Attendance and fines with Jayne Lowe, Anna Maxwell Martin, Kellie Bright

Nuala McGovern: Welcome to episode six of SEND In The Spotlight with me, Nuala McGovern.

Well, this week the thorny issue of school attendance. During the pandemic rates dropped and they haven't yet come back to previous levels. Absence rates for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities are higher than average, so we’ll take a look at estimates from England from last year. They suggest the overall absence rate for pupils with an Education, Health, and Care Plan were almost twice the average, and that grew compared to the previous year. So, what's the government doing about it? Let's have a listen to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson speaking to the BBC at the beginning of this school year.

Clip of Bridget Phillipson: We'll be setting out more detail about how we really deliver a step change in support for children with SEND, with a real focus on how we make sure they get the support and also the great outcomes that they deserve, which sadly isn't the case for many children with SEND at the moment.

Support first, absolutely. It is important that schools put in place that support for parents, but I do think all of us as parents do have a responsibility to make sure that our children are regularly going to school, that we're working with our children's school to make that a reality. Because the evidence is clear if children aren't regularly in school, they don't often get the grades that they should and it has a lifelong impact in terms of what they can go on to earn as adults.

Nuala McGovern: I also want to bring you 18-year-old Katie who took part in our Woman's Hour SEND Special in September of 2024.

Clip of Katie: Bridget Phillipson recently tweeted that all children belong at school. I don't, I have PTSD, if I go into a school right now, I'll have a meltdown. (applause) I cannot go to school. I just want children, young people to be treated like individuals.

Nuala McGovern: Well, there are the views of one young person with SEND. How can children with SEND be supported to go into school and what should happen when they don't?

Shortly, I'll be speaking to Jayne Lowe, who has been shaping the national strategy for improving attendance in England, but I want to welcome back actors and SEND parents, Kellie Bright and Anna Maxwell Martin. Back together again!

Kellie Bright: Here we are

Anna Maxwell Martin: Together again darling.

Kellie Bright: Aren't we? How lovely. It's lovely.

Nuala McGovern: How is the week going? All good?

Kellie Bright: Oh, yes. I mean, the end of Jan. Well, it's not even the end of January, heading towards the end of January. It's a long month, isn't it?

Nuala McGovern: It is a long month. We are over the halfway mark though. Um, so we're going to jump into the issue of attendance and fines. And Anna, you have campaigned on behalf of various groups and charities on this issue. I'm just wondering your take when you hear, for example, Bridget Phillipson or indeed Katie speaking after her, about children being in school.

Anna Maxwell Martin: I think Bridget has really good intentions. I actually met with her this week and I felt it was really, really positive. However, the slant on the idea that parents are just not encouraging their children to go to school is incorrect. Children who are not attending school and have low or poor attendance, the reason won't be because they can't be bothered. It is because they are unable to be in school. And so what needs to happen is that school environments need to be a person or place of safety for that child. And when that happens, the attendance will improve. And that's why I campaign against fines, exclusion, threats of court, taking parents to court, threatening parents, anything punitive to do with attendance. We need more humans who show up, who have compassion, and I think that's what we need to be investing in.

Nuala McGovern: And let me turn to you, Kellie.

Kellie Bright: It's really interesting because I have a child with an EHCP and I have never had, and obviously I can only speak from my point of view, but I have never had any problems getting him to school. But there are lots of provisions in place for him. He has numerous people at school that he knows are there for him, and sort of personal relationships with quite a few key adults at school. I do believe that we really have to look at the education model. You know, if we want inclusion to work, if we want attendance to work, we have to look at the model, the basic model of education. And really look at why it's not working for…these could be any children. Yes, we know the numbers are high with SEND, but they can be children that don't have SEND And I would like to see that adjusted and that changed.

Nuala McGovern: So Kellie and Anna, we're going to hear more from you, but I want to hop over to our BBC Education reporter, Hazel Shearing. Good to have you back with us. Hazel.

Hazel Shearing: Thanks for having me back.

