Camden Council’s 5PS headquarters

A MOTHER has called for urgent changes to the school system after her daughter was left without adequate education for more than two years.

She accused the Town Hall of a series of failures in accommodating her girl’s special needs.

After a legal battle, Camden found a place for her in a prestigious private school out of the borough – only for the placement to be cancelled within a matter of weeks.

Court agreements have been reached due to a severe shortage of spaces for children with special education needs that is affecting many struggling families in Camden.

The mother from Highgate Newtown, who does not want to be named due to risk of her child being identified, told the New Journal: “I worry about her mental health. She wakes up late because she says she has nothing to do during the day. I just want my daughter to get access to what every other child has.

“I feel like I’ve got a pair of handcuffs on my hands. She can’t just be enrolled at any school, they have to have the provision for her and schools in Camden cannot provide that. She has been out of school for two years and is neglected by the system.”

The girl, who we are calling Sarah, was diagnosed with ADHD aged 11 and received an Educational, Health and Social Care Plan (EHCP).

This plan paved the way for the formal offer of a place at the independent performing arts school Susi Earnshaw, in Barnet.

Fees at the school are £15,000 per year. The decision on the school was reached due to the girl’s strengths in singing and acting.

But the girl’s mother believes the school did not give her placement the attention it deserved.

She said: “Within 45 minutes the school had read through the EHCP plan and agreed to a place. It wasn’t read properly, I know that now. If they had done anything in the plan we wouldn’t be in this situation now.”

Within weeks of starting the school, her mother said Sarah was repeatedly sent home, until the school said it could not meet her needs because she was “too impulsive” and “disruptive” – but the mother said the school was not appropriate for her daughter’s needs.

“You cannot take a child and within the eight weeks she is there, four of them are off school and then say they cannot meet her needs on the EHCP plan,” she said.

It’s obvious they never even read it properly.

Put a microphone in front of my daughter and you would never know she had ADHD.

“That’s where her comfort is in her music, she loves it and acting. My kid is capable of doing maths, and English. She’s not backward, but now she is behind. It was Camden’s responsibility to then put plans into place, but instead they did nothing.”

The mother said she had become exhausted coping with the tribunal system and complicated legal processes.

She said: “My daughter has accessed 10 days of tutoring in two years. The tutoring she did get, workbooks were sourced from Amazon – worksheets asking an 11-year-old to tick if the tree is healthy: it wasn’t learning it was totally inadequate and was not meeting her needs.

“Tutors from an agency were regularly not turning up, making excuses and were not properly trained. Now there is no mainstream school, there is no support network around me to help me talk to these people.”

A Freedom of Information Request made by the New Journal revealed that in 2025, 22 parents or carers appealed at First Tier Tribunal for children with SEND in relation to secondary school placement decisions made by the council.

Twelve of the children in these tribunal cases were placed in out of borough secondary schools.

A spokesperson from Susi Earnshaw Theatre School said: “For 36 years, our school has seen how the performing arts em­power students with ADHD to reach their full potential. We welcomed [this child] based on her immense talent, hoping our small, nurturing environment would help her flourish.

“Despite implementing all support outlined in her EHCP and consulting with external agencies, it became clear that her needs were more complex than our setting could accommodate. Our specialist SEND staff concluded that she required a dedicated therapeutic environment to truly support her social and emotional well-being.

“While we took proactive steps to introduce the family to two specialist providers equipped to offer this level of care, these options were unfortunately declined. Our priority re­mains ensuring every child is in the setting best suited to their individual needs.”

A Camden Council spokesperson said: “We continue to work closely with this family to urgently find an appropriate school placement, alongside interim support to minimise disruption to the child’s education. “Increased demand for specialist provision and changing individual needs means there are occasions when the process to find a placement may take longer than expected. We keep the provision of SEND places in Camden under constant review, and ensure families are supported as much as possible throughout the process.”