‘She’s one of the most vulnerable children in society, all of these children are, and it’s just like nobody cares about them at all. They’re just a number on a piece of paper’
Trafford parents have been left worrying for months over where their kids will be learning in September after the council ran out of school places.
Constant delays and a ‘stressful’ lack of communication from the town hall to families with children with special needs has compounded the issue, one mum said. Laura Ashton’s daughter Lucy, 6, will be moving from infant school to junior school in September.
Mrs Ashton, a nursery worker, said she expected to be told by the authority in January which setting Lucy had been allocated. The email finally came through at 7pm on Friday, May 1. It followed months of emails and exhaustion for the Sale family.
Click here for the latest on Greater Manchester’s politics in our newsletter
Mrs Ashton, 41, said: “I’ve been told by the head of the EHCP (education, health and care plan) department, that there aren’t enough places for these children, and there’s a huge dilemma.
“They must have had the foresight to know that this was going to happen. The fact that nothing has been done about it in the run-up to this period of time is absolutely atrocious.
“From January, [there has been] very few communications from the coordinator and the head of the EHC team, letting parents know what’s going on. No one heard anything.”
“I chased it up continually,” Mrs Ashton added. “I made it my mission. I would email every single week asking […] ‘where’s this correspondence? What’s going on?
“‘There’s a shortage of spaces. How are we going to school all these children?’ No response to that question.”
By the end of March, the family still had no answers, with Mrs Ashton claiming there had been ‘no emails, no telephone calls, nothing’ from the council, ‘not even a ‘sorry, there’s been a delay’’. In April, the authority finally told parents it planned to create additional SEND places at two local schools – Moorlands and Broomwood – and these would be allocated in May.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service has seen emails from council officers acknowledging the lack of correspondence with parents, saying ‘no communication is not good at all’ and admitting they ‘should have communicated something’. Officers added in an email in mid-April they had not wanted to ‘cause any unnecessary uncertainty or stress to families’ by ‘sending communication to parents when the situation [around the lack of school places was] not yet clear’.
However, Mrs Ashton argued the lack of information from the council does not reduce uncertainty but ‘amplifies it’. She added: “Being left without any update for months has caused far more stress than a transparent acknowledgement that decisions were still in progress ever would have.”
The delays mean that families like the Ashtons now have just one term to prepare their children – many of whom will find change difficult – for the transitions.
Mrs Ashton said: “I don’t sleep. I’ve been constantly replaying emails and wondering where this correspondence is, why they can’t do their job properly, and worrying for Lucy’s future.
“She’s one of the most vulnerable children in society, all of these children are, and it’s just like nobody cares about them at all. They’re just a number on a piece of paper.”
She added: “It’s impacted Lucy because she’s well aware, so we will talk about the fact that her siblings are moving on to different settings, and she will ask constantly where she will be, what school uniform will she be wearing, will the lovely Karen still be making her school dinners.
“We can’t even say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, so we can’t prepare her for anything. Impact wise, it’s just been absolutely awful.”
Even now that the family has been told where Lucy will be going in September, the struggle is not over. Lucy currently attends Wellfield Infants School, in Sale. However, the lack of places in the special needs groups means she will not be able to move up to Wellfield Junior with her friends in the school’s mainstream classes.
She has instead been allocated a place at Moorlands. This is despite, Mrs Ashton claims, Wellfield saying it could ‘perfectly’ meet Lucy’s needs. The family intends to appeal, but this again prolongs the uncertainty for Lucy.
Mrs Ashton said: “She has this lovely group of friends who she actually, for once in her life, belongs with, and they accept her for who she is. Now she’s going to be taken away from that, and she’s going to have to start that process all over again.
“I think it’ll have a huge, huge impact on her socially, which again, will have a knock-on effect on her education and how she views life and school.”
“She’s an absolute dream of a child, she is lovely, she just likes to know what’s going on. She needs to know where she’s going to be. So the whole moving from infants is a massive thing for her anyway.”
A spokeswoman for Trafford council said: “While we are unable to comment on individual cases, we understand that not being allocated a first choice of school place can be disappointing and upsetting for families.
“As a Council we are committed to ensuring we have sufficient school places, and we have clear strategies and approaches for school place planning, including for children with special educational needs.
“Part of our approach includes the creation and use of small specialist classes (SSCs) for children with SEND needs. This year Trafford took the decision to consult with all families of Year 2 children currently attending SSCs so that everyone would go through a full and fair process together, with the aim of confirming school places by the end of March 2026. This deadline needed to be extended as a result of some delays in the completion of some building works that were supporting the creation of additional SSC places. Once these works were completed, we were able to progress the allocation of school places.
“As part of the national SEND reforms we are continuing to develop our approach to SEND provision within Trafford schools and SSCs are a vital part of that.”
You must be logged in to post a comment Login