As students go back to school this September, headteachers across the country are being forced to confront a system in crisis. While children reconnect with their friends and swap stories of the summer holidays, an ever-increasing number will have a little ‘S’ next to their name on the register – for Send, or Special Educational Needs and Disabilities.

Startlingly, one in five students in England are now recorded as having Send. Policy Exchange’s new report, Out of Control , finds that the number of children given Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) – designed to support those with the most severe needs that schools cannot normally provide for – has increased by 83 per cent since 2015. As a former teacher, I saw this spiralling crisis first hand.

This has come at a tremendous c

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