Nuala McGovern: We have a lot of figures to go through here. Let's take a moment. Um, school attendance in general, since the pandemic, there's kind of a before and after there, right?

Hazel Shearing: That's exactly right. I mean, you outlined the basic picture in your intro and it's the same across the UK.

So, absence rates shot up during the pandemic and have generally been falling over the past few years, but they're still higher than they were before COVID. In England there are two separate data sets we look at when it comes to school absence.

So, the first is the overall absence rate. That's the number of school sessions missed as a proportion of the total number of school sessions available, if that makes sense. So a session is a half day, that's a morning or an afternoon. And if I take you through some of those, in England since the pandemic, we've seen the school absence rate rise. So, before COVID, the overall absence rate was 4.7%. That then jumped to 7.6% in 2021 to 2022. It's been gradually coming down since, as I've been outlining that part of that big picture, indicative figures from 2024/25 suggest the overall absence rate was 6.9%, but as you can see, that's still higher than it was before the pandemic.

And then the second way that we look at absence data is the percentage of pupils who are persistently or severely absent. So, the persistent absence rate is the number of pupils as a proportion of the total number of pupils who are missing 10% of school or more. And the government is really, really worried about this. So that figure was around 10.9% before the pandemic. It jumped to over 22% in 2021 to 22. And again, it's gradually been coming down since. So indicative figures from the last academic year suggest persistent absence rate is now around 18.7%. Again, it's a lot higher than before the pandemic.

And then I'll also mention as well, severe absence. And that means that children or pupils are missing more than half of school and that more than doubled from 0.8% before the pandemic to 2% in 2022.

Nuala McGovern: Mm. And those indicative figures, so basically estimates, for that time. So attendance is improving but not in some groups?

Hazel Shearing: Yeah, that's exactly right. The story is not the same for everyone. Um, it can vary from school to school, for example. So the Department for Education says one in three schools haven't improved their attendance. And also by age, I mean there's a significant attendance drop off in the first three years of secondary school as pupils struggle to settle in. So that's where some measures are being targeted.

And then of course there's pupil characteristics like SEND, which is obviously what we are here to talk about. So it might not surprise you to hear that the absence rates for pupils with SEND are higher than average. Indicative figures - those estimates that we're talking about from the last academic year suggest the overall absence rate was 13.7% for pupils with an EHCP and 10.6% for pupils with SEND support. Again, that's compared to 6.9% across all pupils, so it is higher. And these figures show that while overall absence rates have been coming down, they've actually been going up for many pupils with SEND.

Nuala McGovern: And the government? We heard a little bit from Bridget Phillipson, but what, what are they saying more widely about this?

Hazel Shearing: So, they're talking about what their sort of roadmap for improving attendance in England is. Um, so they've talked about having AI powered targets for schools. So those targets were brought in from November, individual targets for schools based on their circumstances, like their location and levels of deprivation. And then one of the other policies is free breakfast clubs in primary school. They've talked about that as an incentive for attendance. And of course, one of their flagship programs is Attendance hubs. So there are 57 Attendance and Behaviour hubs, they're called, across England, and there’s more due to be announced.

So, this is where a school, it can sound like a bit of an abstract concept, can't it - “An attendance hub”, but it's where a school is designated an Attendance and Behaviour hub and it's basically linked up with other schools that have attendance and behaviour issues. They share practical tips and resources, so that can include things like texting parents if pupils aren't in school or using data to track patterns and identify pupils at risk of not coming in. Think of it kind of like a mentoring system where one school that is doing well is linked up with other schools that need some help.

Nuala McGovern: What about fines, for example, Anna has mentioned how she feels about them. How many are being issued to parents for their child's non-attendance?

Hazel Shearing: So we've got some data on that. More than 480,000 penalty notices were issued for unauthorised absence in the 2023 to 24 academic year. That's the last full year data that we have for fines. That's an increase of 22% on the previous year. So, a substantial increase. That upward trend started before the pandemic, but whether or not parents actually get a fine can also depend on where they live.

