Examination of witnesses
(Questions 60 - 79)
WEDNESDAY 4 NOVEMBER 1998
MR JACKIE
FITZSIMONS, MR
JOSEPH MARTIN,
MRS HELEN
MCCLENAGHAN,
MR GILBERT
IRWIN, MR
JOHN MCCULLOUGH
and MR MALACHY
O'LOANE
Mr Donaldson
60. I want to come on to the question of
statements in respect of children with special needs and to ask
the question how you feel the Boards can be certain that they
will be able to meet the 18 week target set out in the Code of
Practice which came into force in September, given that in England
currently only 48 percent of all councils achieved this target
in 1996/1997, four years after the introduction of their Code
of Practice?
(Mr Martin) Chairman, may I pass that question
to Mr O'Loane in the first instance?
(Mr O'Loane) It is a hard question to start with,
for my first question. Nevertheless I will do my best. We have
all, as Boards, set ourselves the target of trying to meet the
18 weeks deadline. We recognise that it will not be possible in
all cases and that we will not have a 100 percent record in meeting
that because there are exceptions anyway in relation to the providing
of advice, the dates when assessments start, which take account
of holiday periods. We do experience already difficulties at times
with parents whose children fail to keep appointments with medical
officers. So there are those reasons which could lead to us not
having a 100 percent record anyway. Our Department of Education
has treated the introduction of the Code of Practice very seriously
and indeed has made available additional resources, part of which
are related to schools being able to meet the requirements of
the Code and part of the funding is to enable Boards to meet the
requirements of the Code. So as additional funding—each
Board would have got funding related to additional administrative
help within Board headquarters to carry out assessment procedures
and additional funding for educational psychologists. We have
set ourselves the targets. We have had meetings across each of
the Boards with all the other providers of information, the schools,
those in the Health and Social Services Boards who are required
to provide advice, so everybody is aware of the legislation, aware
of the deadlines and will do all they can to try and meet them.
It has been pointed out to us that it will be difficult, but we
will keep it under review and part of the brief of the strategic
group which is to be established will be to monitor that performance.
Indeed each Board will also be setting up a panel, as recommended
in the Audit Office report, and part of the brief of that panel
too will be to monitor performance in the context of the timescale,
to try to adhere to it. So we will set ourselves targets, we will
try to adhere to them, but we are aware of the difficulties that
are being experienced in authorities in England and Wales and
we hope that we will set our targets to improve upon them.
61. Has any study been done or carried out
by any of the Boards into what has happened in England and whether
there are any lessons that can be drawn from it?
(Mr O'Loane) There have been inter-Board groups
of Special Education Officers who have visited clusters of authorities
in England over the last four years to try and see what lessons
we can learn from the English experience, in anticipation of the
Code and the various elements attached to it. One of the key issues
probably in helping this to be addressed, also arising out of
the Audit Office, will be the use of information technology and
better information systems to enable us to plan. That is certainly
one thing. A second thing is to try and co-ordinate as far as
possible, within each Board, the support both at administrative
and educational psychology and advisory level, to try and ensure
that we meet the targets set. So we have visited authorities in
England, we have talked to them. One of the major problems that
has been highlighted is that the problems are the same, they are
not different. There are certain areas of need as defined within
the Code which have led to difficulties; the whole area of children
who have dyslexic problems, the range of children now on the autistic
spectrum, children with language difficulties and the ways in
which you try to intervene to meet those needs. So the issues
are not different, they are common and sometimes at the core of
all of this is the resourcing available, both to carry out the
administrative side and having done that, more importantly, to
put in place the provision which is required to meet the child's
needs.
62. May I ask what happens in the cases
where a statement needs to be completed and where a problem is
identified but there is no place for the child in terms of the
provision that is available? What happens in those cases and are
there temporary placements available?
(Mr O'Loane) We are faced with legislation which
is difficult in itself in that what the legislation states is
that once the statement is made, provision should be made immediately.
