13th Feb 2026 Cllr Kizzy Gardiner, Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, announced the news today that 100 children( over the next 5 years) with special educational needs or disabilities will have a school place at a new site in Chapel End, Walthamstow, in plans the council has put forward. The school would be run by the Lime Trust, which already runs two specialist schools in the borough. The Council has a statutory duty to maintain enough school places for children

13th Feb 2026 What has been announced: The Department for Education (DfE) has pledged at least £3 billion to expand SEND provision across England. The aim is to end the “postcode lottery” for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, so families have good local options no matter where they live Why this matters: For many SEND families, the available places and support vary widely from area to area. This can mean children travel long distances

13th Feb 2026 What has been announced: The Department for Education (DfE) has announced plans for formal inspections of multi-academy trusts (MATs), groups that run multiple state schools, for the first time. These plans have been added to a new law called the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill currently progressing through Parliament. Why this matters: Right now, individual schools are inspected (for example by Ofsted), but there hasn’t been a formal process to inspect th

13th Feb 2026 What has been announced: The Department for Education (DfE) has launched a £200 million landmark training programme to help all nursery, school and college staff better support pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). It’s described as the most ambitious national SEND training offer ever in the English education system. Why this matters: The aim is to improve teachers’ confidence and skill in adapting teaching so pupils with different needs

13th Feb 2026 What has been announced: The Government has set out how it intends to address councils accumulated SEND deficits, confirming it will cover 90% of these shortfalls. A grant will be provided in Autumn 2026 to enable councils to clear their deficits, subject to each local authority submitting a local SEND reform plan and securing approval from the Department for Education (DfE). What is the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG)? The Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) is the mai

13th Feb 2026 The government have announced a 10-year plan to revitalise schools and colleges for every child. Schools are to be inclusive by design, with dedicated ‘inclusion bases’ and new guidance on adaptations to improve inclusivity and accessibility. The NNPCF is encouraged by the recognition that the physical environment can have a significant positive impact on the wellbeing and engagement of pupils with SEND. We also support the commitment to dedicated objectives tha

Back from a trip to Sheffield this week for the National Network of Parent Carer Forums and Contact joint conference. It was a really valuable opportunity to meet up with other parent carer forums from across the country and to spend time with representatives from the Department for Education. This included Claire Burton, Director for SEND and AP, and members of her team, who joined us for the full day and took part in workshops to hear directly from forums. Claire spoke abou

Improving the lives of autistic people is the focus of a new multi-million pound strategy launched by the government today.

Parents are still struggling with issues surrounding their children’s school transport arrangements in England...

The government has unveiled its £1.6bn strategy to improve the lives of disabled people, but Contact believes that families with disabled...

Click the link here to read the SEND Vision from Waltam Forest.

Waltham Forest Council outlines its aspiration to become an autism-friendly borough to improve the lives of up to 3,000 autistic residents.

From 1st August we have a new Mediation/Disagreement Resolution Service in the borough:

Amarjit Chauhan will be the new Short Breaks Officer from 2nd August 2021.

The SEND team at Wood St have been reorganising how SEND officers will be allocated to children with EHCs.

The Twilight Sessions are for parents to come and talk to the service about any concerns that they have about the EHCP.

To find out more about more about the consultation for high needs block funding bands please click the link for the January 2020 update.

NNPCF Submission to SEND Review http://www.nnpcf.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/SEND-Review-Conference-write-up-20191129.pdf

Please click on the link to find out the outcomes to the Local Area Inspection Revisit:

Ofsted & CQC Revisit Announced - March 2019

Here is the link to the Children's Services Inspection that took place in March 2019. Click the link below: https://files.api.ofsted.gov....

Here is the PDF for the Written Statement of Action following the local inspection in 2017:

Review the SEND Inspection outcomes for Waltham Forest. This update was created in January 2017: