Memorandum submitted by Special Education
Consortium
The Special Educational Consortium (SEC) is
convened under the auspices of the Council for Disabled Children
to protect and promote the interests of children and young people
with special educational needs and disabilities. SEC provides
a policy forum on issues affecting children and young people with
special educational needs and disabilities. SEC is a broad consortium
consisting mainly of voluntary organisations but including professional
associations and local government organisations as well. SEC defines
its policies by identifying areas of consensus that exist among
the wide range of groups represented within it.
SEC welcomes the opportunity to submit evidence
to the Select Committee to inform their inquiry into special educational
needs and disability. SEC would welcome the opportunity to clarify
any aspect of this submission and to supplement written evidence
with oral evidence.
SEC presents its evidence in the following sections:1. Provision
for SEN pupils in "mainstream" schools.
2. Raising standards of achievement for SEN pupils:
— Access to specialist support in a
delegated system.
3. Improving transparency and accountability:
4. The system of statements of need for SEN pupils.
5. The legislative framework for SEN provision
and the effects of the Disability Act 2001, which extended the
Disability Discrimination Act to education.
6. SEN and disability in every policy.
1. PROVISION
FOR SEN PUPILS
IN "MAINSTREAM"
SCHOOLS
1.1 SEC recognises that the Select Committee
is taking evidence in the wake of a series of high profile debates
over this summer. These debates have generated more heat than
light, more polarisation of views than consensus.
1.2 SEC recognises that the majority of
parents of disabled children or children with special educational
needs want their child to be educated in their local mainstream
school with their brothers and sisters and other children who
live locally. Until recently there were significant limitations
on parents' entitlement to a mainstream place for their child.
With the implementation of the SEN and Disability Act in September
2002 parents secured an increased right to a mainstream place.
SEC supports the current position that enables parents to express
a preference for a mainstream school and to have a reasonable
expectation that their preference will be met.
1.3 Inclusion is not about placing disabled
children and children with special educational needs in mainstream
schools, ignoring difference and "treating all pupils the
same". It is about making appropriate provision to meet each
pupil's needs and reasonable adjustments to enable each pupil
to access the whole life of the school. The provision and the
adjustments may be different for each pupil. This is the essence
of inclusion.
1.4 SEC celebrates the fact that many disabled
children and children with special educational needs are now educated
with their peers in mainstream schools. Schools that are working
hard to include all children attest to the benefits for all children
of working in the way that they do.
1.5 Some parents seek a special school place
for their child, some as a matter of principle, but many of these
parents do so because of poor experiences of mainstream, including:
— a lack of ready welcome for their
child;
— a lack of understanding of their
child's impairment and their child's educational needs;
— difficulty in securing the necessary
expertise in schools;
— difficulty in securing appropriate
provision within the school; or
— difficulty in securing the appropriate
support from elsewhere.
1.6 Perhaps because of some of these difficulties,
progress on inclusion has been slow. Ofsted[1]
reports that there has been little change in the overall numbers
of pupils included into mainstream schools over the last four
to five years. Whilst a number of special schools have closed,
there has been no overall reduction in the proportion of the school
population placed outside mainstream schools. In this context
it is hard to give credence to the voices claiming that inclusion
has gone too far.
1.7 SEC recognises the genuine challenges
in developing appropriate mainstream provision. SEC has welcomed
the significant government commitments to improving opportunities
for disabled children and children with special educational needs,
as set out in the 10-year strategy, Removing barriers to achievement.
[2]SEC
believes that there will be significant benefits arising from
the implementation of the Strategy and that these will be important
in developing the capacity of mainstream schools to provide for
disabled pupils and pupils with special educational needs. Particularly
important to this are:
— the proposals on training for staff,
both initial training and continuing professional development;
— the increased emphasis on outcomes
for disabled children and children with special educational needs;
and
— a focus on ensuring a range of appropriate
forms of support for pupils and for their teachers.