It is sometimes difficult to make the provision immediately that
is specified in the statement because there are certain areas
of provision for which there is high demand and the places may
be already taken. In those cases we do not do nothing; we look
at alternative types of support which can be provided for that
child pending admission to a special school or a special unit
or a specialist type of provision. So it is not the case that,
once the statement is made though the actual placement may not
be available, we leave it for whatever length of time. We would
then, in discussion with the schools and the parents, try to agree
a level of support that can be provided pending the placement
becoming available.
63. Finally, Chairman, in respect of statements,
there appear to be significant numbers of children with statements
waiting for placements, a wait which may already have been preceded
by the assessment process and the time that that can take. Again,
similar to the last question, what kind of provision is made for
these children while they are waiting for their placements and
I suspect—you know, you have partially answered that already
in terms of the discussions with parents and principals about
some level of support?
(Mr O'Loane) Again, there is not a general way
of answering that question. I have answered in general terms before.
Each case has to be treated as an individual case, so it depends
on the particular nature of the need, the nature of provision
that is required. If a child has a learning difficulty which is
related to poor attainment in reading or number work, we would
then look at providing the school with additional teaching help,
perhaps through peripatetic or outreach teachers, additional classroom
assistance which may supplement the direct teaching from the teacher,
or additional funding to the school to enable them to have some
part-time teaching hours targeted at that time. So that is one
example. Again, in the case of children with emotional or behavioural
difficulties, if there is not a place available in a unit we would
look at supplementing support within the school; classroom assistance
again, additional teaching, perhaps sometimes the provision of
micro-technology, provision of lap top computers because sometimes
with some of the children their motivation for learning can increase
if they are given access to micro-technology. It depends. Some
of the provision which is required is quite high, some of it is
not so high. So we look at each individual case and we try and
work out an action plan to try and do something pending placement.
(Mr Martin) Chairman, there is one issue relating
to that which Mr O'Loane mentioned. It is the issue of educational
psychologists which, in fact, would have an impact on the length
of time involved. I think Mr Fitzsimons would like to address
that, if you do not mind.
Chairman
64. No, of course not?
(Mr Fitzsimons) Mr Chairman, obviously the role
of an educational psychologist is key in the whole process and
the Code identifies that the educational psychologist needs to
be involved at Stage 3. So in fact the workload of the educational
psychologist will increase and we have a bigger problem in Northern
Ireland in that we do not have sufficient educational psychologists
in post and we do not have sufficient educational psychologists
who are being trained. So there is an issue there, an issue about
having sufficient resources to meet that need in terms of funding
and also having appropriately qualified staff. The other issue
which I think Mr O'Loane mentioned was the whole question of the
actual provision of places and what we are finding now with the
Code—and certainly in some of the Boards—is that there
has been a radical increase in the number of children being statemented;
in some Boards these have increased by 19 percent. In some Boards
also there seems to be an increasing incidence of children with
severe learning difficulties and there are various reasons for
it which people have attributed to that; obviously handicapped
children living longer through improvement in medical science
but also the incidence of SLD children seems to be increasing.
Now to make provision for an SLD child requires a fairly long
timescale, otherwise it is a matter of just adding temporary provision
to an already very poor provision in SLD schools. We have two
new SLD schools in our Board, but most Boards have taken over
SLD schools from the Health Authority and are at present trying
to bring those up to date.
Mr McWalter
65. Good afternoon. The situation with statementing
is markedly different between England and Northern Ireland and
you answered quite a number of questions about that last time
you were here, so we will not pursue too many of those horses
again, but the Government seems to envisage in its most recent
Green Paper that there will actually be a decline in the number
of statemented children. You just referred to the prospect, indeed
the reality, that there seems to be rather an escalation of this.
How are we going reconcile the two?
(Mr O'Loane) That is an even harder question.
Chairman
66. Take your time?
(Mr O'Loane) There are a number of ways in which
we hope—and it is a hope at this stage—the Government
have indicated that they would like to see statementing rates
around about the 1.5 to 2 percent which, in a way, reflects the
Warnock Report of 1978 which indicated roughly 2 percent. Probably
that Warnock Report and the figures used are bandied about and
have been for the last 20 years and they are still used. I would
suggest they are out of date in that there is a whole range of
new needs which are now being identified which possibly were not
then. So that is the reason why there would be an escalation in
the number of children being referred for statements. How do you
then make provision to ensure that the rate of statementing is
held at 2 percent, because if the rate of statementing is not
held at 2 percent and increases beyond 2 percent in each of our
Boards, the corollary of that is there will be additional funding
required to meet the statementing. Firstly, in carrying out an
assessment, there is a cost factor because that involves psychology
time, professional time, administrative time preparing the statement.
