Special needs children in Suffolk left waiting as Government review holding up conversion of former SET Saxmundham Free School

Special needs children are being left waiting as an ongoing Government review is holding up the conversion of a former free school.

Jenny Riddell-Carpenter, the MP for Suffolk Coastal, called on Suffolk County Council to take urgent action to convert the former SET Saxmundham Free School, in Seaman Avenue, into a new special school.

The MP said the school, which closed in August last year due to dwindling pupil numbers, was the ideal site to address the severe crisis children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) were facing.

She said: "Converting this former school into specialist provision would support more young people in Suffolk whose needs cannot be met in mainstream education.

"Only by acting now to increase dedicated school provision in Suffolk can we seek to tackle this crisis that is devastating for so many."

Addressing the letter Cllr Andrew Reid, the county's lead for education and SEND, said the site, which had already been earmarked as a SEND school, was a project being undertaken by the Department for Education (DfE) alongside Unity Schools Partnership.

The project was announced last year but has faced delays while the DfE reviewed all its special free school projects across the country.

Cllr Reid said although the project was not down to the county council, the authority would work with the DfE to see it delivered and would continue chasing the Government department for a definite restart date.

The county council approved a £18.6 million package last month to deliver an extra 200 specialist SEND places over the next two years, half of which could open as early as this year, ahead of the September intake.

Cllr Reid said: "Our plan is to ensure Suffolk has the right amount and the right type of specialist provision in the county, taking account of demographics and the numbers of children coming through from a young age with complex SEND."

Meanwhile, Ms Riddell-Carpenter has launched a survey to better understand the experiences of those impacted by SEND provision, which attracted close to 100 responses.

Though not statistically accurate for the whole area or the county, it suggests at least 57 children had missed school due to their needs not being met and, of those, at least 13 had been out of education for more than a year.