A postcode lottery of SEND provision? Analysing and explaining variability in the education of children with SEND since the Children and Families Act

尽管进行了教育改革，但英国特殊教育需要和残疾儿童（SEND）在教育方面仍然处于多重劣势。他们的缺勤率更高，被永久和固定学校排斥的风险也更高（Graham et al. 2019; DfE, 2016），从早期到16岁后的教育水平，他们的表现往往比同龄人差（DfE, 2021）。这些不平等与晚年生活中严重影响SEND儿童的负面结果有关，包括健康状况不佳、失业和监禁（O'Brien, 2016）。2014年的《儿童和家庭法》（2014 cfa）目前规定了英国SEND儿童的教育提供。这一政策很大程度上受到了Warnock委员会（教育与科学部，1978年）设想的启发，该政策假定大多数患有SEND的儿童应该在主流学校接受教育。该法案在早期识别SEND，与家庭共同制定政策以及整合服务方面为地方当局（LA）赋予了新的责任（2014CFA）。将制定立法的责任置于洛杉矶，为洛杉矶层面的不同实践、经验和结果提供了可能性——正如政策报告（众议院，2020年）和我们的试点研究（Azpitarte和Holt， 2022年）所确定的那样，邮政编码抽签。该项目将调查最近的趋势和区域差异，在学校提供和教育成果的儿童SEND。地理位置是评估SEND政策的核心，因为英格兰的LAs在SEND提供方面发挥着核心作用，包括在整个SEND过程中承担关键的法定责任。来自Ofsted检查的证据表明，许多la未能满足SEND儿童的需求的邮政编码抽奖（Ofsted, 2021）。本研究的目的是深入了解邮政编码彩票对儿童教育的影响程度、驱动因素和影响。目前还缺乏系统的研究，以了解高等教育在提供和结果上的空间差异。该项目将从三个方面解决证据差距问题。首先，它将通过观察不同教育阶段的学校安排，绘制出特殊SEND儿童家庭内部和家庭之间在包容和学校隔离方面的空间差异。与教育市场化的趋势一致，近年来学校部门的学术化程度越来越高，特殊学校的SEND儿童比例也在上升。如Black等人（2019）所示，英国学校的学术水平在整个太空中远非统一，这可能对SEND儿童的教育产生重要影响。其次，该项目将研究SEND儿童在义务教育期间教育水平的空间差异。尽管2014年cfa关注的是结果，但人们对其对儿童结果的影响知之甚少。该项目将通过调查SEND儿童在评估参与、受教育程度和学校排斥方面的空间差异来填补这一空白，研究学生、学校和洛杉矶水平的差异。该项目将通过评估学生、学校和洛杉矶层面的人口和社会经济特征对解释地区内学校之间以及地区之间差异的影响，提高我们对邮政编码抽签在SEND提供和结果中的驱动因素的理解。该项目将通过观察儿童的主要需求和SEND支持等特征在学校和学区之间的不同影响，来评估邮政编码抽签的范围。这将使我们能够辨别在多大程度上，不同层次的变化可以用特征差异来解释，这些特征差异指出了LA SEND政策和实践变化在推动SEND提供和结果的空间变异性方面的作用。

Despite education reforms, children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) in England continue to experience multiple disadvantages in education. They have higher rates of absence and risk of permanent and fixed school exclusions (Graham et al. 2019; DfE, 2016) and often perform worse than their peers in educational attainments from the early years to post-16 education (DfE, 2021). These inequalities are associated with negative outcomes later in life disproportionally affecting children with SEND including ill health, unemployment, and imprisonment (O'Brien, 2016). The 2014 Children and Families Act (2014CFA) currently regulates the provision of education for children with SEND in England. Largely inspired by the vision of the Warnock Committee (Dept. for Education & Science, 1978), this policy presumes that most children with SEND should be educated in mainstream schools. The Act places new responsibilities on Local Authorities (LA) around the early identification of SEND, the co-production of policies with families, and the integration of services (2014CFA). Placing the responsibilities for enacting the legislation with LAs opens possibilities for divergent practice, experiences and outcomes at the LA level - a postcode lottery, as identified in policy reports (House of Commons, 2020) and our pilot study (Azpitarte and Holt, 2022).This project will investigate recent trends and spatial disparities within and between LAs in school provision and educational outcomes of children with SEND. Geography is central to the evaluation of SEND policies as LAs in England have a central role in SEND provision including key statuary responsibilities throughout the SEND process. Evidence from Ofsted inspections suggests a postcode lottery with many LAs failing to meet the needs of children with SEND (Ofsted, 2021). The purpose of this research is to gain insights into extent, drivers, and implications of the postcode lottery for children's education. There is a lack of systematic research about the spatial differences in SEND provision and outcomes. The project will address the evidence gap in three ways. First, it will map out spatial disparities in inclusion and school segregation within and between LAs of children with SEND looking at school arrangements at different stages of their education. Consistent with trends towards the marketisation of education, recent years have seen an increasing academisation of the school sector and a rise in the proportion of children with SEND attending special schools. As shown in Black et al. (2019), the academisation of schools in England has been far from uniform across space which may have important implications for education of children with SEND. Secondly, the project will study spatial disparities in the educational attainments of children with SEND throughout their compulsory education. Despite the focus on outcomes in the 2014CFA, little is known yet about its consequences for children's outcomes. The project will fill that gap by investigating spatial variability in assessment participation, educational attainment, and school exclusion of children with SEND looking at variation at the pupil, school, and LA levels. The project will improve our understanding of the drivers of the postcode lottery in SEND provision and outcomes by evaluating the influence of pupil, school, and LA level demographic and socioeconomic characteristics in explaining the variability between schools within LAs, and between LAs. The project will evaluate the extent of the postcode lottery by looking at how the effect of characteristics such as the primary needs of children and SEND support varies between schools and LAs. This will allow us to discern the extent to which variation at different levels can be explained by differences in characteristics pointing to the role of variation in LA SEND policies and practice in driving spatial variability in SEND provision and outcomes.