But on Monday morning I raced to the front of Norfolk County Council’s headquarters to lay a pair of my son’s shoes alongside dozens of others.
Earlier that day, I’d already seen the photographs online of rows of small trainers, shiny black school shoes and even tiny wellies placed on steps outside.
And I was ready to place my own son’s black plimsoles. But you may be wondering why.
Each pair of footwear left that day represented a child who has been let down by the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system. Each one told a story of absence.
The event, Every Pair Tells a Story – organised by SEND Sanctuary UK and in partnership with Let Us Learn Too and Let’s Make a Difference – was a powerful display of grief and determination.
And families from across Norfolk and the UK, came together to make visible what has too long been ignored — the children who want to learn, play and belong but who are being failed by the very system meant to support them.
In typical SEND parent style, I missed the demonstration by about 20 minutes. As a mum-of-three – a mix of neurotypical and neurodiverse children – I’m used to being late.
Thankfully I bumped into the organisers who were kind enough to tell me how it went and shared a video and some photographs of the demonstration.
For me, and many others, this was not just a campaign. It was deeply personal.
READ MORE: Why are thousands of tiny shoes set to appear outside County Hall?
READ MORE: Campaigners organise ‘shoe’ protest at County Hall
In my bag were my 10-year-old’s shoes, a quiet testament to our own journey through the maze of SEND support.
Our journey has been a long one. Even before he started school, I knew he experienced the world differently.
Bright, curious and endlessly imaginative, he struggled with noise, with the unspoken rules of social interaction and with transitions that others took in their stride.
Teachers told me he was “naughty” and trying to get him through the school gates caused untold anxiety. Mornings became battles — anger, panic and exhaustion — until we questioned if school was even a place he could face.
We asked for help. We filled in forms, attended meetings, waited, waited, waited and waited. We were told to just “give it time”. Years passed until eventually we were forced to raid our savings so we could get him diagnosed privately.
Last year, he was finally confirmed as being autistic. That diagnosis brought relief — the validation that I wasn’t imagining things — but it didn’t bring the support we were promised.
We’ve spent even more years trying to get him an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) and now we are in the depths of securing a high school placement that fulfils his needs and one we can also realistically get him to around working full time and parenting two other children.
Sadly, our experience is far from unique.
In Norfolk, more than 10,000 children now have EHCPs — a rise of over 65pc since 2019 — and many families are still waiting well beyond the legal timeframe for assessments and support.
Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission have repeatedly highlighted weaknesses in leadership and accountability within the county’s SEND services.
Behind each statistic is a family living in limbo. That’s why Monday’s display mattered. Those shoes told the truth in a way that reports and data never can.
They stood for the children who can’t cope in classrooms without the right help, who are on part-time timetables or who are missing from education entirely. They stood for parents who are exhausted from fighting battles they never should have had to fight.
Following the event, volunteers collected the shoes to donate to local charities while I walked back to my car.
I lingered a moment longer, hands on the steering wheel with my son’s shoes continuing to rest in my backpack. And I wondered how many more steps we’ll need to take together before school life becomes more bearable for him.
They once carried him through a classroom door previously filled with hope, but on Monday they carried something else — a call for change.
Every pair of shoes told a different but all too similar story. Together, they formed a chorus of families demanding that no child should be left without an education simply because the system decided their needs were too complex or inconvenient.
Our children deserve more than promises. They deserve action — and they deserve it now.