Implicit in making the statement is giving something extra to
the child that is not normally available, so if we do not try
to keep the statementing within the 2 percent and it does increase
there is going to be additional funding required. To get back
to your question as to how, as I said we hoped, there might be
some things that might help. Firstly, there is now in place in
Northern Ireland a number of initiatives. There is the Government
initiative which applies in England and Wales, and now in Northern
Ireland, that all pre-school children will have pre-school education.
With that, one would hope that the earlier intervention at pre-school
level might help to reduce incidence of special needs later. Also
in place now in Northern Ireland is a School Improvement Programme
and within that School Improvement Programme there have been targets
set and support provided to enable schools to improve and some
of the focus is on improving basic skills, literacy and numeracy.
As part of that School Improvement Programme there is also a package
related to improving behaviour in school. So that package, the
pre-school expansion, the School Improvement Programme will ultimately
through time—it will not happen immediately, but through
time—help schools deal more effectively with children, including
those with special needs. As well as that, if we target resources
to schools at stages earlier than Stage 4 or 5 of the Code to
enable schools to make more effective provision at Stages 1 to
3 of the Code, that may stop the number of children moving through
to 4 or 5. One of the other issues which that strategic group
which is being set up will address, is an issue that was raised
within the Audit Office Report and I think was raised here the
last time. We will agree common thresholds and agree what is the
threshold beyond which a child should have his needs met within
school and below which the child should have his needs met through
statementing. So those are measures that hopefully will reduce
the incidence of statementing, but what I would have to say to
you too is that if you were a teacher of a class of 30 children
in a primary school, the child whose ability level and attainments
are at the third or fourth centile—in other words they are
in the third percent or fourth percent—the challenge for
teaching that child for the teacher is no different than teaching
the child that is in the bottom 2 percent who may be statemented.
So the 2 percent is an arbitrary figure related in some ways to
the availability of funding, but nevertheless it is a threshold
and as I said some of those measures that I have talked about
will hopefully help us to retain the statementing at that level.
Mr McWalter
67. Does that not imply that this target
figure, as it were, should be higher in the short term to recognise
both historic educational under-achievement and also the specific
problems in Northern Ireland relating to social disunity and that
what we should be asking the Government to do is to raise that
level for a period and have a negotiation of that figure downwards
from medium to longer term?
(Mr Fitzsimons) I agree totally with what Mr McWalter
said. I think that what Mr O'Loane has pointed out is that obviously
the intention of the Code is that we will have earlier intervention
in schools, we will have schools taking responsibility for the
identification of special education needs and picking up children
who slipped through the net in the past so that more children
will be catered for. In the interim, as Mr O'Loane pointed out,
there will be an increase in statementing and I think that has
to be accepted, but if the policy is effective—and I think
that is the key, the implementation of the Code has to be effective;
in other words schools have to take responsibility for provision
for special needs, teachers have to be trained, there has to be
sufficient time allowed for teachers to implement the Code and
the implementation needs to be monitored. If that happens then
I believe that down the line there may be fewer statements required.
But I cannot be sure of that; it may well be that already there
are a number of children who have been missed in the process who
have special educational needs and have gone through the school
system and not been picked up and they are now being picked up.
68. In addition, the mechanisms that Mr
O'Loane described for handling this problem seem to me to be much
more effective for the English system where children in those
low percentiles are nevertheless integrated into non-specialist
schools than is the case in Northern Ireland where there is a
much greater emphasis on special schooling. Of course, the Government's
view is that one should integrate and secondly you get efficiencies
caused by being able to share some of the teaching resources and
activities with the whole class so there is an efficiency gain
there. So it is both the case that your mechanism assumes greater
numbers of integration so that you pick up those things earlier
so that means you have, in inverted commas, a normal class that
you are trying to pick these things up from and you are not trying
to put the person into some special unit or whatever. Also it
suggests that there needs to be a very radical change in the way
special educational needs are met, does it not?
