A MUM of two children with special educational needs is campaigning for a change in the law to ensure mandatory training for school staff.

Emma Osborne, from Colchester, has launched a petition urging the Government to take action over the lack of special educational needs (SEN) training in schools.

She began the push off the back of her own experiences with her two boys, now aged seven and three.

Her youngest son, Frankie, was diagnosed with autism and sensory processing difficulties in August 2022.

“I've had first-hand experience on the struggles these children and their families face daily,” she said.

“It is a constant fight for what your child deserves when it comes to support from speech and language therapy, physiotherapy and so on.

“It is never easy to get straightforward support.

“But it doesn't just end there, as the luck of understanding around SEN in early years settings and schools can also prove a fight for parents.

“Or even worse – a lot of children go through early years struggling and showing signs of needing support, but due to lack of training or understanding staff are dismissing these signs, or passing it on as the child being 'lazy' or even being just ‘naughty’.”

Emma’s petition, which had attracted more than 50 signatures at the time of writing, calls for all early years, non-SEN schools and child services to have compulsory training in autism, ADHD, sensory processing disorder and behavioural support awareness.

She said: “Moving forward all childcare qualifications should include a unit in SEN too.

“The Government should support settings with the cost of the training to all staff and the training should be refreshed every year.”

Emma said the petition had attracted the support of Colchester MP and health minister Will Quince, who has raised the matter with the Department for Education.

A Department for Education spokeswoman said: “We want every child, including those with special educational needs and disabilities, to have access to a high-quality education.

“We are increasing the high needs budget to over £10 billion in 2023-24, a rise of over 50 per cent since 2019, and are training up to 5,000 new early years Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCos) and 400 new educational psychologists, who play a critical role in the support available to children with SEND.

“Early this year we will set out our ambitious programme of improvement to the special educational needs system, taking into account parent and stakeholder views on our reform proposals, including for a new qualification for teachers training as SENCos.”

Find the petition here.