So, a BBC Panorama investigation in 2022 found that some local councils hadn't issued any fines, whereas some had handed out thousands. So, it really can be a bit of a postcode lottery as well.

Nuala McGovern: But do we know why they're handing out those fines?

Hazel Shearing: According to the stats, the vast majority - 91% of the fines given out in that year 2023 to 24 were because of unauthorised family holidays. And a small fraction, a very small fraction were issued for being late, and the rest it said were for “other reasons”.

Um, so back then the fine was £60 if it was paid in three weeks and now it's £80 doubling up to £160 if it's not paid within that time.

Nuala McGovern: Right so for unspecified, we're talking about 40,000 plus that we don't have the specific name of what that actual fine was for. Thank you very much, Hazel, for bringing us up to date with all of those figures.

Hazel Shearing: You're so welcome. Thanks for having me.

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Nuala McGovern: Well, let's pick up on some of those points with someone who is an Attendance and Behaviour Advisor to the government and who has helped write its official guidance and they're helping get these new attendance and behaviour hubs off the ground, which Hazel was just speaking about there. Jayne Lowe, welcome to SEND in the Spotlight.

Jayne Lowe: It's great to be here.

Nuala McGovern: Thank you for joining us. So, you've all this experience that is on the ground, you've led attendance for a local authority. Why do you think some children with special educational needs and disabilities struggle to be in school?

Jayne Lowe: I think it's all of the reasons that Anna and Kellie have just talked about and some of those are really fundamental.

Um, the things that I picked out from what they said, they talked about care, they talked about compassion, about connection, connecting with children and having a relationship. There are lots of other physical dimensions to that as well, the school environment. But I think those core pieces around ‘what do we do to make a child feel safe’ are fundamental to all of it. And the guidance that was written in 2024, ‘Working together to improve school attendance’, that felt like a monumental shift to be fair. It became law to focus on things like building relationships with families. It sounds like, you know, really easy peasy, why are we not doing that anyway? Finally, it was written down as a statutory expectation, and the kind of nub of the guidance felt really different to me and to lots of other people working on that guidance. It didn't simply say, every child must be in school. Anna said, “you know, that doesn't work.” It said “we want every child in school, but we want schools to make sure first of all, that children can be in school because there are barriers. But also that every child wants to be in school, because if they don't want to go, they're not going to go. And it's set out how schools can make sure that children can be in, and they want to go to school.

So fundamentally, there are seven expectations that schools need to adhere to. Now, the first of those, and when it was passed as legislation, I kind of whooped about this. The first was about building relationships with families and children, and some of that is really simple and just you know, flipping the language around that, rather than “Where have you been?” You know, “Why have you been away from school?” Staff are now saying, “We really missed you yesterday. It's great to have you back in.” And hearing, as Kellie said, not just one person saying that, but training all of the staff to say that, makes a huge difference, not just to the child, but how the parent feels at the gate as well.

The second expectation is all around culture, right? That's massive. It's how people stand at the gate and greet kids in the morning. It's about soft landings for children with additional needs who need a different space, a different type of breakfast, to go and have quiet time to regulate and get ready for the day. It could be meeting with a trusted adult, as Kellie talked about, but culture is huge in terms of what do all the staff do. What does school feel like? And that was one of the expectations.

The seventh expectation is fundamental to what we're talking about today. The seventh statutory expectation was about the support that's made available for children with SEND and children with medical needs.

Nuala McGovern: Because that's what I was going to ask, and I know the guiding principle is support first as you describe it, but we are talking about all children that have issues with attendance and whether this guidance that you have written / co-written, do you think it's fit for purpose when it comes to the needs of children with SEND as their reasons for absence may be very different to other children?

Jayne Lowe: I absolutely do. Um, the support first model, if you like, begins with very simple things, and the first of those is that expectation that all children can be in school, schools make it possible and children want to be there. The second expectation that's expected of all schools, which is where you find out what to do, is listening and understanding. So, the guidance tells schools how do you listen to parents and how do you listen to parents who have children with special educational needs? And that isn't about inviting them in for a meeting or sending a text message to say, where's your child today? It's about doing a home visit. A transition visit to say, right, okay, I know your children's got some individual needs that we need to cater for. So how are we going to tackle that? And for some children it's really easy and for some it's more complex.