(Mr O'Loane) Yes, you are referring now to the
report by Newcastle University and in the context of that report
really it is about that broad range of special needs, the non-statemented
special needs.
69. Yes.
(Mr O'Loane) In Northern Ireland the system is
organised whereby the English model of the Code is based upon
mixed ability classes with mixed ability teaching and differentiation
and consequently the point is made in Northern Ireland that a
lot of the system at present is based upon streaming, withdrawing
rather than in-class support. Those are issues—again, that
report like the Dyson report is a useful report because it is
an objective report from somebody coming in from outside to look
at the situation and no doubt again it will be addressed but it
will not happen immediately. We have in place in Northern Ireland
a transfer system which leads to secondary education either at
grammar school or—it is a selective system basically—so
again that is something that would have to be looked at radically
if the Dyson Report was to be implemented. What I would say to
you is that in relation to Boards and some of the figures quoted
in relation to the English authorities, if I look at the comparison
between the figures used in the Audit Report of Cornwall and the
Western Board that in Cornwall there is more inclusion, which
is the word now, of children in mainstream. If I then look at
that report and see that in Cornwall 5 percent of children have
statements and in the Western Board 2 percent. If we were to move
to 5 percent, the likelihood is that those additional 3 percent
are mainstream and therefore we are already integrating, including
children in mainstream education, but they are not having statements
and that is maybe the difference.
Mr McWalter: Good
point.
Chairman
70. Mr Irwin?
(Mr Irwin) If I may just make a comment. In many
ways the issue of special education is a little like an interlocking
jigsaw where if we get one part of that wrong it knocks the other
parts out of kilter, but I believe strongly that the Code of Practice
as referred to in the Newcastle report when it asked were we going
to embed it superficially or really make it the core activity
of the Boards and the core activity of schools and I would say
to date, with the Code of Practice, we are at the superficial
level and that would reflect a tremendous commitment already to
get the system to a level where everyone is aware of the implications
of the Code of Practice, if we are eventually wanting to embed
it into all the schools. One of the big resources that we feel
that schools still need is time because there are so many pressures
and challenges facing schools. We have said that the Code of Practice
is a pivotal piece of legislation which, if taken on board, should
change the way in which schools are managed. I still believe that
there is a tremendous amount of work to do in increasing that
awareness in schools and we are still really at the tip of an
iceberg. In a way it would not surprise me that the number of
statements is still going up because schools feel they are struggling
with so many other pressures. They are giving their best shot
to the Code of Practice but until they really feel empowered and
confident to address the essence of it I do not think we will
see schools making the full potential of it. That is a possibility
for the future, but in the meantime, we can anticipate an increasing
number of statements.
Mr McWalter
71. Finally, Chair, the last time we met
there were clear differences between the various Boards and I
understand Mr Martin's initial statement to mean something like
that there has been a greater effort to have a more cohesive approach.
Would that be right? And if that is so—if I am perhaps luring
you in the direction of saying that you should have a 5 percent
level or a 4 percent level or whatever for some time, that would
need to be a more integrated approach from yourselves and there
would need to be less diversity among the different Boards. Do
I get the impression that the Boards are moving to a more common
understanding and a more common agenda on these matters?
(Mr Martin) Very, very much so.
72. Have we helped or was it happening anyway?
(Mr Martin) Well, I think you have helped. The
Audit Office report has also helped, but both were nudging us
very strongly in the direction that we had already embarked upon.
While there are real differences, some, I think, are more apparent
than real, but we are very anxious to ensure as much commonality
of approach as possible. We do feel very genuinely that this regional
strategy group, by looking in particular at the Audit Office report,
will produce a much greater degree of commonality in approach
than we have had to date and we believe that that will lead to
a very good outcome.
73. We would certainly welcome that?
(Mr McCullough) Could I just maybe add to that?
