New findings from a national study of young people with Special Educational Needs

About the study

The SEND Futures Discovery Phase study is a national study carried out by the National Centre for Social Research, in collaboration with the National Children’s Bureau (NCB) on behalf of the Department for Education. Across two round of data collection, the study has gathered information and views from around 3000 parents of young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, as well as form many of the young people themselves.

Drawing on data from the second wave of the study, this report examines how parents of young people with SEND view the support given by their child’s school, and how views differ between different groups of parents. For example, how views differ between those whose child attends special and mainstream schools, and those who do and do not have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), and they primary type of needs their child had. The report also looks at which aspects of support provision appear to matter most for parents.  

Key findings - parental views of support

• Views among parents whose child attended a special school were much more positive than among parents whose child attended a mainstream. 
• Among parents of young people in mainstream schools, those whose child had an EHCP were more positive than those whose child did not have an EHCP. 
• Parental perceptions also differed based on their child's primary type of SEN.
  • Parents of children with profound, multiple, or severe learning difficulties held the most positive views. Almost all of these young people attended a special school.
  • Among parents whose child attended mainstream education, a lower proportion of parents whose child had social, emotional and mental health needs or a specific learning difficulty were positive about the support provided.
  • Generally, earlier identification of their child’s SEN was correlated with more positive parental views on the support provided.

Implications for policy and practice

• The markedly less positive views among parents with a child in mainstream education, particularly those whose child attended mainstream education and did not have an EHCP, indicate that there is some way to go to achieve the stated aim of building parents’ confidence in the ability of mainstream settings to effectively meet the needs of children and young people with SEND.
• Within mainstream education there may be benefits of looking specifically at the support provided for pupils with specific learning difficulties or social, emotional, and mental health needs to identify whether additional resources or interventions are required. 
• In mainstream schools, prioritising resources to improve awareness of SEND and ensuring parents are meaningfully involved in decision making related to their child, may be useful focal points for efforts to improve support for pupils with SEND and, through this, parental confidence in and satisfaction with the system. These areas were found to be important drivers of parents’ overall views on the support provided for their child’s SEN.

Methodology

• SEND Futures is a national study of young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and their parent or carer. It is funded by the Department for Education (DfE) and carried out by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) in collaboration with the National Children’s Bureau (NCB). 
• The study has collected two rounds of survey data with the same young people and their families – the first wave of data collection took place in the summer of 2022, when the young people were at the end of Year 8 at school (aged 12-13) and the second wave of data collection took place a year later, when the young people were in Year 9 (aged 13-14). 

Key findings - infographics

This infographic can also be found as a downloadable file at the end of this page.