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For ages, I've been eager to create a documentary focusing on special educational needs and disabilities.

You might know me as my EastEnders role, but I'm also a mum to an neurodivergent child diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD.

Required many months of perseverance and effort from both of us to obtain the right schooling for him. Sometimes, it seemed like a battle.

This is the reason I decided to make this film, so I could meet other families experiencing the similar situation, and discuss with educators, local authorities, and the ministry about how children with special needs are supported in the UK.

The Scope of Send in England

Currently, there are more than 1.7 million children in the country with special educational needs. It is a wide-ranging group, including autistic children and people who face challenges in speech and language, have ADHD, and mobility issues, among other conditions.

Educational institutions in England do offer assistance to these pupils, but if families believe their son or daughter requires additional support, they can apply to their local council for an Education, Health and Care Plan.

An EHCP is a vital legal document because it is enforceable by law, specifies where a pupil should attend, and outlines how much additional help they should receive.

We spent countless hours filling in the forms to request an plan, and numerous parents describe the procedure very frustrating.

Buddy and Tunde

Not long after I encounter teenage Buddy, he shows me his favourite stuffed animal, Reindeer Dog.

He is on the autism spectrum, meaning his brain experiences and reacts to the world in a different way from others. He faces difficulties in meeting people his own age, understanding his feelings, and anxiety. Buddy prefers to keep Reindeer Dog close to him.

After moving to the capital from Scotland in last autumn, his mother, the parent, started applying for schools. She explains she contacted at least 11 institutions, but many of them failed to respond, and those that did said they were at capacity or were unable to give her son the necessary help without an EHCP.

By the beginning of the current year, more than 638,000 plans had been issued to children and young people in England, a 10.8% rise on the previous year and an substantial growth in half a decade.

This rise is partly because parents and schools have got better at recognizing pupils who have Send, especially autism, as rather than there being an increase with Send.

This marks the second time the family have applied for an EHCP. Their initial request was turned down before he was assessed. Councils reject about a quarter of EHCP applications at the evaluation phase, according to official figures.

When they lived in Scotland, the mother says they were not required to apply for the comparable of an Education, Health and Care Plan. Buddy's secondary school provided support for his academic needs, but not for his well-being.

The Scottish system has a different system for supporting pupils with special needs; schools there aim to offer more support without the requirement for parents to seek the equivalent of an plan.

"It's a madness," Tunde says. "[Securing help] was straightforward, and it could be easily done again."

While the teenager is not able to attend classes, the council is providing him with 19 hours of tuition per week in the local library.

Tunde explains the procedure of seeking an EHCP has been so demanding she had to pause her career as a midwife and community nurse for a period.

"I can't manage my duties. I cannot take him to these appointments, and be employed at the same time… I was unable to secure appointments for my child in the appropriate timeframe and attend to other people's babies in the right amount time. It became a difficult choice - and my son won," she says.

We catch up with the youth after a long communication evaluation.

"Draining… that is the only word I have for you," he says as he leans against a barrier, his toy held close.

Finding a Place for Buddy

As autumn begins and as countless students begin classes, Buddy is still be taught in the public library. Two months after I first met him, he's receiving an EHCP but his education is yet to be resolved.

The local council approved Tunde's appeal that he go to an independently run school that works with pupils who struggle in standard education.

Prior to he can begin there, the school has already taken over the lessons he receives in the library. But Tunde's now not sure the school will be able to provide what she believes her son needs to enhance his social skills and self-assurance with peers his own age.

"We had been fully ready for September… and he's still without a school place, he's still having one-to-one lessons," she said.

"I think … getting ready to be around fellow students and then still only having one-to-one with instructors has really knocked him back and caused him to be reluctant to go to school."

The local authority says it views Tunde's concerns very seriously and it will keep assist her household to make certain they obtain the provision they require without further delay.

Officials note it understands how difficult it can be for families to navigate the system, and how upsetting delays in obtaining help can be.

The council adds it has invested in a specialist support service, and currently guarantees pupils are assessed by specialist teachers at the earliest stage, and it is open to reassessing the situation when parents are worried about school placements.

The Current System is Failing

I know there is another side to this issue.

The huge rise in the number of Education, Health and Care Plans is putting councils under intense financial pressure. According to projections that UK local governments are set to run up a total accumulated special needs shortfall between £4.3bn and £4.9bn by spring 2026.

Ministers says it has committed a billion pounds to help councils fund EHCPs and further investment on special educational needs placements.

I traveled to West Sussex County Council to interview among the few officials in local government prepared to talk to me on the record about special needs financing.

Jacquie Russell is a Conservative councillor and cabinet member for education and youth.

"The current system is actually highly confrontational. Families are more and more exhausted and worried and frustrated of fighting… Staff sickness levels are extremely elevated at the moment," she says.

"This system doesn't work. It has failed. It fails to provide the optimal results for students."

Demand for plans is currently exceeding funding in West Sussex. In a decade ago, the council had about 3,400 children with an Education, Health and Care Plan. Today there are more than 10,000.

As a result the Send deficit has been growing year-on-year, so that at the end of 2025 it stands at over £123m.

"These funds is really essentially meant to be for local services. {That would have|