There’s a proliferation of acronyms assigned to children whose needs the state is struggling to meet. SEN (children with special educational needs), Neets (young people not in education, employment or training), LACs (looked after children in the care system).

Sometimes it feels as though these acronyms, coined by the systems and professionals involved in supporting the children, serve to help us all collude in the idea that this is some highly technical, specialised policy conversation that sits apart from mainstream discourse about children – like how we protect them from online harm – instead of being fundamental to our assessment of whether our society is doing right by them.

Last week, the National Audit Office published a damning report on the extent to which children with SEN are being failed. It’s a finding that won’t come as a surprise to any parent, child or professional with experience of a system that was racked with problems even before the 14 years of spending cuts that have affected children’s services.

Before we get into that, it’s important to understand who these children are. There is something beautifully simple and child-centred about the definition of a special educational need: it means that a child has either significantly greater difficulty in learning than most other children their same age, or a disability that would prevent them from accessing mainstream school facilities.

A range of conditions or circumstances might make it more difficult for a child to engage with school, from social and emotional........

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