Where I’ve Been: When One Case Becomes Two… Then Three

A few people have messaged recently asking the same question:

“Where have you gone? SEND Dad Diaries has gone quiet.”

It’s a fair question. The blog started as a way to process what happened to our son and to shine a light on the reality many SEND families face when systems fail them.

But something strange happens when you speak publicly about a fight like that.

People start contacting you.

Quietly at first. A message here. An email there. Someone who heard about the case through a friend of a friend. A parent in a Facebook group asking if they can talk privately. A dad who says, “I think something similar might be happening to us.”

For a while I tried not to get involved. Not because I didn’t care, but because anyone who has lived through a SEND battle knows the emotional cost. These fights are not just administrative disputes. They consume your evenings, your weekends, your mental energy. They creep into every corner of family life.

You relive things you’d rather forget.

You reopen files you hoped never to look at again.

And you remember exactly how it felt when your child was the one caught in the middle.

So for a while, I mostly listened.

But recently something happened that made it impossible to stay on the sidelines.

The Post That Wouldn’t Leave My Head

A couple of weeks ago, a post appeared in a local SEND support group.

It was written by a parent whose son had started school this year. The post was raw, confused, and clearly written by someone running on very little sleep and a lot of stress.

Her little boy was four.

He was autistic. Or at least, he was on the pathway toward diagnosis. The process was ongoing, like it is for so many families. Anyone who knows that journey will recognise the familiar list of phrases: assessment pathway, suspected autism, sensory needs, emotional regulation difficulties.

The post described escalating difficulties at school. Increasing distress. Behaviour incidents. Staff struggling to cope. Other parents becoming unhappy.

Then came the line that stopped me scrolling.

The school had excluded him.

Four years old.

If you’ve been through what we went through, that sentence lands with a very particular kind of weight.

Because it’s not just about exclusion.

It’s about what exclusion means for a child who is only just beginning their education.

It’s about labels that follow children for years.

It’s about systems that are supposed to understand disability but too often respond with punishment instead.

I read the post twice. Then a third time.

And the thing that kept bothering me was how familiar it all sounded.

Déjà Vu

There are moments when you read something and your brain instantly starts drawing connections.

The same phrases.

The same explanations.

The same pattern.

A young autistic child just starting school.

Behaviour escalating because needs aren’t being met.

Parents raising concerns for months.

Staff saying they are struggling.

Other parents becoming increasingly vocal.

And then, eventually, the nuclear option: exclusion.

It was disturbingly close to our own story.

Close enough that I felt physically uncomfortable reading it.

Because the obvious question started forming in my head.

How many times is this happening?

The Decision To Reach Out

I messaged the mum privately.

Not with advice at first. Just to say I’d seen the post and that if she wanted to talk I’d listen.

We spoke later that evening.

I recognised the tone immediately. Anyone who has fought one of these battles knows it well. That mixture of exhaustion, confusion, and disbelief that the situation has escalated so quickly.

The parents weren’t confrontational people. They weren’t looking for a fight. They had spent months trying to work with the school.

They had attended every meeting. They had followed every suggestion. They had raised concerns calmly and repeatedly.

And then, suddenly, their son was out of school.

When they described the exclusion letter, I felt that familiar tightening in my chest.

Because the language was familiar too. Generic wording. Behaviour focused.

Little or no reference to disability.

No real engagement with the question that should always sit at the centre of these situations:

Why is this child behaving this way?

The Moment I Realised I Couldn’t Walk Away

There’s a point in conversations like this where you realise something uncomfortable.

You understand the system now. You know the law. You know the process. You know the mistakes schools sometimes make when dealing with SEND.

And if you know those things, staying silent starts to feel wrong.

The parents weren’t asking me to fight their battle. They just wanted to understand what was happening.

But explaining it meant revisiting the legal framework we had learned the hard way.

The Equality Act.

Discrimination arising from disability.

Reasonable adjustments.

Proportionality.

All the things we had to become experts in when our own child’s future depended on it. I told them something I wish someone had told us earlier in our journey:

“Your child’s behaviour is not the starting point for the law. His disability is.”

There was a long silence after that.

Then the mum said quietly:

“No one at the school has ever said that.”

When Patterns Start To Appear

Following that, I helped them draft letters.

Nothing aggressive. Nothing inflammatory.

Just calm, clear explanations of the legal position and a proposal for a better path forward.

But the deeper we got into the situation, the more uneasy I became.

Because the similarities to our own case weren’t just superficial. They were structural. A school struggling to support a child with significant needs.

Pressure from other parents. Escalating behaviour incidents.

A disciplinary response to what is fundamentally a disability issue.

