1000+ signatures!

Thank you so much for your overwhelming support, signing the petition and adding your voice to those who are outraged about the proposed cuts to SEND funding. We have support in the press and across social media - that is your doing - thank you. Please do share the petition link on social media and urge your friends, family and colleagues to sign as well. These changes will affect every child. I have written to my local councillor, MP and minister for education, Justine Greening. Please do the same and maintain the momentum for this cause. Here is an extract of my email to Justine Greening: "I see myself as an advocate for our most vulnerable children and, increasingly, their families, as cuts to global services mean that school staff are now lead practitioners in "team(s) around the family," not just "team(s) around the child." I can no longer sit back and watch as harmful cuts lead to devastating changes for all our pupils, but perhaps most significantly, our most vulnerable. I increasingly see it as my duty to use my very privelidged position: working alongside wonderful families and children, talented colleagues, a wide range of professionals with broad ranging expertise, to say that enough is enough, and that children should no longer be forced to bear the weight of national deficits. Last September in Devon, significant changes to funding for pupils with significant levels of SEND were implemented without warning on 1st September. Schools were not informed about this until term restarted. A cap of £2000 was placed on the top up funding (non-statutory) we were allowed to seek from the local authority, which, alongside the £6000 schools are expected to fund from their own SEND budgets, was too small an amount to support many learners. Schools have had to 'make do,' often borrowing generalist LSAs from their whole class support roles to work with children with specific needs. The general feeling was frustration that the children's, families and professionals', voices were not being heard. However, on 19th July 2017, a letter ( https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7ZQKjm_h2VleThhT2pHU2FKeDQ/view ) was uploaded to the schools’ information portal from Dawn Stabb, Head of Education and Learning at Devon County Council.  It stated that, from 1st September 2017, significant funding cuts are being implemented for pupils with SEND across Devon.  This allows most schools 2-4 working days to address these changes before the summer holiday, subject to them having read it. It is unacceptable to continue to implement drastic cuts without time to strategically plan for the changes and mitigate the associated risks.... However, the issue is as important at a national level as it is at county-level. As I scroll through lists of petitions, those asking for support to fund a child to access the right type of specialist provision for them, those to support disabled children with transport, those opposing redundancies of support staff and those addressing other concerns for children with SEND are commonplace. Without proper education funding, some of which is ringfenced to support vulnerable pupils (those who are disadvantaged as well as those with SEND), the problems and risks which I have outlined...will become critical, widespread and too late to undo. I urge you to fight for these children's rights at a national level. I urge you to meet the families and the children who are being devastated by the fundamental lack of investment in their provision. I urge you to consult the experts who work with these children and families on a daily basis - who know exactly what these children need, but cannot implement the required provision due to a lack of funding. I plead with you to do whatever it is in your power to do to improve the lives of these children, not to take any more from them." Many thanks for your support, Hannah Rose