Summary
The Dyscalculia Network response to the SEND Reform Consultation was written by the Dyscalculia Network team including input from our advisory boards and members of our Assessor and Tutor group.
The response covers the questions we felt were most relevant to our community.
Our key and critical concern is that the current proposals have an emphasis on outward presentation rather than underlying cognitive processes. They exclude the core cognitive processes that underpin specific learning difficulties including the core cognitive deficit for children with dyscalculia ‘Numerical Magnitude Processing; ‘the ability to represent and process non-symbolic (e.g.
dot patterns) and symbolic (Arabic numerals) magnitudes’.
The exclusion of any reference to numerical processing within the refreshed ‘areas of development’ effectively creates a fault line that runs throughout the reforms, because these five developmental areas underpin the entire plan: funding, training, research, assessment and inclusion standards.
When a child’s underlying cognition profile is ignored, any intervention risks becoming superficial and unsuccessful as it is not addressing the fundamental cognitive roots of the
difficulty.
Summary of our recommendations
- Include numerical magnitude processing within the ‘areas of development’, enabling early recognition.
- Define and explain dyscalculia on gov.uk and the NHS website, in plain English aligned with
SASC (2025), as dyslexia currently is. - Develop nationally consistent, phase-specific guidance for schools on identifying, referring
and supporting children and young people with dyscalculia. - Require local authority SEND local offers to explicitly name dyscalculia, with clear referral
criteria and transparent support routes. - Include dyscalculia in initial teacher training across all phases, and fund phase-specific CPD
for teachers, SENCOs and further education staff. - Create a centralised, publicly accessible information resource for families, signposted from
gov.uk, the NHS website and SEND local offers. - Require consistent recognition of specialist assessment reports across all state-funded
settings. - Review post-16 and GCSE resit pathways to ensure equitable routes for learners with
persistent and specific mathematical learning difficulties. - Require that transition documentation explicitly includes a child’s mathematical learning
profile at every phase handover.
You can download our Full Response to the SEND Reform Consultation here –
It isn’t too late to write to your local MP to share your concerns. We have a variety of template letters here – https://dyscalculianetwork.com/write-to-your-mp/
