SEND policy and practice: when one size doesn’t fit anyone

One of the most common things families tell us is this:

“The support was there, but it didn’t actually help.”

On paper, provision had been put in place. Plans had been written. Interventions may even be happening. And yet, the learner in front of them was becoming more anxious, more withdrawn, or more resistant to learning.

This is where SEND policy and practice can begin to drift apart.

When classrooms are quiet, it’s an opportunity to reflect on how learning environments can adapt.

Many systems are designed around consistency and standardisation. Clear pathways. Defined interventions. Set expectations about progress and engagement.

For some learners, that structure can be helpful.

For others, it becomes the very thing that creates distress.

When a child is expected to learn in a particular way, at a particular pace, in a particular environment, the message they often receive is not “we will adapt”, but “you need to fit”.

Over time, that message takes its toll.

Learners may begin to mask, avoid, shut down or resist. Anxiety increases. Attendance becomes harder. What can look like disengagement is often a sign that the learning environment no longer feels safe or manageable.

Families notice this early. They see the emotional cost long before it appears in data or reports.

Through both research and practice, what becomes clear is that one-size-fits-all approaches rarely meet complex needs well. They prioritise process over person, and consistency over responsiveness.

This does not mean that professionals don’t care, or that support hasn’t been carefully planned. It means that systems often struggle to hold the level of flexibility that neurodivergent learners and learners with complex SEND require.

When support is designed to be uniform, it often misses the very children it is meant to help.

At Love2Learn Education, we work differently. We start by asking how learning feels for the individual learner, not how it is meant to look.

We notice what helps a child regulate.

We adapt pace, content and expectations.

We build trust first, because without that, learning rarely follows.

This approach is not about lowering expectations. It is about creating the conditions for meaningful progress.

When learning is shaped around the learner, rather than the system, confidence begins to return. Engagement becomes more natural. Progress happens in ways that are sustainable, not forced.

This is especially important for learners who have already experienced repeated failure or school-based distress. For them, flexibility is not a luxury. It is a prerequisite for re-engagement.

As this series continues, we’ll keep exploring how SEND policy and practice can better reflect lived experience, and what genuinely supports learners when standard approaches fall short.

Because education works best when it fits the child, not the other way around.