Select Committee on Education and Skills Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200-219)

MRS EIRWEN GRENFELL-ESSAM, MS PAULA JEWES, MR HUGH PAYTON AND MR CHRIS GOODEY

11 JANUARY 2006

  Q200  Stephen Williams: On the question of audit, there is some evidence. In the Ofsted report of 2004. They found some instances of schools doing what was just described. Presumably, if a recommendation of this Committee's final report was that this funding should be ring-fenced, that is something across the piece that you would all think was a sound recommendation.

  Mrs Grenfell-Essam: Yes.

  Mr Payton: Indeed.

  Q201  Stephen Williams: You are all nodding.

  Mr Payton: Yes.

  Mrs Grenfell-Essam: A SENCO can be just a class teacher who has half an hour a week to do that role.

  Ms Jewes: If the SENCO was to have the sort of expertise in the school and could disseminate good practice, that would be an incredible improvement.

  Q202  Stephen Williams: So it is not just ring-fencing the money.

  Ms Jewes: No.

  Q203  Stephen Williams: Obviously everybody wants more money, but it is making sure that the SENCO who is responsible for this early intervention work has sufficient resources in time.

  Ms Jewes: Yes, somebody who has the job to do that.

  Mrs Grenfell-Essam: One of the recommendations is that the SENCO is senior management. That can only happen in some schools. In some schools they are not, and there is no funding specifically saying that SENCO must be senior management, must have management points or . . . .

  Q204  Stephen Williams: I think that point was made by earlier witnesses as well at this inquiry, that the SENCO is often a junior member of staff.

  Mrs Grenfell-Essam: Yes.

  Ms Jewes: Or part-time.

  Mrs Grenfell-Essam: Yes, somebody who comes in two days a week.

  Ms Jewes: We have some excellent head teachers and excellent heads of units in our schools who produce fantastic results, and the common factor amongst these individuals who produce excellent results is that it is their job to look after and educate special needs children. They do not have another job: that is their job. That is the common thread.

  Q205  Stephen Williams: Could we move on to admission. The Committee is just coming to the end of looking at the White Paper and diversity in schools is clearly an issue there: the Government has an aspiration for more diversity. Do you think this increase in the types of school is going to increase the choices available to parents with special educational needs?

  Ms Jewes: Could I highlight and put a big flag on parents again. It is fine to say parents have choice but special educational needs parents are not as good advocates for their children. Many do not have parents, many are looked after. Many parents are in denial, many parents would not really even support the best service for their own children because of the special educational need that their children has.

  Q206  Chairman: Are we not shifting around here? Some of you, not all of you, are saying that we tend to get more evidence of special educational needs in a more affluent borough like Richmond because parents are more articulate. There I thought you were describing pretty articulate parents, who know what they want, who are determined go get a statement for their child. All these parents are not unable to—

  Ms Jewes: No, but it is amazing how often you see a large number of parents who are willing to pull their children into an independent school, rather than have them stigmatised with a statement, or there are parents who have them diagnosed with milder things, rather than have an autistic stamp on their head. I have seen a lot of children fail as a result of parents refusing to acknowledge their children's real problems or what really will affect them. There is the other end of the spectrum that we know about as well, of there being a lot of socially disadvantaged families with special needs, so those children do not have a voice either, generally. I just want the Committee to be very cautious of going down this road of: If the parent can decide, everything gets resolved.

  Mrs Grenfell-Essam: We have parents in Essex who are making choices for secondary school and they do not know how to fill the form in, let alone make the choice. If they have to have a choice between lots of schools in the area and they themselves have problems filling the form in, let alone making the choice, are they really having a choice or will they be the ones who get the leftovers?

  Q207  Stephen Williams: Aside from the White Paper, the Government had a programme anyway with expanding academies, particularly in cities. In my city we have had evidence that academies may not have a good reputation on admitting children who are SEN. Is that an experience that you have witnessed?

  Mr Payton: Can I make a different point, representing a rural county? Many towns only have one school and that one choice must be a very, very good school which caters for the majority of things, but where it is not able to cater for then you require additional facilities elsewhere. Having a choice in a city is one thing but having a choice in a town with one school is no choice, and therefore it has to be good.

  Q208  Stephen Williams: Indeed, if my colleague, Tim Farron, who represents a large rural constituency in England, were here he would be making that point rather better than I.

  Mr Goodey: I am sure that is the case but that is a de facto lack of choice. Could I just reiterate that parents who want mainstream lack choice de jure?

  Q209  Stephen Williams: No one actually picked up on academies. Is there any national evidence on academies?

  Mrs Grenfell-Essam: We have not heard anything about them, really. I do not think they have been in situ long enough for us to—

  Chairman: That is what we like: when people honestly say, "We do not know".

  Q210  Jeff Ennis: On the parent's rights issue, do you believe that local authorities uphold a parent's right to seek a special school place or does it vary?

  Ms Jewes: No, the local authorities—I think all of them—pursue a blanket inclusion policy.

  Q211  Jeff Ennis: We have already said that we thought it was a good idea that we should ring-fence special educational needs funding. The Chairman touched on the point earlier in the session that many of our neighbouring countries—Wales, Scotland and Ireland—are moving away from the formal statementing process, and we seem to be digging our heels in, as it were, in wanting to retain it. Do you think we now ought to be moving on and abandoning the statementing process, given all the caveats you have put down in your earlier evidence?