And behind all of it, the same question lurking quietly in the background:

Is this systemic?

The Question Nobody Wants To Ask

If one school makes a mistake, that’s unfortunate.

If two schools make the same mistake, you start wondering whether something deeper is happening.

And once you begin looking, you start seeing things differently. You notice the stories in parent groups. The children who are repeatedly suspended in Reception and Year One.

The families who describe being told their child is “not suited” to mainstream education.

The exclusions that happen before proper SEND assessments are completed.

The subtle but powerful pressure some schools feel when other parents begin to complain.

Individually, each story might appear isolated.

But together, they start to look like something else.

A pattern.

The Reality of Primary School Exclusions

Permanent exclusion is supposed to be the absolute last resort. Especially in primary school.

But when a school reaches a point where staff feel unable to manage a child’s behaviour safely, the pressure to act can become intense.

Headteachers are responsible for staff safety. They are responsible for the wellbeing of every child in the class. And when situations escalate, decisions sometimes happen quickly. Sometimes too quickly.

What can get lost in that moment is the fundamental principle underpinning disability law.

If behaviour arises from a disability, the response must account for that disability.

That doesn’t mean schools have to tolerate dangerous situations indefinitely.

But it does mean the response must be proportionate and thoughtful.

And sometimes, that doesn’t happen.

Why I Haven’t Been Writing

So when people ask why SEND Dad Diaries has been quiet, the answer is simple.

Because real families have been living the story that this blog started with. And sometimes the most useful thing you can do is step away from writing about the problem and help someone navigate it in real time.

Helping those parents draft that email took hours. Explaining the legal framework took even longer.

But the moment that stayed with me happened after we sent it.

The dad messaged me later that evening.

He said:

“Whatever happens now, at least we feel like someone understands.”

If you’ve ever felt completely alone in a fight with a system that seems impossibly complicated, you’ll know how powerful that feeling can be.

How Many More?

And that brings me back to the question that has been bothering me. How many more families are out there right now dealing with the same situation?

How many children are being excluded before their needs are properly understood?

How many parents are sitting at their kitchen tables late at night trying to decipher legislation they never expected to need?

How many stories never reach tribunals, journalists, or advocacy groups?

Because most parents don’t have the time, resources, or energy to fight. They just want their child to be okay.

A Strange Moment This Week

This week something slightly surreal happened.

A very well known headteacher posted a message on Twitter mentioning me after speaking at a SEND conference.

If you’ve spent any time around education conversations in the UK, you’ll probably know the name Vic Goddard.

He’s widely respected in education circles and became well known to the public through the television series Educating Essex, which followed life inside his school.

He tweeted to say he’d mentioned me when speaking at an IPSEA conference.

In a good way, apparently.

That was a strange moment.

Because I don’t see myself as part of the education “commentary world”.

I’m just a dad who had to learn an awful lot about SEND law very quickly.

But if our experience has helped other families feel less alone, then maybe something positive has come out of a very difficult story.

The Quiet Network of Parents

One of the most remarkable things about the SEND world is the quiet network of parents supporting each other.

No formal titles.

No big organisations.

Just mums and dads sharing information, explaining processes, and helping each other avoid the mistakes they made themselves.

It’s not something you see from the outside.

But it exists in WhatsApp chats, late night phone calls, and private messages between people who have never met.

And sometimes that support makes the difference between a family feeling powerless and a family finding the strength to push back.

The Bigger Question

Which brings us back to the uncomfortable question.

Is this systemic?

I don’t pretend to know the full answer.

Schools are under enormous pressure.

SEND funding is stretched.

Teachers are dealing with needs that would have been supported very differently twenty years ago.

But if families in different parts of the country are experiencing almost identical situations, it suggests something in the system isn’t working as it should.

And when that happens, the people who suffer most are the children.

Where SEND Dad Diaries Goes Next

So yes, SEND Dad Diaries has been quiet recently.

But not because the story is over.

If anything, the opposite might be true.

Helping another family has reminded me how many others might still be out there.

Parents who haven’t yet discovered the legal protections their children have.

Parents who believe exclusion is the end of the road when it doesn’t have to be.

Parents who feel alone.

They’re not.

One Final Thought

When our son was excluded, we thought we were the only family dealing with something like that. Now I know that wasn’t true.

And the more stories you hear, the clearer one thing becomes.

Behind every case is a child who deserves to be understood before they are judged.

If SEND Dad Diaries can help even a few families remember that, then the quiet months will have been worth it.

But I suspect this conversation is only just beginning.

Because the question that started all this still hasn’t gone away.

How many more are there?