The Times reported last month that Liverpool Walton now has the highest proportion of pupils identified as having special educational needs in England, with 32 per cent of children recorded as requiring additional support. This includes both pupils with formal education, health and care plans (EHCPs) and those identified by schools as needing extra provision. This striking development forms just part of the backdrop to Dave Clements’ timely and thought-provoking new book, The Crisis in the Classroom: How the Special Needs Explosion is Destroying Education.

The debate over the rapidly growing special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) provision has become increasingly polarised. On one side are those who attribute the sharp rise in conditions requiring special educational support, such as autism and ADHD, to improved awareness and better understanding of neurodevelopmental conditions. On the other are those who dismiss the trend as evidence of parental opportunism and / or system abuse. Clements’ book is valuable because it rejects both of these simplistic positions.

Clements acknowledges that diagnoses of conditions classified as a special educational need have risen dramatically and that schools are struggling to cope. But he also highlights a system of support that is slow, bureaucratic and poorly designed, leaving families to navigate complex assessments and appeals in search of support that is often delayed or inadequate. As a father of an autistic child, Clements brings his own experience to bear on this complex problem. As he observes, children too often receive labels without receiving meaningful help, and the support eventually offered frequently bears little relation to their actual needs.

Importantly, Clements rejects the idea that parents are manipulating the system. Most are simply trying to understand their child’s difficulties and secure appropriate assistance. The deeper problem, he suggests, lies in a system that confuses diagnosis with intervention.

The more difficult question the book raises is why diagnoses have increased so sharply in such a short period. Neurology or psychiatry cannot explain the scale of change. Cultural factors must also be considered. Clements cautiously explores whether shifts in how childhood is understood have played a role, with behaviours once seen as part of normal variation now increasingly interpreted through a medical lens. Educational struggles are seen as symptoms, and difference as a sign of a disorder.

This does not mean the conditions are invented. Rather, it suggests a growing tendency to medicalise aspects of childhood that were previously understood as part of its natural diversity. Alongside this, diagnostic labels have taken on a broader social function, offering a sense of identity, an explanation for one’s struggles and a feeling of community. In some cases, as Clements notes, a SEND label becomes ‘a badge of pride’.

A further cultural shift lies in the educational establishment’s growing discomfort with academic excellence. Over the past two decades, schools have increasingly absorbed the assumptions of therapeutic culture, in which academic difficulty is framed less as a challenge to be overcome and more as a potential threat to wellbeing.

One telling example is the abolition of the Gifted and Talented register in 2011. Once intended to identify and stretch high-achieving pupils, it fell out of favour as concerns about elitism grew. At the same time, the identification of additional needs expanded rapidly. Educational priorities shifted from cultivating excellence to managing vulnerability.

As a result, SEND has become more than a framework for supporting a minority of pupils with significant needs. It has become an organising principle for schools themselves. Ofsted, England’s school inspectorate, expects schools to have systems in place for identifying and tracking SEND provision. While well-intentioned, this emphasis can encourage schools to prioritise documentation and categorisation of pupils’ special educational needs over imparting subject knowledge, no matter how difficult.

Moreover, SEND provision often falls short of its promise. Support is frequently reduced to superficial adjustments, such as providing laptops, which may do little to address underlying difficulties and can sometimes introduce new distractions. More fundamental needs – such as developing organisational skills, managing cognitive load, or building independent learning habits – are often less effectively addressed.

This reflects one of Clements’ key arguments: the problem is not excessive support, but poorly designed support shaped by bureaucracy rather than educational judgement. Compliance too often replaces meaningful intervention.

The consequences extend beyond those formally identified as having special education needs. When teachers are required to tailor every lesson according to individual pupils’ requirements, and individualise every target and evidence every adjustment, the nature of teaching itself changes. Teachers become administrators of SEND provision rather than subject specialists. They concern themselves less with what pupils should learn than with ensuring their every special need and requirement is accommodated.

The result is a gradual lowering of expectations across the system. Clements argues that greater investment in specialist provision may be more effective than expecting mainstream schools to meet an ever-widening range of needs. In practice, universal academic expectations are increasingly replaced by personalised entitlement.

The broader implication is that the rise in SEND reflects not only administrative pressures but also a deeper shift in how policymakers and educators conceive of the purpose of education. Schools are increasingly encouraged to define pupils in terms of their vulnerability rather than their potential. While this approach is motivated by care, it risks reshaping education in ways that are ultimately limiting.

None of this is an argument against supporting children with genuine disabilities. On the contrary, the concern is that the expansion of the SEND regime risks diluting the support available to those who need it most. When too many difficulties are classified as special educational needs, it becomes harder to identify and respond effectively to severe cases.

The Crisis in the Classroom is a timely and important intervention. At a moment when questioning the rise in diagnoses is often seen as controversial, Clements manages to combine empathy for families with a willingness to examine the cultural and institutional forces shaping the system. If there is a crisis in the classroom, it’s about not only resources or diagnosis, but also how education understands children, learning and potential.

Neil Davenport is a writer based in London.

The Crisis in the Classroom: How the Special Educational Needs Explosion is Destroying Education, by Dave Clements, is published by Luath Press.