Members of the Association for School and College Leaders (ASCL) have spelled out what they can, and cannot, do on existing funding mechanisms in a “roadmap” for a more sustainable education system.
The publication of the report follows a year-long consultation with the union’s council, comprising 60 school leaders, and covers all aspects of a school’s remit and work.
The panel considered what schools should be responsible for at a time when they are “increasingly being expected to expand their remit and provide support and services to pupils and families which go far beyond teaching and learning”.
The document has been designed using colour-coded columns. The services schools can reasonably be expected to meet are in a green section, those which require additional funding are in a yellow column, and a red section indicates what headteachers are not prepared to undertake.
For SEND and support with alternative provision, they have listed only one service in the green section, ‘EHCP documentation and meetings’ suggesting that this is the one aspect of SEND provision that they can provide, as things currently stand.
Headteachers’ demands
The yellow list contains six services, which the roadmap states will require additional funding:
- Ensuring EHCPs are met
- Organising AP for pupils who need it
- Quality assuring AP
- Organising emergency transport
- Sourcing provision such as occupational therapy (OT) and speech and language therapy (SaLT)
- Sourcing appropriate work experience for pupils with SEND
- Meanwhile, ‘co-ordinating all stakeholders from health and care for annual reviews’ is a service they cannot provide and sits in the red column
More needs to be done to clearly distinguish where the core responsibilities of education staff start and end
The report said that the Covid pandemic, austerity measures under the previous government and the cost of living crisis had created a situation in which “schools and colleges are not officially recognised or resourced to provide broader services, but are having to do so anyway as underfunded wider public services crumble around them. This is not sustainable.”
It called for clarity of government expectations of schools and for the appropriate funding to be put in place to achieve this.
Julie McCulloch, ASCL director of strategy and policy, said: “In recent years the expectations on schools and colleges have grown way beyond teaching and learning to encompass a wide range of societal responsibilities.
“Some of this can be traced back to the pandemic, but also to high child poverty rates and crumbling public services, meaning that schools and colleges have been left to pick up the pieces.
“More needs to be done to clearly distinguish where the core responsibilities of education staff start and end. It is time to rethink exactly what we expect from schools and colleges and how they should be resourced to meet these demand.”
Greater clarity needed around funding of SEND provision
Margaret Mulholland, SEND and Inclusion Specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “There needs to be clarity around the SEND responsibilities that schools can reasonably deliver, such as meeting EHCPs, organising and quality assuring Alternative Provision, arranging emergency transport, and securing appropriate therapies and work experience for pupils with SEND.
“These duties must be matched by targeted investment, robust cross-sector partnerships, and clear accountability so that schools are not expected to shoulder unfunded or impractical burdens.
“Our roadmap advocates for a long-term strategy as opposed to short-term fixes, by prioritising sustainable funding models, and strengthening collaboration between local services. This should include multi-year financial settlements, strategic place-based planning, and an expanded leadership pipeline to ensure quality SEND support is consistently available to pupils as and when it is required.
“We stand ready to work with government and other stakeholders on implementing the recommendations in the ASCL roadmap in order to build a fairer, more effective SEND system for all children and young people.
“Only by embedding inclusion at the heart of education policy, and ensuring every school is empowered and supported, can long-term solutions be realised that improve outcomes and wellbeing for every learner.”
