The SEND crisis is not just about money. Money is a part of it, but it is also about our concept of what is a good and fulfilling life. It is about equity and value.

Currently we see pupils with SEND as problems that need fixing. A deficit model that focuses on what the pupils cannot do, rather than on what they can. To the state, SEND pupils are an increasing financial burden, and to many parents the state is seen as the agent of the fixing, or the place that meets the extra need. Meanwhile, numbers are rising exponentially. The shares of the pie just keep getting smaller and smaller.

In a society that is more Little than Big, the school becomes the main, if not only source of hope for parents. I am forever humbled when I hear parents tell me that their life has changed since their child started at our school. The importance of the right provision, the right environment, is huge. But in a school system that fetishises a homogenous concept of what an ideal pupil looks and behaves like, many schools justifiably cry ‘we can’t meet need’. Too few schools are able to offer the right environment, give the time to recruiting the trained and dedicated staff, or take the inevitable financial hit.

Instead, inclusion becomes an illusion. Schools say they are fully inclusive because all their policies are in place, Ofsted have visited, their SENCO is trained, but they are not really easing the pressure on a school system that is springing leaks everywhere.

Meanwhile, parents, egged on by a prevailing culture of competition, demand their piece of meat from the state. Whilst they have the noblest of intentions – the education of their child – they see their case in isolation to the other pupils out there who have an equal claim to the resources. Schools become the mediator for funding, equity, provision and anger.

So it is that equity is fundamental to the resolution of this crisis. Or a lack of it. An increasing responsibility falls on some schools, who struggle with bizarre disincentives to exercise these same responsibilities, whether financial, through performance tables, or in the extra bureaucratic time and effort that comes their way.

Now schools can cope with not being valued (they’ve had plenty of experience). What is shaming for all of us is how these pupils are not valued. They are an inconvenience. If not fixed, then hidden away.

But with numbers rising – ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder, even the name suggesting it needs fixing) and SLD (severe learning difficulties) in particular – this is the most consequential signal a new government could give. A return of value. We want our pupils to reach their potential, to live a flourishing and good life, but this may look very different for each individual pupil.

Incentivising schools to be truly inclusive will be a radical step. It means flipping the current obsession with uniformity to one of true diversity. Let’s face it, in a future where automated and standardised AI and robotic assistance flood our lives, we will be crying out for individuality and personality.

We must value the idiosyncrasies of all pupils. But not in a way that signals a lack of ambition. Surely, a future can be far more ambitious than the current dull menu, but it also means recognising the challenges and complications of each pupil, and starting from there. And that is not easy, otherwise we would have sussed it out by now.

It is about money, about funding, but it is only a part of this current crisis.  A new government would do well to take note of this.