Here are the results of our latest temperature check poll, which ran from 15th July to 18th September 2025. Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond.
These polls are intended as quick check-ins to ask parent carers in East Sussex about how things are going in relation to education, health, and social care services for their child or young person with SEND (special educational needs and disabilities). The results help us to identify the main messages you are telling us and any patterns over time which we can then present to services in our day-to-day work.
Question 1: In relation to education, health, and social care, how well do you feel your child or young person’s needs are being correctly identified?
Total responses: 165
The chart below shows the results from this current temperature check compared with the results from winter 2024-25. Blank and N/A answers are not included.
Question 2: In relation to education, health, and social care, how well do you feel your child’s needs are being appropriately supported?
Total responses: 165
The chart below shows the results from this current temperature check compared with the results from winter 2024-25. Blank and N/A answers are not included.
For both these questions, it should be noted that those who responded positively to each area of needs being well or very well identified and supported mostly also commented on the difficulties or battles in the system to have got to that point.
Question 3: What one or two words would you use to sum up how you currently feel about support and/or services for your child or young person with SEND in East Sussex? 163 responses
This word cloud shows words that were submitted two or more times. The larger the word, the more times it was submitted.
Question 4: Age of child or young person
Question 5: Is there anything that has been particularly good, or worked particularly well, for your family this year? The reason we’re asking this is because it really helps us to try and push for things we want to see happening more. 105 responses.
44% of responses said that specific individuals had made a positive difference. This included: teachers, teaching assistants/individual needs assistants, SENCOs; staff within local authority services, e.g. educational psychologists, transport department staff; keyworkers.
14% of responses said that the school has generally been supportive, with examples including running an after-school group for SEND children, submitting an EHC needs assessment, providing its own transport. However, several responses also said that this support may be or has already been affected by funding changes, meaning the provision may not continue in the same way.
12% of responses mentioned local authority services: Spectrum, Early Help, Sensory Needs Service, Family Hubs, Teaching and Learning Provision (TLP), Interim Provision Service (IPS), and EOTAS (education otherwise than at school).
The remaining feedback can be categorised into the following groups: support from charities; going to clubs such as cricket or swimming; support provided by special schools. There were also individual examples such as having a complete break from school, home schooling, support from SEN advocates and other parent carers, a supportive GP, getting a diagnosis and medication via a private route.
Within the ‘individual’ category above, it is worth noting that many of these people are members of school staff, or professionals working in the local authority or health services. The reason these have not been categorised within the ‘school’ or ‘local authority’ categories above is because the response cites the individual rather than the wider system or culture as having made the positive difference.
Chart representation of the top six positive themes:
Question 6: Is there anything else, good or bad, that you’d like to tell us about at the moment? 131 responses
91.5% of responses contained negative feedback, 3% of responses contained positive feedback, and 5.5% contained both positive and negative feedback.
The main themes identified in the negative feedback are:
- Waiting times and delays (16%)
- Constant fight (12%)
- Challenges within the EHCP process (11%)
- Lack of support in school (11%)
- Lack of mental health support (7%)
- The complexity of the SEND system (6%)
The themes comprising the rest of the negative feedback are:
- Lack of funding (local authority/schools)
- Lack of or poor communication
- Effect on family
- EHCP provision not implemented
- Poor social care/short breaks offer
- No accountability
- Not listening to parents
- No or conflicting information on transition support
- Lack of joined-up services
- Financial burden of the fight
- Parent carer burnout
The positive responses mentioned:
- Supportive school
- Good experience with YES (Youth Employability Service)
- SEN staff working hard
- Healthcare ok for physical needs
- Therapy working well
- Good transition support to college
Chart representation of the top six negative themes:
What do we do with this information?
The results of our temperature check polls feed directly into our day-to-day work with services. This means we raise the issues you highlight and the messages you are telling us in the relevant groups or projects we’re involved in. This includes in groups like the East Sussex SEND governance board, mental health and emotional wellbeing in education oversight board, and through our pan-Sussex health work. The results of this most recent poll were also shared when we presented parent carer experiences at the local area SEND Ofsted and NHS inspection review meeting in October.
(By the way, we are currently developing our new website which will have more information about all of our work. We know that just listing names of groups or boards doesn’t give enough information about what they actually do, or how these groups work to try and make things better; hopefully our new website will change this, so please do stay tuned for these improvements!)
All of the feedback we hear also helps us determine which areas of work we try and get more involved in, and where we try to push for more work to be done by local services.
While it’s deeply disappointing and exhausting that many of the issues remain the same, this doesn’t lessen the need to keep raising them and talking about them – and trying to push to improve things.
The examples of positive feedback, largely relating to the work of dedicated individuals rather than the wider system, should be seen as foundations to build on and as examples of what good support should look like and how it can be done.
We know of the long-standing challenges in the SEND system; as we said in our report last year: “lots of the negative experiences relate to a lack of resources within the system and immense pressure on services and staff”. This remains the case, and there is a huge amount of uncertainty on the horizon, but we believe this is even more of a reason to keep listening to families, and we will do our very best to make sure we are all heard.