Maidstone parents hold silent protest over SEND support.

Henry Luck reports.

Transcript

00:00Parents have gathered outside Kent County Council with small messages that have a big impact.

00:09The hundreds of shoes represent a child with special educational needs

00:14whose parents say have been failed by the education system.

00:20Attached to all of these shoes is a note by their parents and guardians

00:25about the struggle that they and their children have been through in mainstream education

00:31and how much that needs to change.

00:34Let down, there's no support within schools.

00:37So my son was given support.

00:39He was given funding throughout school up until September.

00:44He had it for about a year and a half, two years, and they've taken his funding away

00:49and he is now put back into an older year group without any support

00:54and going through school without any support within school.

00:58For one parent, a turned-down EHCP application has caused problems for her autistic son in nursery.

01:08Over the summer, he had the most severe autistic burnout that just caught us completely out of the blue.

01:15So we had about four weeks in the summer where he was so distressed,

01:18his sensory sensitivities were so heightened, he couldn't get his clothes on.

01:21We couldn't even take him down the park, he couldn't have his nan round the house

01:24and we had to kind of really strip things back and build him back up for school transition.

01:29And in my mind, it was all completely unnecessary because if he had a properly supportive transition,

01:34then we could have kept him steady and he could have avoided the distress

01:38that a four-year-old doesn't need to experience.

01:39Kent County Council says it recognises the frustration felt by some families with the SEND education system.

01:51Kent County Council says it's creating 664 new places in state-funded special schools

02:00and expanding specialist resource provisions in mainstream schools by 2030.

02:09Parents of SEND children hope this protest will allow Kent County Council to put itself in their shoes.

02:19Henry Luck for Kame TV in Maidstone.

02:23This is all very clear in our view.