Anna Maxwell Martin: Jayne, can I ask you something?

Jayne Lowe: Mm-hmm.

Anna Maxwell Martin: My experience, but that, that was before 2024, is that my child very much fell through the cracks of that. So if they don't come under the remit of SEND, in that work that you've done, does that also mean, because what I'd like to see is, is something that she said in one of those early meetings, which is a person and place of safety for every child, which is what Kellie has touched upon. And lots of the people in education I meet are working towards that goal as well. So are we saying that it's just SEND?

Jayne Lowe: No

Anna Maxwell Martin: Because if it's just SEND children, so many..

Nuala McGovern: I understand

Anna Maxwell Martin: children who are traumatised by poverty or they're,

Nuala McGovern: And it can be an overlap of course.

Anna Maxwell Martin: So does that cover those?

Jayne Lowe: It absolutely does. Right. Um, the support first model is for all children. That seventh expectation is about what else do we do for children with SEND? So, you're quite right, every school in the land is considering, ‘how do I make sure every child's got a trusted adult?’.

Anna Maxwell Martin: Yeah.

Jayne Lowe: Now, often that's the class teacher or the form tutor, but for some children it might not be. For a child who's, I don't know, has another set of context issues around them; A child who's a young carer, who's dropping siblings off every morning, who's late to school, their trusted adult might not be their class teacher. It might be the site manager locking the gate because he's late arriving. They need to identify the right people to make that connection.

Nuala McGovern: I do want to get onto the Attendance and Behaviour hubs that Hazel spoke about there because you're actively working on them. Explain what they are and, and how they, you hope they will work.

Jayne Lowe: Yeah, for sure. We're really lucky we've got some absolutely phenomenal practice out there. Um, we've run hubs in previous guises and learnt lots from them, but we've appointed 57 and effectively what it is, it's a great school. Yeah, their data's great, but their practice is phenomenal. Um, in interviewing those people to be a lead school, to show others, guide others, and support others, I was blown away by some of what I heard around what they were doing to support all children, but also those children with SEND. You know, they were talking to me about Magic Mondays and Feel Good Fridays. Because transition time for all children is tricky - going into a weekend and coming out.

Nuala McGovern: I like that.

Jayne Lowe: But it's.. Yeah, we need it, don't we? And especially for SEND children. But also things like walking buses and you know, music buggies that were going out and picking up primary school children and getting them there.

Nuala McGovern: Explain that a little bit more.

Jayne Lowe: Okay, so a walking bus is kind of, kind of what it says. Um, but within a primary school, that's a really easy thing to do where staff go out into the community and pick up children. For some parents where the morning is really chaotic, where the child might have special needs or a sibling does it's just such a massive help and it's a really fun way to start the day for a child. But there are other dimensions too. I support a great special school up in Knutsford for children with social, emotional, mental health needs, and they have sensory breakfast. Some of those children have travelled for miles to get into school. Um, but they come in, they have a really nice space that they've taken ownership of. They've kind of have in there what they need. They do LEGO therapy. They have music on if they want to, and they take breakfast and it just sets them up for the day. It's, it makes a huge difference.

Nuala McGovern: Is there a success story that you can share with us? I know you mentioned these initiatives, perhaps within the hubs, but like what have you seen practically, concrete? We are talking a lot about figures today.

