A boy with special needs has been without a school place for a year.

Ethan Watson, aged 10, from Gravesend, now doesn't like leaving the house after being out of mainstream education since June 2021.

His mum Georgia Still said his previous school was "unable to keep him safe" so she made the decision to take him out.

Ethan has ASD, ADHD and additional speech and language needs. Kent County Council says it has been working hard to find him a place but in this "particular circumstance identifying a school with this specialist support has been challenging."

Miss Still said: "The time Ethan spent at the school he was labelled ‘the naughty kid’ ‘the kid that doesn’t listen’ and ‘hard work’.

"I asked the school for meetings upon meetings to try and come up with strategies that would help Ethan.

"Every meeting the school unofficially admitted they cannot meet Ethan’s needs and they were unable to keep him safe."

In June 2021, Ethan came home from school extremely distressed and upset after an incident but his mum is still unclear what happened.

She said: "His mental health was taking a battering. Enough was enough.

"He often came home from school upset but on this particular day he said he had been kept in a bathroom and he had smashed things up."

Miss Still removed Ethan from the school and had hoped to find a special needs place for him.

Little did she know she would still be battling a year later to get her son back into a classroom.

Kent County Council (KCC) has made seven school applications for Ethan in the last year but Miss Still feels more should be done.

The 28-year-old added: "He is suffering. His social skills are practically non-existent. He doesn't like leaving the house.

"The only children he interacts with are my friends' kids."

Six months after being taken out of school, Ethan was provided with a home tutor for two hours a day, paid for by KCC.

But Miss Still said the sessions only taught him maths and English, and "didn't help with Ethan’s social interaction or the remainder of his learning".

The sessions came to an end at the end of the financial year in April, due to a funding dispute between the tutor provider and KCC.

Since then Ms Still has been trying to home school Ethan but she said it is a struggle.

She has had to give up work because he is home during the day and she suffers with anxiety and depression.

She said: "I try my best but I'm not a teacher."

Ethan has an EHCP (education, health and care plan) which is a legally binding document that describes the special education needs of a child and sets out all of the extra help and support they need.

Miss Still said: "It is clearly stated in Ethan’s medical notes that he has speech and language needs, ADHD, autism and he struggles to communicate with peers at the best of times, let alone after a lockdown. Ethan needs to have an SEN school place.

"I don't know why they can't apply for more schools.

"I've told them transport isn't an issue. I can drive so I'm willing to take him anywhere, I've told them that.

"I’m going around in circles. We've had five or six different case workers. I am currently at a loss on how else to help my son."

Of the 260,824 pupils in Kent, 19,500 had an EHCP in 2021.

An investigation by the Bureau for Investigative Journalism found KCC's funding has failed to keep up with demand for EHCPs and SEN school places.

A spokesman for KCC said: “Every child deserves the education that is appropriate for their needs. Children with SEN do require, at times, additional support and these are on rare occasions specialist which are by design not available in mainstream schools. In Ethan’s particular circumstance identifying a school with this specialist support has been challenging.

“Our SEND team has been working since last June to try to satisfy Ethan’s specific needs.

“The timeline for these efforts is as follows:

• June 15, 2021: KCC received a parental request for an EHCP
• July 22, 2021: KCC agreed to carry out a statutory assessment
• September 16, 2021: It was agreed that an EHCP would be issued
• October 4, 2021: A draft was sent to the parents. At this time, the council had agreed to a mainstream placement and consulted with four mainstream primary schools. However, the parents’ preference was for Helen Allison, a special independent school.
• October 7, 2021: KCC was informed, for the first time, that Ethan was not in a school placement at all. The case officer contacted the mother to determine the situation.

"Ethan’s mother, Miss Still, had removed him from school early 2021, before making an application for an EHCP, suggesting that the school had pressurised her to remove him from its roll.

"The case officer requested support for Ethan with education in the home. Winchmore Tuition was engaged almost immediately and continues to tutor Ethan at home.

"Throughout October 2021, following discussions with Miss Still and reviewing responses returned from mainstream schools, KCC agreed to a change from mainstream to specialist provision.

• November 3, 2021: Final EHCP issued naming ‘special’ as type and school to be confirmed.
• January 12, 2022: Helen Allison completed an assessment of Ethan and confirmed that the school could not meet his needs.

"Since this time, consultations have been sent to seven other specialist settings, none of which was able to accept him, for various reasons. These included the parents’ second preference, Woodside Academy in Bexley, which was already full.

"Following an email from Miss Still on May 30, 2022, it was confirmed that home tuition was continuing, following a misunderstanding about funding. It was also confirmed that there would be further efforts to identify a school place.

"On May 31, consultations were sent to three more schools, two in Rochester and one in Bromley, and the results of their assessments are awaited.”