South west London parents have said the education system is breaking rather than protecting children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

Families in Richmond and Kingston described endless battles to get the right support for their children, some of whom have spent months to years out of school because they can't get the provision they desperately need.

The parents took part in a protest yesterday (3 November) called Every Pair Tells a Story, organised by SEND Sanctuary UK, which saw pairs of shoes lined up outside council headquarters in England and Scotland.

Campaigners say they represent thousands of children failed by the SEND system – left without school places, on part-time timetables or waiting for support that never comes.

Families gathered outside Kingston Council's headquarters this morning to highlight the immense difficulties they face due to a lack of specialist places and support for their children in Kingston and Richmond.

The councils provide SEND services through Achieving for Children (AfC), which SEND Sanctuary said has faced ongoing challenges in meeting its statutory duties.

Parents told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) their children were struggling in unsuitable mainstream schools, missing out on vital support due to funding cuts and waiting months to years for education, health and care plans (EHCPs) to outline the help required to meet their needs.

They said the crisis in SEND provision has had a severe impact on their children's mental health, leaving some suicidal.

Georgie Cook's 12-year-old daughter has missed school for more than a year because her EHCP is not fit for purpose. She is waiting for a specialist place to become available, but has been told this is likely to take another 18 months to two years.

"She's missing out on vital education and that's just my story," the 33-year-old Kingston mum said. "There are so many other kids who have got stories that are very similar."

There are now more than 4,000 children and young people with an EHCP in Kingston and Richmond, according to SEND Sanctuary, an increase of almost 50 per cent since 2019.

Georgie said: "There's just not enough spaces, there's not enough funding and there's so many kids out here who are missing out on the right education that they are entitled to."

She added: "It leads to a lot of mental health issues. A lot of the kids go under Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) because of self harming, anxiety, depression… but then CAMHS waiting lists are so long that they don't get the support they need as well, so it just makes them regress even further."

Messages were tied to some of the shoes in Kingston today describing the plight of the child who owned them.

A message on the shoes of a 14-year-old boy read: "A child who tried to explain and ask for help, who was unheard until it was too late. Unable to attend school for four years and left unable to communicate his needs, riddled with anxiety, trauma and mistrust.

"In our darkest times, my child did not want to be alive, could not leave the house, eat or manage personal care. All a result of invalidation, trauma and masking for too long.

"The government, the education system and SEND provision are all letting down our children and the society of the future."

Pairs of shoes lined up outside Kingston Council offices as part of the Every Pair Tells a Story protest, highlighting families’ struggles to secure support for children with special educational needs (credit: Charlotte Lillywhite/LDRS).

Another said: "These shoes have carried only battles for assessment, for provision, for equipment, for a school, for transport, for everything we fought for we cannot use. My child is too unwell now.

"The local authority built barriers instead of support. These shoes stand for the cost of a system that breaks what it should protect."

Families in both boroughs reported waiting more than 30 weeks for EHCP assessments, exceeding the legal 20-week timeframe, according to SEND Sanctuary. The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman continues to uphold complaints about delays, unlawful processes and failures to communicate decisions in the boroughs.

Parents are demanding to be heard by local authorities and the government, as it plans a major overhaul of the SEND system, so the reforms truly help children.

"I'd like to see them listening to us and taking what we say as parents on board because a lot of the time what we say doesn't really matter," Georgie said. "We are forced to fight and speak up and advocate and all we want is for our kids to be heard and to be counted."

Aimee Bradley, founder of SEND Sanctuary, said: "No child should be left behind because the system decided their needs were too complex or too inconvenient. This is about every child failed by broken promises and endless red tape."

She added: "The government must listen to parents. We are not the problem. We are the evidence of the problem. Our children deserve more than words. They deserve real change, and they deserve it now."

Kingston and Richmond councils told the LDRS they are committed to making sure every child receives the education they need. They said the issues raised by parents reflect a national crisis.

A joint statement from the authorities said: "Locally, we have sought to address these concerns through our local SEND Partnership Board, which is responsible for delivering our SEND Futures Plan.

"Together, we have been successful in supporting inclusion in mainstream classrooms, increasing the number of local school places available for children with SEND, and improving the timeliness of EHCPs.

"There is more to do, and we are committed to continuing this work alongside our partner organisations and with parents and carers. A significant challenge is the national funding model, which is inadequate to meet the needs of the growing number of local children with SEND. This must be addressed in the long-awaited national SEND reforms, which are now expected in 2026."

A Department for Education spokesperson said the government inherited a "SEND system on its knees" and was "determined to put that right and deliver a better system that supports children and families at every stage".

The spokesperson said: "We have already carried out over 100 listening sessions with families, and minister [Georgia] Gould will be leading the engagement with more parents to make sure we deliver better outcomes for every child through the Schools White Paper as part of our Plan for Change.

"Through that engagement we have already made progress on our plans to build a truly inclusive system – including through improved training for teachers, £740million to create more specialist places, earlier intervention for speech and language needs and embedding SEND leads in our Best Start Family Hubs in every local area."

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