IJPDS International Journal of Population Data Science

Schools worldwide balance whole-class teaching with additional support for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Evidence on the equity and effectiveness of additional support for SEND is needed to address growing demand and rising costs – often referred to as the SEND crisis in the UK. While some specific targeted interventions improve learning, few studies have explored or demonstrated benefits for SEND provision as it is typically delivered in schools.

A key challenge for evaluation studies is how to compare children with similar needs who do and do not receive SEND provision. However, schools do not routinely record which students need help, only those assigned provision. In this study, published in the International Journal of Population Data Science (IJPDS), researchers used proxy indicators of need recorded in the ECHILD database.  High-need health characteristics likely to affect sensory or learning ability were defined to indicate potential need for additional support. Causal inference methods, using the target trial emulation framework, assessed potential outcomes if children in these high-need health groups received SEND provision or not.

The researchers found that SEND provision in the first year of primary school modestly reduced rates of unauthorised absences in subgroups of children, but showed no measurable benefit for total school absences, hospital admissions, or school attainment. This may partly reflect unmeasured severity or behavioural factors linked to which children receive SEND provision. Other explanations include the lack of measurement of the type, timeliness, quality or amount of support received, as well as outcome measures that may be insensitive.

Parents and young people involved in the study reported that when SEND provision was delivered early and responsively, children were happier, more able to participate in class, and better able to gain skills. However, they also reported harms linked to the SEND process, including delays, inadequate help, and the stress of needing to ‘fight’ to get appropriate support.

The study highlights the need for more experimental study designs to address unmeasured selection factors. Schools could be randomised to different types or intensities of provision, or to differently trained staff delivering SEND support.  Government could also consider randomising or stepped approaches when implementing policy changes. Improved measures of SEND need, clearer information on the help received, and more relevant outcomes could be linked through databases such as ECHILD in England which is also essential for monitoring inequalities in who receives SEND support and when, across different health needs, and educational contexts, and levels of social disadvantage.

 

Click here to read the full article

Click here to access the study website

Professor Ruth Gilbert, University College London Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health

Gilbert, R., Saxton, J., Cant, A., Lewis, K., Nguyen, V., Gains, H., Zylbersztejn, A., Tan, J., Gimeno, L., Matthews, J., Winterburn, I., Rahi, J., Downs, J., Logan, S., Farr, W., Dearden, L., Harron, K., Ford, T. and De Stavola, B. (2026) “Evaluation of special educational needs and disability provision in English primary schools using administrative health and education data in the ECHILD database ”, International Journal of Population Data Science, 10(2). doi: 10.23889/ijpds.v10i2.3331.