Who are the SEND Gatekeepers?

By Dr Andy Hogg, Shaping Lives.

I have been supporting a mother who was recently told, quite flatly, that her child would not qualify for an Education, Health and Care Plan. The school staff did not suggest they would try and fail; they simply told her it was not appropriate to explore. They said he would not get one, so there was no point in starting the process. This is a story I hear constantly from the families I support. In small meeting rooms across the country, school staff have become self-appointed gatekeepers of a system they are meant to facilitate.

Alarmingly, these gatekeeping attitudes often fly in the face of statutory law. Under the Children and Families Act 2014, schools and local authorities have a legal duty to find, look into, and help children with SEND as early as possible. The SEND Code of Practice (2015) is clear that a child has SEND if they find it considerably harder to learn than most children of their age or have a disability that makes it difficult to use mainstream facilities. Yet, families are being persuaded to turn away from the very support designed to make things fair for their children.

We have to ask why this is happening. Whose purpose does this blatant refusal to explore needs, come from? Often, it is a response of self-preservation. SENDCos are frequently overstretched and under-trained for the sheer volume of the crisis we face. Many acknowledge they need more training in working with multiple agencies and speaking up at professional meetings like EHC assessments, not to mention having to manage the workload they are burdened with and holding a whole school responsibility, without the financial or man-power support to be as effective as they would like to be. When a school feels it cannot meet a child’s needs with its current resources, the instinct is sometimes to block the path to further assessment because they know it further burdens a provision that is already at a breaking point.

However, the role of the SENDCO is to make sure legal requirements are met, not to decide which children are worthy of their legal rights. The Equality Act 2010 requires schools to make reasonable accommodations so that children with disabilities are not at a disadvantage. When staff tell a parent that an EHCP is not appropriate without even attempting the assessment, they are ignoring the requirement for support to be ongoing, responsive, and tailored to the child’s individual needs.

Schools have to reflect on these gatekeeping attitudes. We cannot allow SEND to be seen as a barrier to learning or a burden to be managed. Parental partnership is an essential part of the process, and it recognises that parents are the experts on their own children. Involving families should guarantee assessment accuracy rather than being a hurdle for schools to overcome.

Effective identification requires early observation and collaboration between agencies to ensure kids get the right help at the right time. When schools act as gatekeepers, they delay this essential development. It is time to stop persuading families that their children do not fit the criteria and instead start fulfilling the legal duty to provide a welcoming environment where every child is valued and supported to move forward with their peers.

To dismantle these barriers, schools must move beyond the gatekeeper mindset by conducting honest skills gap analyses to identify exactly where staff development is required. Priorities should shift toward improving leadership, coaching, and mentoring skills so that all practitioners feel confident in their inclusive practice rather than overwhelmed by it. Ongoing training is not a luxury; it is a necessity for ensuring coworkers feel sure they can meet a variety of individual needs and carry out agreed-upon interventions effectively. By utilising available funding for targeted professional development and engaging with specialist SEND networks, settings can fill critical gaps in expertise, such as the use of assessment tools to track progress for children with complex or overlapping needs. Ultimately, a commitment to continuous learning ensures that the provision remains high-quality, meaningful, and truly responsive to the families we work with.