
Lib Dems set out plans to stop SEND services being ‘cash cows’
Council spending on Special Educational Needs and Disabilities has soared in recent years.
SATURDAY, 07 MARCH 2026, 21:07

Council spending on Special Educational Needs and Disabilities has soared in recent years.

Political correspondent Alexandra Topping and special educational needs student Jake with his mum, Laura, explore the government’s controversial plans for reform
Next week, the government is expected to announce its education white paper. It is a moment, as political correspondent Alexandra Topping explains, of high political peril.
Part of the proposals will be reforms to special educational...
The move comes after a trove of documents released by the Justice Department showed Leon Botstein had a relationship that was closer than previously known with the convicted sex offender.

Children to get individual support directly from school instead of via council in attempt to curb spiralling costs
Children in England with special needs will receive individual support and therapy directly from their schools as part of the government’s overhaul of England’s special education provision.
Under the plans, mainstream schools will be given commissioning budgets to spend on...
Readers respond to a news analysis about President Trump’s relentless demand for exaltation. Also: “Dirty money” from Jeffrey Epstein.

First cohort to be impacted by change – part of Send system overhaul – are currently in key stage 1, it is understood
Children with a legal right to special needs support will face a review when they move to secondary school, with the first cohort to be impacted currently in key stage 1, the Guardian understands.
A total overhaul of the special educational needs and disabilities (Send) system...
We invited teenagers to write miniature memoirs about meaningful moments in their lives. Read the 17 winning stories, selected from over 14,000 submissions.
The president of Bard College raised millions to save his school from closure. As he sought donations, he talked with Jeffrey Epstein about music, watches and young female musicians.
A group of academics at the University of British Columbia say the school’s D.E.I. policies and practices, which include land acknowledgments, violate a law that requires universities to be “nonpolitical.”

Leaks suggest plans for a complete redesign of special educational needs and disabilities support in schools.
A growing number of states are debating whether to alter their policies on summoning child protection officials if a student has excessive absences.

Students say the night‑time walk between campus and the town centre feels unsafe, citing poor lighting and limited CCTV.

Demand is rising at unsustainable rate and could cost £3.4bn by 2030-31, local authorities warn
Families who have children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) should be means tested for school transport, according to councils in England, who say demand is rising “at an unsustainable rate”.
Local authorities are urging the government to be “radical” in its Send reforms,...

Official figures going back to 2018 are set to take billions in under-reported benefits income into account.

Sign-ups to Student Group Claim in England and Wales escalate amid reports of £21m payout by University College London
Tens of thousands more students who were at university during the pandemic have joined a group claim for compensation, amid reports of a £21m payout by one of the UK’s leading institutions.
Lawyers acting for student claimants said a further 30,000 from different universities...

Exclusive: UK graduates working in Germany and Belgium – and possibly other countries – informed of rises as salary threshold is cut
Britons living in some European countries face a huge rise in their student loan repayments later this year, the Guardian can reveal, in a move that threatens to trigger a fresh backlash for Rachel Reeves.
UK graduates working in Germany and Belgium – and...

The NAHT say the role of a school principal in Northern Ireland is “unsafe, unsustainable and professionally indefensible”.
Linda McMahon is shocked — shocked! — that there’s been a backlash to the Department of Education’s ‘History Rocks!’ tour.
A fast-growing network of private schools, the brainchild of a North Carolina neurosurgeon, is teaching 9,000 war orphans and other needy Palestinian youngsters.
The green card holder from the West Bank had been detained during a citizenship appointment.
Marco Rubio reminds an audience in Munich of what still unites us.