SEND HUGS, Chesham (2026)

29/07/2026

Andy Burnham wants to put vocational training on a par with academic education.

I’ve always said I would rather my children trained as plumbers or electricians than saddle themselves with huge debts going to university for the sake of it.

I say that as someone who really believes in education and has a PhD.

University shouldn’t be the default choice for all young people. In setting a target for 50% of young people to go into higher education (and he now advocates increasing that to 70%), Tony Blair both overvalued and devalued it.

Vocational training is hugely important, and hugely undervalued. A highly skilled mechanic, plumber, electrician, hairdresser, carpenter or chef is arguably more important to society than someone like me with a bunch of letters after their name.

And yet the apprenticeships and training programmes they undertake have long been undervalued. A child who shows any aptitude for passing exams is pushed towards more academic routes.

To treat apprenticeships and hands on vocational training as being on a par with more academic routes is a great idea.

In fact, it’s such a good idea that it’s been done before.

The post-War tripartite system of education divided secondary education into grammar schools, focusing on “book learning”, secondary technical schools for children with mechanical or scientific strengths, and secondary modern schools which focused on the skills to prepare students for apprenticeships and everyday life.

The system was meant to offer “parity of esteem”, each pathway being equally valued.

There were two main problems with this. The first was attitudinal. The 11+ was taken by all - a one day only opportunity to prove your academic worth. “Passing” the 11+ was seen as a highly prestigious achievement.

If the way into a secondary modern school was by failing to make the grade in the 11+, it’s clear that few would see this pathway as being as prestigious as a grammar school place.

But the main reason the system failed is that secondary moderns were chronically underfunded.

Better funding and greater respect for vocational training would benefit many young people with SEND. I’ll watch this space with interest.

28/07/2026

One of the things that drives my children mad is that I can always find a song to fit the occasion - and usually insist on singing it out loud.

I always tell people that moving house every year or so and going to five different primary schools before I was 10 was the only life I knew and didn’t bother me at all.

But I do remember wandering around the playground on my own at a new school aged about 8, and the lyric that kept running through my head was:

“I wanna go back where my wandering started,
Back to the place we parted,
Back to the places and the people
I once knew.”

When I phoned for the results of my A level resits, I had Dire Straits playing in the background:

“Why worry?
There should be laughter after pain.
There should be sunshine after rain.
These things have always been the same,
So why worry now? Why worry now?”

When I left China after a very happy few years of teaching to come home on a container ship, several of my former students came to see me off. On the station platform, they sang one of their favourite songs:

“Wherever you go, whatever you do,
I will be right here waiting for you.”

I responded with Roger Whittaker’s The Last Farewell:

“There's a ship lies rigged and ready in the harbor
Tomorrow for old England she sails
Far away from your land of endless sunshine
To my land full of rainy skies and gales
And I shall be aboard that ship tomorrow
Though my heart is full of tears at this farewell
For you are beautiful, and I have loved you dearly
More dearly than the spoken word can tell.”

Cheesy perhaps, but it was one of those perfect moments in life.

Over the last few years, and particularly in the last few days, this is the lyric that keeps playing in my head:

“Life is a rollercoaster,
Just gotta ride it.”

Do you have a theme tune, or even just a lyric, that sums up how your life is going at the moment?

27/07/2026

When my children were little, I worked freelance and fitted my working hours around them, working when they slept.

We had memberships for the zoo, the farm park, the motor museum. When we visited, there was no pressure to see everything in a day. Sometimes we went straight to our favourite areas, sometimes we explored new ones, and as soon as anyone had had enough, we could just leave.

We saw the same friends several times a week and hung out together, at one of our houses, the park, or one of our favourite cafes. The food, the company and the surroundings were always predictable.

We walked to town for shopping - just a few items at a time. My daughter could roam around freely in the pedestrianised high street, often on her bike or scooter, and it felt as though we were never in a hurry.

Even after she started school, we took the bus in the morning, arriving at school early so that she had the playground to herself, and at the end of the day we walked home, jumping in muddy puddles and letting off steam along the way.

She played elaborate role play games that lasted for days - sometimes our house was a nursery/preschool/school, sometimes a hotel, sometimes a restaurant. My daughter always dictated the script.

My son played a supporting role in her games from the time he was born, as the patient in her surgery, the pupil in her school, the guest in her hotel, the diner in her restaurant, her baby, her pet dog or cat...

My diary reveals that there were some fairly spectacular meltdowns in those early years, and she didn't sleep other than in my arms for her first six months. But I remember a calm and happy rhythm to our days.

Looking back, I realise that I was unknowingly parenting her in quite a PDA-friendly way. I seldom needed to rush her, she had a lot of autonomy about what to do and where to go, and I didn't have silly rules - if she wanted to lie down on the pavement to feel how warm it was in the sun or get gloriously filthy grubbing around in the dirt, I let her.

And then we had school, and timetables, and I went back to being employed, and everything changed.

I often wonder how life would have been if I'd home educated her from the start.

26/07/2026

When my children were small, I was determined that they would not grow up to be fussy eaters, and that the whole family would always eat the same meals.

