Some parents face costs as high as £750 a week during the Easter break to have their children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) looked after.
In some parts of England, SEND parents have zero options for holiday clubs because their children have additional needs.
For Mary’s four-year-old son, Jasper, the opportunities for Easter holiday clubs are endless, from a variety of sports to drama and art. But for his twin brother, Mikey, who has cerebral palsy, the options are severely limited.
“You suddenly realise the disparity between what’s available to one son and what’s available to the other,” Mary* said.
While the run-up to the school holidays is a stressful time for most working families, SEND parents have fewer options and face steeper prices because most holiday clubs cannot cater to the one-to-one support that many children with SEND require.
One parent The i Paper spoke to was told it would cost £150 a day for her daughter’s one-to-one care at a school-run Easter holiday club because she has special educational needs.
Ministers have improved childcare affordability for working parents, with the expansion of Government-funded childcare entitlements in 2024-25 reducing costs by up to £8,000 per year, according to Department for Education (DfE) analysis.
But it is still much harder for parents of children with SEND to find accessible and affordable options.
Lydia Hodges, head of Coram Family and Childcare, said it’s “always harder for children who have a disability to find a place both in early years childcare and in holiday childcare”.
She said the lack of availability of holiday childcare for children with SEND has been a “consistent finding” in the charity’s annual survey, which has been running for nearly two decades.
The latest survey, published in July, found that only 9 per cent of local authorities in England had enough places for at least three quarters of children with SEND.
No councils in the East Midlands, East of England or Inner London reported having enough holiday childcare for at least three quarters of children in their area. In the South East, 24 per cent of councils said there were enough places for children with SEND.
Danise B Grant, a 47-year-old single mother from South West London, has paid £153.38 a day for her seven-year-old daughter, Arelyse, who has Down syndrome, to go to an Easter holiday club.
She said the base price of the camp, which runs from 9am to 4.30pm, is £25, but she must pay an additional £128 for her daughter to attend because she requires one-to-one support. The school, which runs the holiday club, can only provide an extra staff member for two days, meaning Arelyse is unable to attend for the full week.
“I’d send her to camp every day,” said Grant. “I might cut back on my food and I might walk 40 minutes to school so I don’t have to pay for petrol. But I would do it because it’s vital to her. She absolutely loves it.”
Danise Grant has to pay a surcharge for her seven-year-old daughter, Arelyse, to attend an Easter holiday club – because she has special educational needs (Photo: Supplied)For Mary, the uncertainty in the run-up to the Easter holidays is the most stressful part.
“I worry all the time about what we’re going to do to cover school holidays. We don’t have any family we can fall back on or any options other than taking more and more unpaid leave which then adds financial and job security stress on top of the other stresses of being a SEND parent.”
Octavia Lowndes, a SEND coordinator (SENDCO) at Demetae Academy, a private primary school in Staffordshire, said many parents have to “leave their job” due to limited holiday and after-school club options.
Cllr Amanda Hopgood, chair of the Local Government Association’s Children, Young People and Families Committee, recognised the “shortage of holiday childcare options for children with SEND”, noting particular challenges around an adequately trained workforce and accessible spaces.
“We want to continue to work with Government to ensure children get the support they need in the SEND reforms, which must ensure those needs are met out of school as well as during term-time,” she said.
The Department for Education (DfE) has been contacted for comment.
*The family’s names have been changed to protect anonymity.
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