Jayne Lowe: Okay. The hubs are great and they're going to offer that direct support to schools who want it and need it. But if we think about children, and it is really important that we do boil it down to children. Um, when I go in and support schools, I hear stories all of the time around the transformations that have been made and during those interviews too. But if I just give you one or two examples, a school that I worked with, I was there just the other week, a child, a boy who has autism started that school with 79.9% attendance. So, he wasn't great and he wasn't in enough of the time, if you like. And he came partway through a year. So, it was a really tricky time for him to make that admission into school. He didn't join with all of his friends. Um, so what the school did was they connected with the family immediately. They had a family meeting and said, “Okay, attendance is not great. What are the barriers at the current school? What can we do?” and “how can we make it different?” They organised loads of things for him. He had a soft start to begin with, so he arrived away from the crowds in the morning, so he didn't have that anxiety around it. He had his trusted adult into breakfast. He had a bespoke timetable and that gradually built his time up. He also had something called an Now and Next board, which kind of identifies what they're going to be doing throughout the day to signal to him, you know, what's the day going to look like for me? And sensory circuits as well. That's a child who needed to move around, so he had distinctive breaks during the day to aid that and help him regulate. Now that child's a hundred percent, he's skipping into school in the morning because of those small changes, and it's not phenomenal changes. It's just the combination of those tiny tweaks that only family and the child could tell the school about.

Nuala McGovern: So, this is when it works. But there are many families, and we've heard Anna say some of this as well, that they feel the system is too harsh and punishing. And that labels like school refusal, for example, are unhelpful because they would say the school environment is at fault. What do you say to that?

Jayne Lowe: I'd go back to the support first model. The support first model it's a continuum; sanctions and formal sanctions are right at the far end of it. The expectation now, it's written down, it's legislation around what schools must do, it begins with, let's have all the children in, let's listen to what the challenges are then deliver support that the family and the child plan with the school. It can't be, I'm the adult. I make an assumption about what you need to get into school. And rerunning that and tweaking it because, you know, great made plans, they don't work first time. It's about tweaking and changing, and then changing things up as the family needs it.

Nuala McGovern: And I did look at the, what would I call it? The flow chart of where the guidance is, statutory guidance, and there are measures at some point that if they fail, then in kicks some punitive measures. I'd be curious for your thoughts on that Anna, if you have a question for Jayne?

Anna Maxwell Martin: Uh, fines don't work and they shouldn't exist. You shouldn't be threatening or criminalising families.

Nuala McGovern: What about that, Jayne?

Jayne Lowe: Yeah, as I said, they're at the end of the continuum, they are the absolute last resort.

Nuala McGovern: But do they have to exist?

Jayne Lowe: The only time they're used is when schools have gone through those cycles of support with the local authority, and parents refuse to engage with support. Now, if a family is going to talk about, this is the support I need, we should have very few instances when that's the case under the remit of the new guidance. So they do exist and they exist for those situations, they're rare where parents don't engage in that kind of support.

Anna Maxwell Martin: I think this is positive and I hope that people understand there is now new guidance.

Jayne Lowe: Yeah.

Anna Maxwell Martin: We were threatened with exclusion four weeks into my child's first year at secondary school. The fines were very, very quickly after that. I was a single trying to work parent, whilst my daughter was very dysregulated and very distressed and couldn't go into school. And for her to be threatened with exclusion was devastating.

Jayne Lowe: Yeah.

Anna Maxwell Martin: They would then backpedal and call it, um, off rolling. It's exactly the same thing. So I hope parents who are listening have really heard today, Jane, what you've talked about, the guidance, and look at it themselves so they can go into school and say, I know the guidance, so let's talk about that guidance and what you can, how you can help me.

Kellie Bright: Is the guidance - Sorry to jump in.

Nuala McGovern: Please go ahead.

Kellie Bright: Is the guidance mandatory?

Jayne Lowe: Absolutely.

Kellie Bright: Okay. So it is mandatory for all schools to follow this.

Jayne Lowe: Every school.

Kellie Bright: There is no leeway for any school to be doing their own thing around this because I think this is key.

Jayne Lowe: Absolutely.

Kellie Bright: Because often you'll say, well, it's just, it's just guidance and actually we do this. I think that's what parents are faced with a lot of the time. It's like, well they might do that, but we, we do it this way.