I gave them a variety of different foods, all home cooked, and we did a lot of cooking together.

My daughter was slow to eat food as a baby - she never accepted purées and had decided tastes from the beginning. She was also always a grazer.

My son would eat anything I spooned into his mouth - as long as there was apple purée on the front of the spoon to mask the smell and flavour.

But it didn’t last, and I got tired of throwing away rejected food.

My son now has pretty much the same packed lunch every day he’s at school - but refuses to touch that food if served up at home. He does, however, like to eat pretty much the same “home” lunch every day.

He has 6 or 7 evening meals that he eats on rotation all year round - though we can switch the order from week to week. Most involve meat.

My husband works in a school and has lunch provided in term time. In the holidays, he needs a more substantial evening meal, because he hasn’t had a cooked lunch.

My daughter is vegetarian and doesn’t eat leftovers, anything that’s at or beyond its “best before” date, anything someone else has touched, or anything she hasn’t chosen herself. She doesn’t eat at school, doesn’t eat at regular times and doesn’t eat in front of other people.

In term time, I keep a small selection of her preferred foods constantly in stock, so that when she’s hungry, I can offer her something she likes to eat.

When she comes out of school (starving because she usually hasn’t eaten since the night before), we nip to the shops and she chooses something to eat straight away.

When she hasn’t been in school, the most cost effective way to deal with her eating requirements is to do a Sainsbury’s or Waitrose order on Deliveroo. It arrives within half an hour, and we can top up on things like bread and milk at the same time. Her preferred foods are fruit, anything spicy and cheese.

It always surprises me how much my weekly shop changes when the holidays begin - just another thing that keeps me on my toes!

24/07/2026

I've been asked to publicise a very exciting opportunity for a neurodivergent young artist.

TABOR (The Artist Book Online Residency) will be running for the first time in 2027. A diverse group of eight book artists will meet each week to share ideas, support each other, develop new work, take part in professional workshops and create a joint exhibition together.

It's an online programme, so the residency can work for artists anywhere in the country and fit around their day to day life.

One of the eight places is reserved for an autistic/ADHD/PDA young adult who has not yet completed a formal qualification such as a degree or apprenticeship.

As well as participating in the residency with the other artists, this artist will also receive dedicated mentoring from Gecko Community, a neurodivergent-led charity which provides innovative teaching, therapeutic projects and mentoring to support neurodivergent young people, to help them to participate fully and confidently.

The organisers are looking for a book artist who:

- identifies as autistic, ADHD and/or PDA (formal diagnosis not necessary)

- has experience with self-directed learning and has been out of school or in alternative provision for a stretch of time

- is eager to learn and experiment in the field of book arts, considering this as their future career

- has made at least two pieces of book art before (this is necessary before application, but not before expressing interest, so if you already make any kind of art and are curious about book art, you have enough time to get started now and complete enough work before the formal application period begins in October/November)

- is aged 18+ and does not hold a formal qualification like a university degree or apprenticeship yet.

They are currently inviting expressions of interest from young people who feel this might be right for them. If you're interested, click on the link in the comments to learn more. Contact details are at the bottom of the page.

The photo is an example of book art from the TABOR website - link below. There are some fascinating links on the website to work by the organisers of the programme and wider information about book art.

23/07/2026

Yesterday was my son’s last day of primary school - and his last day (at least for now) at a mainstream school. In September, he’ll be starting Year 7 in a school which specialises in autism and SEMH needs.

He’s been to two different primary schools. The first denied his needs, repeatedly told me my parenting was at fault for any difficulties he had, and taught him that it was not OK to be different.

The school he has just left instantly saw what his old school had missed. They nurtured him from the start, encouraged him, reassured him and loved him for who he was.

Gradually, he learnt that this school was a safe place. For a while, that meant that he resisted doing the things his old school had forced him to do.

Learning to trust in a safe environment sometimes looks like going backwards. He went through a period of struggling to go into school in the morning and then refusing to go into the classroom.

The staff and I worked together to help him feel more comfortable. We problem-solved, looking for the reasons behind the behaviour. I know they did a lot behind the scenes.

The solution seemed counterintuitive - he wasn’t comfortable going into school, so I started sending him in earlier.

Rather than walk in with a crowd of other children and go straight into the noise and bustle of the day, I handed him over to a trusted member of staff and he went to breakfast club to play quietly with some friends (he never ate the breakfast!) before easing more gently into the classroom.

Every issue that arose was discussed and we experimented until we found things that worked.

I was used to having my concerns dismissed or my parenting blamed, or at best to things being promised that then never happened, so it took me a while to learn to trust that I would be heard, but the staff at this school went over and above time after time.

They recognised my son’s ability, his progress and his resilience as well as acknowledging his needs. They saw the whole child, met him where he was and gently led him forward.

I’m going to miss this nurturing little village school, but they’ve prepared him well for the next stage.

21/07/2026

Here’s my top 10 of things LAs have tried on in EHCPs I’ve reviewed in the last 6 weeks.

1. One LA presented a list of "headlines" in Section F and invited the school to select those it considers appropriate to include in the child’s support plan.

