{"id":378311,"date":"2025-08-27T18:41:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T18:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/378311\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T18:41:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T18:41:10","slug":"six-sen-children-in-ni-have-no-school-place-for-september","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/378311\/","title":{"rendered":"Six SEN children in NI have no school place for September"},"content":{"rendered":"

EA Chief Executive, Richard Pengelly, said the creation of over 1300 additional SEN places had been made possible by a “sustained push”.<\/p>\n

“Just two months ago, there was still a potential shortfall of 164 places.”<\/p>\n

“I commend all the work to significantly reduce that figure and thank the schools that have helped make it happen.<\/p>\n

“However, much more still needs to be done.”<\/p>\n

Mr Pengelly added there needed to be a move away from the “annual cycle of potential shortfalls in places”.<\/p>\n

“That will have to involve working towards a position where all schools are involved in providing specialist provision \u2013 where SEN teaching is mainstreamed in every sense of the word.<\/p>\n

“That can be done alongside continued investment to keep growing the number of places in Special Schools.”<\/p>\n

Mr Pengelly also warned the “level of need will increase again next year”.<\/p>\n

In June, the EA wrote to principals informing them it was considering an unprecedented move to instruct some schools to admit SEN children.<\/a><\/p>\n

National Association of Head Teachers Northern Ireland secretary Graham Gault welcomed the additional SEN places that have been created since then but said “the fundamental issue remains chronic underfunding of education by the Northern Ireland Executive”. <\/p>\n

“The fact that only 26% of mainstream schools currently offer specialist provision is not due to lack of will or commitment from school leaders,” he said. <\/p>\n

“Complex systemic issues prevent schools from taking on specialist provision classes, and these barriers must be properly understood and addressed.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EA Chief Executive, Richard Pengelly, said the creation of over 1300 additional SEN places had been made possible…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[1144,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-378311","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-northern-ireland","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115102200179639018","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}