Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to support neurodivergent and SEND pupils with their studies in (a) Leicester, (b) the East Midlands and (c) England.

From September, the government is providing upfront investment for schools, colleges and early years providers to intervene early in meeting the needs of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), through the inclusive mainstream fund worth £1.6 billion over three years. Over time, this will be supported through the development of National Inclusion Standards, enabling teachers to draw on evidence-based strategies to identify and support children and young people with additional needs, including those with neurodivergent conditions such as autism and ADHD.

In addition, every local area is being funded to create a new Experts at Hand service, providing mainstream education settings with access to healthcare professionals like speech and language therapists and education experts such as educational psychologists to work directly with children and support staff to put in place appropriate support and interventions.

The department will roll out a new national training programme supporting educators to identify and respond to children’s needs backed by £200 million investment, to train staff across nurseries, schools and colleges with the first wave of training materials coming online from September.

This is supported by investment to create an additional 60,000 school places for children with SEND through inclusion bases, new special or alternative provision school places and adaptations to mainstream, ensuring appropriate education facilities for all our children. As part of this, we will publish inclusive design guidance to support local authorities and settings to use their estate to support inclusion, by improving accessibility for children with neurodivergence, disabilities, or other types of SEN.