  Ms Jewes: I believe we should change the statementing process to be brought into schools so that it is quicker and less of a going to an outside authority with a big, expensive procedure. I also believe that some of the assessments could be done by expert SENCOs combined with visiting speech therapists, occupational therapists and other experts, without having always to resort to educational psychologists. Also if GPs were more expert in special needs they would be able to help. A very quick, efficient bread-and-butter process of assessing with a ring-fenced provision following is a form of statement but is not as formal as we have now, and, really, every child should have that right when they have a special need in school. That would be, to me, the way forward and our group agree; it is not that we want the current statementing, where you have to fight and you have to go to tribunal, to be extended, we think it should be a bread-and-butter procedure, day-to-day within a school, with expert resources.

  Q212  Jeff Ennis: So, effectively, we need to slim-line and localise the system?

  Ms Jewes: Yes, but have the legal right of the child to have their needs met still protected.

  Mrs Grenfell-Essam: The problem with localising is would my authority give one child a statement and the authority down the road would not, so when that child moves house they start all over again and may not get a provision. We were meant to have, under the 1981 Education Act, an across-the-board system that actually is not—every authority does its own thing.

  Q213  Jeff Ennis: So you are happier with the current statementing process?

  Mrs Grenfell-Essam: I would like to slim it down a lot from what it is now.

  Q214  Chairman: You would like to retain it?

  Mrs Grenfell-Essam: I would like to retain something similar to it, where there is a legal provision that has to be met.

  Mr Payton: The statement process is very heavy-handed. Something is needed—whether you call it a statement or something else—to protect the interests of most children in need. The process is very bureaucratic and heavy-handed, and that is the fundamental problem. A lighter weight system, whether you call it a statement or whatever, is necessary.

  Ms Jewes: The fundamental thing is that the child is properly assessed at the beginning and then quickly the resources they need are allocated and protected. It is very simple and, actually, the statementing process does that, it is just made long-winded because of the conflict built into it. That is the fundamental thing: they need their needs assessed straightaway, properly, and then met, properly, and ring-fenced.

  Q215  Jeff Ennis: The current tribunal system comes in for a lot of criticism, rightly so, from parents, being too legalistic and cumbersome, and you have got the issue of not qualifying for Legal Aid, and all that sort of thing. Would it not be better and would it not cause less friction between parents and LAs if we had more of an arbitration-type service or conciliation-type service to agree the problems rather than a formal tribunal system?

  Mr Payton: That exists today. I imagine there would be mixed receptions to the effectiveness of those conciliation services. My experience has been that you go through another layer to continue disagreement—and there seems little purpose.

  Ms Jewes: Beside the fact that we are forced through the extra layers because that is the way the authorities delay committing the budgets to the statement.

  Q216  Chairman: How do you get through this problem that any constituency MP has picked up on, that is that you get parents that are passionate in their view of what is right for their child but you get the heads and the teachers who might have a different view on that. Who makes that decision? Must it always be the parents that are right? Who is the best arbitrator here?

  Ms Jewes: If the professionals were acting properly then there would not be as much disagreement. The parents only have their strong opinions because they have been advised by other professionals Parents of, for example, an autistic child, do not overnight become an expert in provision for autistic children; it takes years and years to understand your own autistic child's needs. So parents rely on information they read, information from the doctors that they see that they find to be most professional, and they only become passionate because they have a reason to be passionate about what they believe is needed. What they encounter is a barrier to their child's needs being met from day one under the current system, the way the local authorities implement the statementing law. It is not just a question of the parents unreasonably wanting one thing and the others saying this is what is right.

  Q217  Jeff Ennis: My authority still has special schools, in both Barnsley and Doncaster, both doing a great job. In many respects, I think the linkages that currently exist between mainstream schools and special schools need to be developed a lot more, for obvious reasons. How high a priority do you think it is, that where we do retain special schools that are doing a good job, it is not just about educating the children within their own particular four walls, it is about getting out into the wider school community and building bridges?

  Mr Payton: I can answer your question from experience. Some years ago I sought in my rural county to achieve a close relationship between independent specialist schools and the mainstream schools in their areas. The independent schools were all for that but none of the mainstream schools or the education authority were. It is an interesting thing. It was a negative experience but I tried very hard.

  Mrs Grenfell-Essam: We have tried to liaise with our local special school, and it is time constraints. Our children in mainstream have to meet the National Curriculum guidelines for two hours of this, three hours of this and four hours of this. When is the time to do something else? We have tried having lessons with their children coming to our school and our children going to their school and having more links with the staff, but it is time constraints as well as resourcing.

  Q218  Mr Marsden: I have a quick question, aimed at Eirwen and your previous comments about what happens to their statement when children move. There seems to be a general consensus that people would like to see the statementing process changed in some shape or form but can I just ask would you be in favour of a statementing process, however it is changed or revised, which actually travelled with the child if that child moves, admitting that there may be different mechanisms between local authorities for judging on that statement? Could that not be policed in some way through a sort of arbitration process?

  Mrs Grenfell-Essam: It would be very good. It does not at the moment. Every statement is rewritten. When a child moves county or moves LA the statement is rewritten; there is reassessment and thousands of pounds go into writing a statement which has already been written. So why can it not just go with the child?

  Q219  Mr Marsden: So you would agree with my suggestion?

  Mrs Grenfell-Essam: Absolutely.


 
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