Jayne Lowe: I think you're so right, Kellie, and I think it's really important for parents to have that message because, this might sound quite sad, if they go to page 10 of the guidance, it's a one pager and it tells you exactly what does the support first continuum look like. They need to go in armed with that and be willing to engage with schools and say, “look, this is what our family needs. This is what my child needs.” But you're right, it's for everybody. There's no kind of exception.

Nuala McGovern: I want to turn to the messages and emails from people that have contacted us. If you want to get in touch, it's send@bbc.co.uk.

Thank you so much for all of them. I know many of you are struggling with getting your child to school. Others report facing fines, detentions, suspensions, even exclusion. This is from one woman. She didn't give me her name, but she says

“My year seven son is on an ADHD pathway and has received 45 lesson removals in his first term of secondary. We've spoken to teachers, the SEND lead, the form teacher, the head of year, the pastoral team on a regular basis, and everyone says, you know, it's all low level stuff he's getting behaviour points for, so it's no big deal. But the sanctions are a big deal, 45 lesson removals in one term. Some of the things are forgetting to put his plate on the dirty table in the canteen. Sneezing.”

Kellie Bright: What?

Nuala McGovern: “Probably a comedy sneeze to be fair. Laughing at his own self-portrait in art lesson. Chewing gum in the corridor. Forgetting his tie, low level disruption is how they're mostly termed, but he's had a detention every day after school bar about five days since September. How can we keep this kid motivated to go to school?”

Kellie Bright: Exactly.

Nuala McGovern: Jane, what would you say to this mum?

Kellie Bright: Poor kid.

Jayne Lowe: Uh, first of all, just sorry to hear about her experiences. Um, if I go back to behaviour in schools and also the Attendance and Behaviour hubs and what we're expecting them to do on behaviour.

Nuala McGovern: Mm-hmm.

Jayne Lowe: So, the intention is that, and it sets it out in the guidance for schools around having a behaviour curriculum, which is about teaching children how to operate well in school. And that isn't, you know, ‘You must sit down. You must do this’. As parents no one expects their child to learn to ride a bike on their own or feed themselves or dress themselves. We teach them how to do it. And I think previously that's not been a focus of schools, but behaviour curriculum is a focus now.

So, we need to teach children how to move around. The dirty dishes at lunchtime, well we need to rehearse that routine with children around, you know, this is how we have family dining, we take our plates here. If we don't rehearse that and we don't teach the kids how to do that, of course they won't do it. So that behaviour curriculum is fundamental to making sure children know what to do and that schools regularly rehearse it. Almost every school that I go to is doing a reset every half term with the children where they're rehearsing the routines and getting used to doing it well.

Nuala McGovern: I suppose the question here is, whether the punishment fits the crime to put it in one way.

Jayne Lowe: In relation to that then no. And unless that school teaches the behaviour curriculum, how can we serve punishment when we haven't taught the children how to do it well. For that child who the email or message came from, that child obviously has additional needs. So, things like moving around the school or clearing up at lunchtime, that might be tricky for them and they might need a prompt. A trusted adult might give them a prompt, or they might have a path to move from classroom earlier to avoid crowds or avoid all of those distractions. But they need a solid behaviour curriculum and for those children with additional needs, we know some of those routines are really tricky and they will need adaptations.

Nuala McGovern: Whoever you are who got in touch with me, I hope some of that is helpful for you, and thanks very much Jayne.

If you're a regular listener, you might know by now that we put someone in the spotlight every week to celebrate a personal achievement, and I want you to meet Nadia from Nottingham. She's 22, she has mosaic Down syndrome. Her mum, Diane, nominated her because she's had a great leap forward in travelling to college on her own.

Clip of Nadia: Hello, I am Nadia.

Diane: And hello. I am Diane Nadia's mom.

Nadia: Natalie is my travel trainer.

Diane: Yeah.

Nadia: When I first met her, I wasn't sure.

Diane: Yeah.

Nadia: But I did get to know her.

Diane: Yeah.

Nadia: And actually, she's really, really fun. She likes Lego. We talk a lot about good stuff.

Diane: Yeah. She likes her films and things, doesn't she?

Nadia: Yeah.

Diane: You have a good chat with her.