We should all be aware that the 2 percent figure is a national
figure and there will be a difference between the leafy glades
and the inner cities, obviously, and in each category of disability
there will be a threshold and the threshold might well be the
same across all the authorities in England and Wales and in Northern
Ireland, but the incidence rate will differ and there will be
a significant impact on that incidence rate if provision has been
made at earlier stages. Mr O'Loane has indicated, for example,
Stage 3; if education authorities make provision at Stage 3 which
in other authorities is only available at Stages 4 and 5 then
the number of statements will reduce. The children with severe
handicaps, disabilities, will still be provided for through special
schools, presumably, but others with lesser disabilities will
be provided for in another way. In Northern Ireland two things
have been happening over the past six or seven years. The number
of pupils in special schools have been increasing, the incidence
rate has been increasing in most categories. The number of pupils
with moderate learning difficulties has been increasing, too,
because of better diagnosis perhaps, but many of those children
have remained in mainstream schools and been provided for in mainstream
schools, so there are two elements in this dynamic. Every authority
will have to recognise that when a child passes a threshold where
a statement would be required or some other form of provision
should be made, the child must receive that provision. But that
will vary across the authorities, that is why it is difficult
to compare one authority with another authority. It is not known
how much Stage 3 provision would be made, for example, in Cornwall
as compared to a Board in Northern Ireland. We do not know that.
Mr Hunter
74. Chairman, I think perhaps I would feel
that by this stage many of the points I had in mind to ask have
already been covered, but perhaps I could focus specifically on
the points I had in mind. It is paragraph 2.12 of the Code which
defines the role of the SEN Co-ordinator and obviously that is
key or central to the whole Code and I am wondering if there are
any further comments that could be made on the extent to which
the Boards are taking steps to ensure that the SEN Co-ordinators
are adequately trained for this central role?
(Mrs McClenaghan) If I may begin, Chairman, and
then my colleague will take over. Advisory and support services
of the Education and Library Boards have now been in place for
some 10 years and they have a multiplicity of tasks and amongst
those that they have tackled with great urgency in the last couple
of years has been indeed the very matter to which Mr Hunter refers
and that is the training of the SENCo. Essentially in a Board
such as our own that was concentrated training on that person
within the school, always bearing in mind that schools' circumstances
can vary considerably and the training must be appropriate. So
in our rural Board you could have a three teacher school where
the SENCo has other duties. She may for example—and it frequently
is `she'—be the literacy co-ordinator and that ties in very
happily and the training is then appropriate. In a much larger
school it may be a distinct duty which a member of staff undertakes,
but I believe at this stage that the very great majority of SENCos
who are currently in place have received training. That of course
is an ongoing training programme because SENCos will change to
other duties and SENCos will leave schools and their successors
will have to be trained. But another very significant area is
the management of the school and it is, I believe, of critical
importance that the senior management in the school, and particularly
the Board of Governors, receive training, and here I can speak
of a five-Board emphasis and five-Board operational arrangements.
We have a group drawn from officers of all five Boards who draw
up Governor training programmes and deliver them and their focus
has also been over the last year in particular on ensuring that
the Governors in their management role ask the right questions
and ensure that appropriate provision is made in their schools.
They form a very significant part of the monitoring procedure
for the education of the children who have special needs and of
course, as the Code of Practice is implemented, to ensure that
it is properly implemented in their own schools. So we have both
the specialist teacher receiving training and we have also management
in the form of the principal teacher and the Governors engaged
in such training.
Mr Hunter: An impressive
answer.
Chairman
75. I think Mr Irwin would like to come
in?
(Mr Irwin) If I may just augment what Mrs McClenaghan
said, I think we all believe that the Principal is a key person
in the ethos of the whole school in ensuring the Code of Practice
is imbedded at the heart of the school and we were delighted to
receive some extra funding from the Department of Education, something
which I do not believe happened in England and Wales, and that
additional resourcing enabled us to target training towards some
of those key groups to which Mrs McClenaghan referred to. As an
example, to give you some concrete evidence, the training would
have concentrated on issues such as policy writing, roles and
responsibilities of SENCos, staged assessment and an overview
of the Code of Practice, and that was delivered by a multi-disciplinary
group of officers so that the message was conveyed to schools
and particularly to SENCos that there were a number of different
agencies in the Board and outside the Board who could help them
in their task. There have also been a number of cluster groups
set up across the Province so that SENCos have an opportunity
to meet on a regular basis to receive ongoing support from those
groups and it would be our intention again, as Mrs McClenaghan
said, to continue to offer extensive training for Governors, again
on an inter-Board basis.
