Recommendation 15

Children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) who had an EHC plan were eligible to continue attending school throughout the pandemic, provided a risk assessment had determined that they would be at least as safe in school as at home.26 However, SENSE told us that the guidance on how these risk assessments should be conducted or what should be included was insufficient and vague. It said that many of the children it supported had been automatically assessed as being safer at home, and had not been able to access the support they usually received at school, putting them in a vulnerable position. It also suggested that, in some cases, the risk assessments were carried out without the knowledge of, or input from, families.27 The Department explained that it exercised oversight of these issues through local authorities, who took the lead on EHC plans and risk assessments.28 In subsequent written evidence, the Department said that it had not asked local authorities to inform it of the outcome of their risk assessments and therefore it did not know how many children these assessments had placed at home.29