More than one in five pupils in England have special educational needs, as the latest official figures show a sharp increase in the numbers of children receiving extra support in school.
The annual data from the Department for Education (DfE) confirms predictions of an increase in families seeking education, health and care plans (EHCPs) – the individual agreements detailing extra support – before the government’s efforts to overhaul funding and provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send).
The number of children with EHCPs rose by 11.6% this year compared with 2025, adding 58,000 for a record total of 538,500. That means 6% of all school children now have active EHCPs. There was also a 3% increase in the number with special needs and support without an EHCP, to nearly 1.4 million children.
Combining the two groups reveals that 21% of the school population is regarded as having special needs in some form.
Paul Whiteman, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), said: “Behind these figures are children and families still desperately struggling to get help from schools which simply don’t have the funding, staff, space or specialist support to cope on their own with rising demand.”
A DfE spokesperson said: “These figures lay bare the scale of the challenge we inherited – a Send system under immense strain, record numbers of EHCPs and nearly half of those plans going to disadvantaged children.
“That’s why we are investing over £4bn to bring specialist support directly into schools, to train every teacher to better support Send, and give mainstream settings the expertise and resources they need to meet children’s needs earlier and more effectively.”
Under the proposals in the government’s white paper, fewer pupils are likely to receive EHCPs, and many will instead receive “individual support plans” agreed between parents and schools.
The government has said no changes will be made to support through EHCPs before September 2030. But in the meantime local authorities will have to absorb the effects of rising costs on their budgets.
Harriet Edwards, a director of the disability charity Sense, said the latest figures should be “an urgent wake-up call” for the government.
“The number of disabled children needing specialist support to learn and get the best start in life is rising. Yet far too many are still being failed by a broken education system and left falling through the cracks,” she said.
“Properly funded support from specialist teachers has never been more urgently needed.”
Boys make up more than two-thirds of children with EHCPs but the number of girls is rising more quickly. One in three pupils with EHCPs have autism, while more than one in five have speech, language and communications needs.
The reforms encourage mainstream state schools to educate more children with special needs, and the DfE’s figures show that nearly 58% of children with EHCPs attend mainstream schools. More than 500 schools have internal Send units, while 1,300 have “resourced provision” for special needs.
Rob Williams, a senior policy adviser at the NAHT, said: “In the absence of sufficient places and timely support, many mainstream schools have stepped in, creating their own specialist units to meet pupils’ needs. This is a testament to the sector’s commitment to inclusion but it is not sustainable.”
