A view from Plaid Cymru’s North Wales Member of the Senedd

Wrexham.com has invited Wrexham & Clwyd South Members of Parliament and Members of the Senedd to write a monthly article with updates on their work in their respective Parliaments and closer to home – you can find them all here.

In this month’s column Plaid Cymru’s Llyr Gruffydd MS writes:

The summer holidays are a welcome break for many school children as well as staff.

But come the autumn, the pressures will pile up once more. For schools in Wrexham, it will mean dealing with an increase in demand for specialist services with fewer 1:1 and specialists to provide support.

Children across north Wales are already waiting years to be assessed for autism and other learning needs. I have raised my concerns at current failings and the fear amongst many parents and teachers that coming cuts in school budgets will make matters worse.

In the Senedd, I questioned the Cabinet Secretary for Education Lynne Neagle about what her government was doing to address this delay in assessment, which can have a serious impact on the child’s ability to access support.

There is growing concern that the whole support system for children with additional learning needs (ALN) is failing.

Children referred for assessment frequently have to wait years for that assessment, and even when diagnosed the support simply isn’t there to help them.

In 2018 the Welsh Government passed a law that made supporting ALN a priority. This was meant to streamline the processes as well as to protect the rights of ALN children to get the support they need.

My fear is that far too many children are falling through the net. Some fail to get the assessment they need, others fail to get the most basic of support they need to thrive.

If and when that comes, it often far too late for many of them – the most critical years of their education are behind them by the time they get any kind of help.

That’s not good enough. That’s why I’m calling on the Government to sort this out as a matter of priority before we lose more of this generation to a system that is far from being fit-for-purpose.