Save Our Children's Rights: our new joint campaign to protect the legal rights of children and young people with SEND

Together with the parent-led website Special Needs Jungle and others, we are leading a new campaign called Save Our Children’s Rights.

We have joined with more than 100 public figures, SEND campaigners, charities and academics to highlight the serious risk to the legal rights of children and young people with SEND if government reforms currently under consideration go ahead.

A letter setting out what’s at risk has been published in the Guardian, signed by public figures who have personal experience of SEND, including Chris Packham, Christine McGuiness, Sally Phillips, Carrie Grant and Baroness Jane Campbell.

This is a direct response to the Government’s reported intentions to remove the right to an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan for children attending mainstream schools, a move that could slash statutory support from hundreds of thousands of pupils in the future. Our campaign calls on government ministers to retain the existing SEND legal framework, including EHC plans, when they publish their plans for SEND reform in the autumn.  

We believe that if sufficient funding and stronger accountability arrangements were put in place, and current moves to improve inclusion in mainstream schools are given time to work, then applications for EHC needs assessments may naturally fall as children have their needs met from a school’s own resources.

Our parliamentary petition asking the Government to retain the legal right to assessment and support in education for children with SEND has been signed by over 130,000 people, and was debated in the House of Commons on 15 September 2025.

How you can support our campaign

The Save Our Children’s Rights campaign is calling on the Government to:

  • Make no changes that roll back the existing legal rights of children and young people with SEND
  • Give a clear commitment that any reform of the SEND system will not include dilution of the law
  • Ensure that plans for inclusive education in mainstream schools are delivered within the existing legal framework

You can support the campaign to protect children and young people's legal rights by: 

Everything you need to support the campaign is available on our Save Our Children's Rights website at: www.saveourchildrensrights.org.uk

You can also follow and share updates from the campaign on social media using the hashtag #SaveOurChildrensRights:

Donate now to drive our work championing and protecting the rights of children with SEND

 At IPSEA, we’re fighting every day to make the SEND system work for children and young people with SEND. But we can’t do it alone. As an independent charity, we rely on donations from people like you, often parents or carers of children with SEND, who know firsthand how children with SEND are being failed. 

Donate £10 today to help us maintain pressure on decision-makers to ensure that children and young people with SEND have the opportunity to thrive, and that their legal rights are protected.

Make a donation

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Author: Holly Johnson

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