'The worst it's been' Teachers and parents share their experiences of living inside a crisis

"The Send [special educational needs and disabilities] system is broken; completely and irrevocably," said David Wilson, a deputy headteacher at an inner-city Manchester primary school where between six and 10 children with Send are in each classroom.

- Jedidajah Otte

"This impacts everyone - children with and without special needs."

Wilson, who spent eight years as a special educational needs coordinator (Senco), was among hundreds of people who shared their experience of Send provision in the UK. Parents, teachers and Send specialists from across the country overwhelmingly agreed that things had become the worst they had ever been.

The number of children and young people entitled to government support in the form of education, health and care plans (EHCPs) is due to double to 1 million within a decade, a report found. The investigation by the National Audit Office (NAO) found that despite record levels of spending, there had been no signs of improvement.

Local authorities are being forced towards insolvency by rising demand for special school places and "high-needs" funding for specialists such as therapists, psychologists and teaching assistants, according to the report.

Hundreds of teachers and parents told the Guardian that mainstream schools had no hope of providing adequate support for the growing number of children with increasingly complex needs.

"There is a huge increase in social, emotional and mental health needs and subsequent dramatic increase in children disrupting their own learning and that of others," Wilson said.

His remarks echoed those of many, including those of a deputy headteacher of a primary school in Nottingham who said the number of children with significant Send had "risen massively" over the past five years. Their needs, this deputy added, were often so complex that teaching assistants who once supported groups of children in each classroom now had to focus on the needs of a single child they had been assigned to.