and schools behind us. But because we always appear to be short of resources it is always going to be difficult - that is always going to be the biggest challenge.”
Coun Susan Greensmith went on to suggest that the teachers are “under tremendous stress” and are “visibly impacted” by the strain already on them. She went on to suggest that financial stresses and pressure is why more people are coming out of teaching or not going into the profession in the first place….
Aerial view of Wigan Town Centre (Image: Copyright Unknown)