A new plan for facilitating better, fairer access to high-quality special educational needs and disabilities support has been initiated across England.

Children and youngsters across the country having Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) or in alternative provision (AP), will be given high-quality early support wherever they are located.

The AP and SEND improvement plan to confirm investment in training for thousands of workers to facilitate the children in getting the help they need much earlier parallelly with thousands of auxiliary specialist school facilities addressing students with the most required needs. It has also included the approval of new 33 special free schools that would be built in the coming period.

The new system of metamorphosis of the system will be validated by the new national AP and SEND standards, offering confidence to families in what type of support they should receive and who will support and pay for it based on their residing areas.

The plan will curtail local bureaucracy ensuring an easy process for assessing children’s needs through EHCP known as Education Health and Care Plans in a digital-first, simpler and rapid process aimed at improving parents’ and career experiences of availing the support.

This package with investment increased by more than 50% to over £10 billion by 2023-24 when compared with 2019-20, forms part of the government’s significant investment into children and young people with SEND and in AP,

Claire Coutinho, Minister for Children, Families and Wellbeing, said “Parents know that their children only get one shot at education and this can have an enormous impact on their child’s ability to get on with life. Yet for some parents of children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, getting their child that superb education that everyone deserves can feel like a full-time job.”