Mr Hunter
76. If I can make an observation, rather
than ask a question, in my constituency experience the problem
is in maintaining continuity of how you deliver it, that any given
school at any given moment can be well geared to the special needs
of some children and then for a variety of circumstances staff
will change and other appointments will be made, and it is maintaining
the continuity and the ongoing aspect which you emphasise which
I find particularly pleasing?
(Mr Irwin) That is why we would feel very strongly
that the Principal and the Governors should be key target groups
for training. So indeed if we lose a particularly skilled SENCo,
because SENCos by their very nature tend to be exceptionally dedicated
teachers, if you lose a key SENCo in a school, you lose a key
resource.
77. Moving on, if I may, quite near the
beginning, Mr O'Loane was talking about resources. He may feel
he has said all he wishes to say on that subject, but can I give
him another opportunity to tell us further, if he so wishes, about
the extra resources that are being made or will be made available
for the implementation of the Code?
(Mr O'Loane) Yes. In this financial year the Department
of Education made available, I think, £3.5 million to the
Boards and in the next two financial years there will be an additional
£7 million, we are promised, to enable us to implement the
Code, in each year. The money which was made available to the
Boards this year was for a number of areas to target. Most of
the money was devolved to schools and when we would have devolved
the money to schools we would have suggested to them ways in which
the money could be used. So, for example, we suggested that some
of them—and within the scope of their needs and how they
might use the money would differ. Essentially however the money
was ring fenced and had to be used really to devolve into special
needs, so they could not use it for something else. Some of the
things we suggested use of the money for were purchasing books,
practice materials related to special needs, the provision of
additional teaching, the release of teachers to enable them, either
individually within their own school or in clusters, to avail
themselves of training, the release of SENCos to get training
or sometimes just to work within their own school, and additional
clerical assistance because with the Code there is increased administration,
additional classroom assistance. Some schools have used the money
to put it towards the cost of a reading recovery teacher. So those
are some of the areas in which the money is being used and targeted.
There was additional funding provided to the Boards to take account
of the administrative difficulties in administering the statementing
procedure and there was additional funding to all of the Boards
to enable us to appoint two educational psychologists. The unfortunate
thing was there are five Boards and two psychologists per Board
equals 10 and there were six psychologists training in Queens
whom we were all after at the same time. So it goes back to a
point which was made earlier. One of the keys to implementing
the Code at certain stages, but certainly from Stage 3 onwards,
is the availability of educational psychologists. At present,
in Northern Ireland, there is certainly difficulty in recruiting
educational psychologists and that may become worse because it
is proposed that the present one-year course will become a three-year
course. So there may be difficulty arising there.
78. Did you say—sorry, forgive me—
that ring fencing is continuing or that it is only current?
(Mr O'Loane) Ring fencing will continue with that
particular money because it is specifically related to the Code
of Practice.
Chairman
79. In the context of the answer Mr O'Loane
has just given, and this is, I have to agree, tangential but we
happily have a small latitude of time on this occasion. In the
far-off days when I was Higher Education Minister for England
and Wales—I think actually the responsibility was extended
further than that—the Nation only needed 55 vets per year
and they were required to have universal A's at A level, but because
the Almighty has a sense of irony there were always more than
55 who had got all A's at A level. It was then the case, in the
slightly procrustean way, the Almighty intervened to make sure
there would be enough drop-outs in the first year—and I
will not go into why there were drop-outs—that in the end
we would end up with 55 vets graduating to fill the places that
were available. So it just shows that there is a wider purpose
in these matters! I have a couple of questions in conclusion.
Is there any intention to differentiate between schools on the
basis of the number of pupils from socially disadvantaged areas
which are more likely to have pupils with special needs, but not
require statements?
(Mr Martin) To differentiate between schools?
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