Matt Keer

Photo of the back of my eldest kid’s head on his masters’ graduation day. He’s profoundly deaf. His graduation robes are visible, as is his cochlear implant

ps ‘low-ability,’ my arse

There’s no point in dissecting this further - she has no influence any longer, and today of all days it’s screamingly obvious that some peers are just totally unable to evaluate their own conduct and practice

I’m so, so glad though that my kids’ futures can no longer be shaped by Ofsted’s practice

There are reasonable arguments that some types of SEND might be mis- or over-identified. You won’t find them here

None of the 130+ local area SEND inspection reports Spielman oversaw as HMCI flagged up overidentification as an area of significant weakness in practice

To paraphrase @jonnelledge.bsky.social , it’s amazing that Spielman has resisted the overwhelming instinct that any other human would have felt - if they’d been as thoroughly exposed as Ofsted was during the Ruth Perry inquest - to just never show their face in public again

Instead, we have this

Ex-Ofsted Chair Amanda Spielman Interview: SEND, Gentle Parenting And Ruth Perry Conservative peer and former Ofsted chair Baroness Spielman talks to Sienna Rodgers about the SEND crisis, her time at the regulator and why some p...

The least insightful, least accurate, and most annoying SEND label my kids & their cohort ever received?

That label was ‘low-ability,’ bestowed by a team of Ofsted inspectors

www.politicshome.com/news/article...

YouTube video by J Smith The Thick Of It - Stewart Pearson Finale

But with or without a crippled SEND Tribunal, reformers need to explain exactly how their local partners will not simply just continue to ignore their new post-reform obligations & duties

Basically, the Stewart Pearson Theory of Change youtu.be/CyKUVWLeMaA?...

Also telling that reformers aren’t bothered by the most perverse incentive of all - freedom to disregard or delay obligations on an industrial scale, with no professional consequences

Tribunal is one of the few spaces where this doesn’t happen, so of course they want it ‘cut off at the knees’

If they curb rights to statutory SEND provision, then curbing legal appeal rights 👇 will be part of the policy package too - they’ll want to choke off ‘perverse incentives’

OTOH, the source here doesn’t understand SENDIST’s remit & approach: the decision-making process is precisely what it examines

A man, wearing black clothes and sunglasses, stood on a pavement as people pass by. The man is holding up a hand-written cardboard sign, which says ‘we need better psyops’

Still from HBO series Chernobyl, where engineers Akimov and Toptunov stare open-mouthed at the display in the control room of Unit 4, post-explosion Both subsequently die from acute radiation syndrome

And another one, no idea whether this is circular sourcing or not, but apparently govt ‘is understood to be rebuilding the funding system from scratch’

inews.co.uk/news/educati...

I wonder what unintended consequences will happen if you dangle the prospect that mainstream statutory SEND provision might be withdrawn - but not for years - when you’ve committed Whitehall yo backstop high needs deficits. Truly, a three-pipe problem

a person is throwing a frisbee in the air in a park . Alt: a teenage, wearing a white hoodie and baggy black shorts, catches an American football by his knees and punts it into the ionosphere

If true (no idea whether it is, but presumably the source wants it to be) then it would be the second time that a government has punted SEND reform post-election inside 3 years

Reform intent was first announced in 2019. Kids with SEND who started school back then would be starting GCSEs in 2029-30

Ministers set to delay key elements of special needs education reforms until next parliament Delaying implementation is seen as a way to avoid a repeat of last year’s backbench rebellion

The Door to Hell in Turkmenistan: a generation-spanning toxic fire visible from space, ignited by unaccountable specialists, left to fester for decades by feckless bureaucrats, is now close to being extinguished

Whereas this tyre fire, on the other hand, is not 👇

www.ft.com/content/e1aa...

Image shows a harrassed looking professional behind a laptop, colourised in yellow

NEW POST: “We are living on a knife-edge” @sharonlsmith.bsky.social reviews new #SENCo research that sounds the alarm about the high cost of under-funded and under-resourced mainstream inclusion www.specialneedsjungle.com/k... #SENDCo
#Disability #SENDSky #SaveOurChildrensRights

“I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of peace”

yes but now all of these executives have a hungry ghost that will do whatever they want

bsky.app/profile/jsla...

Yes, it is

And yes, it is

I’ve seen equine therapy in plans, to meet a given need as recommended by OTs

Never seen the other two, but wouldn’t surprise me if post-16 YP doing internships / apprenticeships for forestry / falconry might need some in-placement support - a very different thing to what’s being alleged here

That fool is never worth a fisking, but:

a) the Scottish definition of ASN is far more expansive than English SEN

b) the Scot figures come from a school census, not parents

c) the sourcing chain for the ‘ministerial’ claim will be 4-5 links long, mostly running through people who don’t read EHCPs

A lovely and honest thread about one deaf person's experience of a cochlear implant.

image shows a copy of the infographic in the post (accessible pdf in post)

NEW EXCLUSIVE: Our hero, @captaink77.bsky.social has followed the money via FOIs, discovering LAs largely ignored the Government’s “strong recommendations” to spend SEND cash on mainstream places: www.specialneedsjungle.com/e...
#SEND #EHCP #saveourchildrensrights #Disability #SENDSky

Yes, Reg 20(7) here www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/15...

TV screen grab from the pandemic period. Then-US President Joe Biden is speaking at a lectern, the subtitles say I HAVE ORDERED MORE PILLS THAN ANYONE IN THE WORLD HAS

Upper-tier LA finance officers rn

Govt response to Education Committee’s SEND inquiry, published *checks notes* six days ago

“The government will set out further details on our plans to support local authorities with historic and accruing deficits through the upcoming Local Government Finance Settlement”

Front of an evangelical church, displaying a large sign in white lettering on a blue background: JESUS CHRIST THE SAME YESTERDAY, TODAY AND FOREVER

Provisional local govt financial settlement & DSG/SEND deficits: £3.8bn now, est £14bn in 2028

“We will provide further detail on our plans to support local authorities with historic & accruing [DSG] deficits & conditions for accessing such [unspecified] support later in the Settlement process.”

No, yes, no, no and no

Also, the £ values are a crude calculation of the mean. There’s more cost variation in INMSS sector, but variation is still huge in state special sector too: lowest I’ve seen is £10k, highest is £93k

image shows graphics of a school and people talking online and in person with question marks.

On SNJ Today: @captaink77.bsky.social crunched numbers on the DfE's £3 billion #SEND funding extravaganza. Is it new money? And how you can set them against the 5 reform principles to ask the right questions in the "National SEND Conversation": www.specialneedsjungle.com/g...
#Disability #SENDSky

Yeah, that’s definitely been happening with recent tranches of this grant in zones 1-3, but elsewhere, it’s often been Portakabins a gogo

£3bn in 2021-25 probably created slightly fewer than 30,000 places, many in temporary accomodation

£3bn in 2026-29 (less £ in real terms) will apparently create 50,000 places

It's reasonable to ask a) how that funding is being spread more thinly, and b) who pays for the extra specialist staff

My kids are deaf. They attended a primary SEND unit. That unit is now closed.

Despite £3bn+ of SEND capital funding injected since 2021, there are now fewer high-needs places for deaf pupils in mainstream schools than there were five years ago

There's no obvious capacity planning strategy here