Stockton has the highest number in the North-east of children being assessed for education, health and care plans (EHCPs), which describe children’s educational needs and support. The town has the highest demand, with “far more requests” for EHCPs than any other council regionally, and numbers of such plans expected to pass 3,000 in two years.
Education bosses are also struggling to find places for children moving into the town with EHCPs. And hundreds of children are being educated in expensive independent schools out of the area.
SEND
Stockton Council is planning to expand its facilities for children with social, emotional and mental health needs to meet a “significant gap”. It says it is avoiding £3m costs a year by opening new ARP (additionally resourced provision) and SEND (special educational needs or disabilities) units, currently attended by 51 children, though no secondary schools have yet signed up to run SEND units.
Elisha Dyball, Stockton Council’s strategic lead for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) practice, said they had a projected overspend of £4.6m in government grant funding for schools this year. She told a Schools Forum meeting at Stockton Sixth Form College on Monday (October 6): “If we carry on the trajectory we are, it will be £11.37m by next year. By the end of 2027-8, we were anticipating being £34m overspent.
“As of last week, we had 2,637 education, health and care plans in Stockton. We are anticipating that will increase to 2,900 next year and over 3,000 the year after.”
Of the children with EHCPs, 49.8% in Stockton are being educated in mainstream schools, higher than the regional average of 40.7%. Ms Dyball said this could mean children were having their needs met, or some could be waiting for a special school place.
Stockton has 223 children being educated in independent and special schools outside the borough, 100 more than in 2023. Of those, 32 were given places ordered by an SEND tribunal after an appeal from parents: “Once that happens we’ve not got any choice.”
High amount of EHCP’s
Ms Dyball said: “A significant contributing factor is placements. Regionally we have the most children in mainstream schools with EHCPs. We do have the highest demand.”
The SEND service received 185 requests for EHC needs assessments in the first quarter of 2025, well over the regional average, with Ms Dyball saying they had seen an increase: “We are the highest in the North-east for our rate of EHC needs assessments.
“We have far more requests than the other 11 local authorities. We assess more children and we write more plans for those children.”
She told how there had been a 31% growth in requests for children aged up to five, with a 9% rise for other ages. St John the Baptist Primary School head Kerry Coe said: “We’re seeing it on a daily basis.”
Ms Dyball referred to a new dramatic rise in demand from children moving into the town: “We had last academic year 74 children move into the borough with EHC plans. We’ve never had that before.
“And since September we’ve had another 26. Predominantly those children are coming in already being in specialist provision, and we’re struggling to find them special school places.
“That has a knock-on impact. A lot of those children then end up in independent schools.”
She said over-16s were also keeping their EHC plans longer, staying in provision longer and more moving into independent specialist provision: “All of which has a high cost attached to it.”
She added a decision-making panel had discussed over 3,000 children with SEND since January, 1,788 of which involved high needs funding. She said: “We are in the process of looking at a sufficiency strategy, where our remaining gaps are and what we do about it.
“We are aware that we do still have a significant gap with social, emotional and mental health, for children who are permanently excluded, at risk of exclusion, or children in primary and secondary. We are looking to propose an expansion of specialist SCMH provision in Stockton.”
She said they wanted to look at gaps and draw up action plans for all schools: “We know that in a lot of our schools the expertise is there but the resource, funding and availability to do so isn’t there.”
She said they had received a “significant amount of funding” to deliver new services, but the grant money for this would run out in July 2026 and services would be reviewed with a forthcoming government White Paper. They are also setting up a group with school leaders to “deep dive” into high needs funding.
Louise Spellman, CEO of Spark Education Trust, asked why Stockton had more EHCPs, saying: “We’ve also got more of those in mainstream schools. We’ve got a system that’s massively under strain.”
Ms Dyball said: “In terms of our statistical neighbours we’re not a massive outlier, but in terms of the North-east, we are above significantly. There’s identifying needs and understanding needs much earlier, and I think we’re getting better at that, which is why we’re seeing an increase.
“The significant increase is for children 0 to five, so we’re got a lot of children coming through with no speech post-Covid, significant social, emotional and communication difficulties. I think it’s a myriad, there’s lots of different reasons.”
Eddie Huntington, the council’s assistant director for education, inclusion and achievement, said: “They are genuine requests. If we think that need is there, we have to address it, and I think the earlier we get in the better, which is why we have this increase in these early years. We really want to get it right in those early years.”
Andy Bryson, the council’s chief accountant, said the £34m forecast was a worst case scenario if nothing was done: “We are doing interventions. We are working as an organisation to try and bring that deficit down. It’s just proving a bit more difficult with children coming into the system.”
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