Nadia: Yeah.

Diane: So when she started your travel training, can you remember how the process went? What? What did you do to start with?

Nadia: She would used to come and pick me up and we'd walk to the bus stop. She would sit next to me. We'd get the bus into town.

Diane: You did that a few times, didn't you? Just went to town and back.

Nadia: Yeah.

Diane: And then eventually you started doing it on an actual college day.

Nadia: Yeah.

Diane: So then she'd take you to town and then on the second bus, because you have to get two buses for college, don't you?

Nadia: Yeah.

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Nadia: My daughter Nadia has mosaic Down syndrome. This is a very rare form of Down syndrome. Nadia faces significant learning challenges and can be vulnerable, but she's also capable, curious, and full of personality. Sometimes her disability isn't obvious to others, and that can be quite difficult at times.

Being a parent of a young person with special needs is basically living in a constant state of pride and panic. I desperately want Nadia to be independent and confident and live in her best life. But I also want to follow her from a safe distance just in case. So, it's about letting her go, having a bit of faith in her and pretending I'm totally fine with it.

So, when she started your travel training, can you remember how the process went? What? What did you do to start with?

Diane: She was used to come and pick me up and we'd walk to the bus stop. She would sit next to me. We'd get the bus into town.

Nadia: You did that a few times, didn't you? Just went to town and back.

Diane: Yeah.

Nadia: And then eventually you started doing it on an actual college day.

Diane: Yeah.

Nadia: When she started to say that you were getting the confident, what was the next step? Can you remember that? Would she still meet you from home?

Diane: No, I would meet her in town at the 89 bus stop.

Nadia: So you travelled all the way from home to town on your own?

Diane: Yes, I did.

Nadia: And how did that feel?

Diane: It felt great, and it still does feel great, to be honest.

Nadia: So you love it?

Diane: Yeah.

Nadia: Yeah. How does your mum feel? How do I feel?

Diane: I think you feel it's too early to do that and you don't want me to spread my wings, but, but it is needed at the end of the day.

Diane: (Laughter) Absolutely. It's not about me is it's about you.

Nadia: Yeah. It's not like I’ll not need you anymore. I still will.

Diane: (Laughter) Okay.

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Diane: Thing is that she's actually doing amazing. Way better than we could have ever imagined. She's grown in confidence, she's coping, she's smashing it. She's exceeding all of our dreams.

Diane: You travel to town and then what have you done this week that's been absolutely amazing?

Nadia: Got the bus into town, got the 89 bus by myself to college, and then met my travel trainer at college.

Diane: How does that make you feel?

Nadia: I'd say that I feel motivated.

Diane: Yeah.

Nadia: Feels great.

Diane: Yeah.

Nadia: To finally be independent.

Diane: Yeah.

Nadia: I just love it. Really. I love the experience.

Diane: So, what's the next step? What are we starting on now? We can get to college, what's the next step?

Nadia: Trying to get both buses back home.

Diane: Yeah. And then eventually you'll do it all without your travel trainer.

Nadia: Yep.

Diane: The whole thing.

Nadia: Yep.

Diane: Wow. What's next?

Nadia: I don't know. We'll see when it happens.

Diane: Okay. Very proud of you. You're amazing.

(Engine SFX)

Nuala McGovern: Diane and Nadia there. Uh, lovely to hear from both of them. I think pride and panic from Diane of course.

Kellie Bright: Like mothers everywhere.

Nuala McGovern: And great to hear that Nadia is doing so well. If you'd like to email your nomination for in the Spotlight, it's send@bbc.co.uk. Just tell us who, where, what and why.

For the next episode, we want to help answer your questions about the SEND System and your experience of it. We're going to have a panel of experts, so get them in, again, send@bbc.co.uk.

I also want to let you know if you've missed an episode of SEND In the Spotlight, you can catch them all on BBC Sounds. Transcripts are also available for each one, that's on the BBC website.

Thanks to all my guests and for your contributions and it's.

Goodbye from all of us.

All: Goodbye.