Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to increase the number of new SEND schools in West Dorset constituency.

The department know that many children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) struggle to find a suitable school placement that is close to their home and meets their needs. The government committed to addressing this by improving inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools, as well as ensuring special schools cater to children and young people with the most complex needs.

Many mainstream settings are already committed to delivering specialist provision locally, including through resourced provision and special educational needs (SEN) units. We are encouraging schools and local authorities to set up more of these provisions to increase capacity in mainstream schools. We will work with the sector to increase capacity and extend best practice across the system, so that every child or young person with SEND can access a suitable school placement.

The department has published allocations for £740 million in High Needs Provision Capital Allocations for the 2025/26 financial year. The funding can be used to adapt schools to be more accessible for children with SEND, to create specialist facilities within mainstream schools and to create special school places for pupils with the most complex needs. Of this funding, Dorset has received £5 million in July. We also continue to work very closely with the local authority and trust leaders on proposals to establish, and expand, high quality resource bases and SEN unit provision.

The department has also invested £22 million in the Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools (PINS) programme. PINS deploys specialists from both health and education workforces in mainstream primary schools. The aim is to build teacher and staff capacity to identify and better meet the needs of neurodivergent children, including pupils with autism. The PINS programme is being evaluated, and the learning will inform future policy development around how schools support neurodivergent children.

Across the Dorset integrated care board (ICB) footprint, 37 schools took part in PINS in 2024/25 and will continue to receive support to embed their learning over 2025/26. The ICB is in the process of recruiting an additional 30 new schools for 2025/26.