23/02/2026
£6 BILLION.
That’s the SEN deficit in our education system.
Six. Billion. Pounds.
And yet every week I walk into schools for free. Voluntarily. Giving my time, my energy, my lived experience of ADHD to help children who are drowning in a system that keeps telling them they’re “too much”, “too difficult”, or “not fitting the box”.
So I have to ask the question no one in power seems willing to answer:
Where is all this money actually going?
Because it’s clearly not reaching the children.
It’s not reaching the parents.
It’s not reaching the teachers who are burnt out, under-trained, and begging for support.
And it’s definitely not reaching the kids with ADHD, autism, dyslexia, trauma, or additional needs who are being quietly failed every single day.
I have ADHD.
Not a textbook version. Not a buzzword. The real, messy, exhausting, brilliant, misunderstood kind.
I know what happens when the system doesn’t understand you, it labels you instead.
It medicates you before it listens.
It measures you with tools that were never built for your brain.
And here’s the part that really stings:
The people with lived experience parents, neurodivergent adults, teachers on the ground are doing the educating for free, while billions disappear into a system that refuses to educate itself.
We don’t need more paperwork.
We don’t need more panels discussing children they’ve never met.
We don’t need another reshuffle, rebrand, or report that gathers dust.
We need understanding before intervention.
We need training before judgment.
We need human beings before budgets.
Because SEN isn’t broken due to lack of money alone. It’s broken because of misplaced priorities, fear of change, and a system designed around compliance instead of compassion.
If I and thousands like me can show up voluntarily and make a difference with nothing but honesty and lived experience, then don’t tell me £6 billion can’t be accounted for.
This isn’t a funding problem.
It’s an accountability problem.
It’s an education-the-educators problem.
And until the system learns to listen to the people living it. Children will keep paying the price for adult ignorance.
Make it make sense. 👊🏼❤️🎗️
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