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  • About the Save Our Children's Rights campaign
  1. Policy work
  2. Save Our Children's Rights: our joint campaign

About the Save Our Children's Rights campaign

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

In July 2025, we 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 was 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 132,000 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: 

  • Writing to your MP using our template letter to explain why these rights matter
  • Joining our photo campaign to show how legal rights have made a difference to your family 
  • Using our campaign toolkit to help you take part in SEND engagement events

Everything you need to support the campaign is also available on our dedicated 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:

  • @SaveOurChildrensRights on Facebook
  • @SaveOurChildrensRights on Instagram
  • @SaveOurChildrensRights on TikTok

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

Published: 15th January, 2026

Updated: 16th January, 2026

Author: Holly Johnson

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How you can help IPSEA

How you can help IPSEA

Have you found the information on our website helpful today? If so, please consider donating! At IPSEA, we rely on your donations and fundraising efforts to help keep our vital services running. Read more

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Published: 19th March, 2014

Updated: 12th May, 2026

Author:

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