2. One client was told a school MUST be named in Section F and oversee the EOTAS package. The consultation on EOTAS has only just begun and current law is that if a child is receiving full time EOTAS, Section I is left blank and the provision specified in Section F.

3. One client was told our proposed changes couldn't be accepted because policy was that every sentence should begin with the child’s name.

4. Several clients have been told private reports produced by qualified and licensed professionals can’t be included in an EHCP without going through a long internal vetting process.

5. Many are told parents can’t request any changes to Section B, E or F of a draft EHCP, even when there is substantial professional evidence to support them.

6. LAs have refused to include provision specified by an educational psychologist in Section F on the grounds that it’s part of ordinarily available provision - but it's not enforceable unless it's in Section F.

7. Detail has been left out of Section F "because it's in the appendices". Appendices are not enforceable.

8. References to exam access arrangements have been refused "because it's a matter for the JCQ". The need for access arrangements can (and should) be included in an EHCP, as it’s important to establish them as the child’s normal way of working before applying for them for public exams.

9. If a child has been accepted on the neurodevelopmental assessment pathway, this can and should be mentioned in Section C - one LA has refused this, for a child who has been on the waiting list for two years.

10. EHCPs for children with speech and language difficulties have been finalised without input from a SaLT, "because the waiting list is too long".

Children have waited over a year (for one recent client, it was 86 weeks, in which time the child ceased to be able to access school at all) for a draft EHCP.

This is why we worry about appeal rights being watered down or removed.

20/07/2026

So. Another day, another prime minister.

What would I ask him to do if he phoned me for advice?

First, I’d ask him to wait. Don’t leap in and immediately start doing stuff. Take the time to understand the consequences of your ideas, both intended and unintended.

This government has done a lot in its first couple of years. But doing is not the same as achieving. Some of its actions have been hugely unpopular. Some have been gimmicky. And many have had unintended consequences which were entirely predictable - and had been predicted, if the government had only paused before acting to think things through and listen.

And that’s my second piece of advice - listen. Not just to the people in the echo chamber you live in, the policy (t)wonks and the London media, but to real people who have to live with the effects of your decisions.

Don’t just pretend to listen. Holding a consultation is pointless if you’ve already made up your mind. If you say one thing and practically every response you get says the opposite, you need to ask why, and really understand the answers.

That’s the third thing - you need to understand. Know where we’ve been, where we are and where we need to be. Not just financially - the fairest answer, and the one that’s best for the long term, is often not the one that’s most cost effective in the short to medium term. A good politician needs to understand history, and not do the same thing and expect a different outcome.

The fourth thing you need is vision - a picture of the desired end result.

You need courage - to make the decisions which will benefit the country in the long run, and to look at the big picture without desperately seeking popularity by rehashing the same tired old press releases while ignoring the bigger picture.

And above all else, you need humility - to admit that you’re not the one with all the answers, that there are consequences you hadn’t foreseen, that you need to accept the flaws in your original plan, listen to the people with lived experience and change tack when necessary.

Oh, and one last thing.

Can we please have a new Education Secretary, who’s willing and able to do all those things, before it’s too late?

17/07/2026

Two years ago today, I was told I was being made redundant.

In one way, it came as something of a relief. Neither of my children was coping well at school, the SENDmin was taking up an increasing amount of my time, I hadn't slept through the night since before my first child was born 12 years earlier, and my daughter was experiencing increasing school distress leading to emotionally-based school non-attendance (EBSNA).

I knew I was becoming unreliable at work, and although I was lucky to have an understanding boss and colleagues who regularly picked up the slack for me, I knew I couldn't rely on goodwill and my previous reputation for too much longer. A well respected and senior colleague in another department had recently been forced out of their job due to their own child's EBSNA.

Every day, I woke up with a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach, wondering which of the many balls I was juggling I would drop that day and hoping that none of them would shatter.

I knew I wouldn't be able to get and hold down another job with regular hours, because I could never predict when or whether my child would make it to school. But the hidden costs of SEND meant that we couldn't survive on my husband's salary alone.

And that's how SEND HUGS was born. I wanted to offer people like me the help, understanding, guidance and support (see what I did there?!) that I had needed when I was first starting on this SEND journey.

I naively hoped that maybe if I was able to help them to get the right support for their children at an earlier stage than I had managed, they might not end up in the position that I was in, of being basically unemployable and with children who struggled daily.

I didn't realise the depth and extent of the problems in the system - not with the current law, which in itself offers excellent support and aims to provide it from the earliest possible stage, but with funding, chronic shortages of trained staff, implementation and enforcement of the law.

But what I always knew is that I would do my utmost to support every parent I could, and stand up for every child as if they were my own.

15/07/2026

Fixed it - the latest post from the Department for Education.

SEND HUGS

29/07/2026

28/07/2026

27/07/2026

26/07/2026

24/07/2026

23/07/2026

21/07/2026

20/07/2026

17/07/2026

15/07/2026

Address

Telephone

Website

Alerts

Contact The Practice

Shortcuts

Share

Category