About the authors

The replacement of statements with EHCPs was the main visible sign of the reforms taking place for children with SEND support needs at the higher level, while at the lower level of support provided by schools, the proportion of children recorded with SEND fell from a peak of 18.3 per cent in 2010 to 15.1 per cent by 2014, and then continued to fall to 11.6 per cent by 2017, which is the latest yea. [...] In September 2019, a cluster of new announcements emerged from the Department for Education, signalling that with the arrival of Gavin Williamson as the new Secretary of State for Education, a response to the increasingly urgent concerns around the funding and capacity of the SEND system was taking shape. [...] Instead the focus remains on the level of SEND which defines both the legal protection of support identified as necessary at the higher level, and the obligation of the local authority to provide additional funding to ensure the named support can be accessed. [...] Missing Data There were 20,781 schools with primary pupils within the dataset, of which 19,601 were included in the sample with complete data for models of SEND identification at the lower level and 16,318 were included in the models of identification at the higher level. [...] Finally, 7a-i was fitted for a dependent variable (outcome) of identifications in year 3 to explain later identifications with the purpose of examining the role of the academisation of a minority of primary schools during the period included in the main models.