1.8 SEC is concerned about the quality of
provision made for disabled children and children with special
educational needs, whether it is made in mainstream or special
schools. There are some excellent special schools, but they are
not all small, well-ordered communities, havens from bullying
and better able to engender a sense of belonging than mainstream
schools. A recent paper by Baroness Warnock[3]
proposes that special schools are the appropriate place for a
much greater number of pupils than are currently placed in them.
SEC does not support this view.
1.9 SEC's position can be summarised as
follows:
SEC supports the inclusion of disabled children
and children with special educational needs into mainstream schools
and settings.
1.10 SEC believes that inclusion only happens
where:
— adjustments are made to enable disabled
children and young people to access the whole life of the school
or setting; and
— special educational provision is
made to meet the needs of children and young people with special
educational needs.
1.11 SEC recognises that parents will make
what they see as the best choice for their child and some will
continue to chose special schools, especially when mainstream
provision fails to address their child's needs.
1.12 Progress on inclusion depends on the
development of:
— the capacity of schools and settings
to make adjustments; and
— the capacity of schools, settings
and LEAs to make the appropriate provision available in mainstream
settings.
2. RAISING STANDARDS
OF ACHIEVEMENT
FOR PUPILS
WITH SEN
2.1 SEC has concerns about the continuing
evidence of the underachievement and the under-expectation of
disabled pupils and pupils with special educational needs in the
school system. Ofsted identifies the difficulty in their recent
report:
"Expectations of achievement are often
neither well enough defined, nor pitched high enough. Progress
in learning remains slower than it should be for a significant
number of pupils."
Ofsted (2004)
Special educational needs and disability: towards
inclusive schools
2.2 SEC's concerns are highlighted at a
time of improving outcomes and positive international comparisons
more generally. The Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners
indicates that:
"Behind these headlines is a fundamental
weakness in equality of opportunity."
DfES (2004)
Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners
2.3 A report from the Prime Minister's Strategy
Unit highlights the links between poor educational outcomes and
subsequent life chances for disabled young people:
There are particular concerns around labour market
inactivity amongst disabled young people. Disabled young people
are considerably more likely than non-disabled people to be not
in education, employment or training (NEET), particularly from
age 19 when many will first transfer out of special school . .
.
Education is a key driver of opportunity. High
levels of education lead to higher employment and income levels
and also to better social networks and improved life satisfaction.
Low levels of education are associated with the opposite—increasing
the probability that disabled people will experience poverty and
social exclusion...
Disabled people often do not achieve the qualifications
that they could at school owing to a range of factors—including
negative experiences of schooling, low expectations from teachers,
special schools lacking an academic orientation, and a lack of
education provision during hospital and other absences.
Prime Minister's Strategy Unit (2005)
Improving the life chances of disabled people
2.4 High levels of exclusions are both a
cause of and the result of poor outcomes for disabled pupils and
pupils with SEN. In their study, Special educational needs: a
mainstream issue, [4]the
Audit Commission found that the vast majority of permanent exclusions
in the 22 LEAs surveyed related to pupils with SEN: 87% of exclusions
in primary schools and 60% of exclusions in secondary related
to pupils with SEN.
2.5 In 2004 the Advisory Centre for Education
(ACE) found that about three-quarters of their exclusions calls
related to pupils with special educational needs. Pupils with
ADHD, autistic behaviour and mental health problems made up a
significant proportion of these pupils. Between a third and a
half of ACE's SEN/exclusions calls blamed lack of support or inadequate
support as the reason for the exclusion and in nearly a sixth
of these calls it appeared that the school had not made any "reasonable
adjustments" and that this was a factor in the exclusion.
2.6 In a recent Office for National Statistics
report[5],
27% of children with autism in the sample had been excluded and
the vast majority of these on more than one occasion. Exclusions
also start young:
"My son was permanently excluded from
nursery and from two schools by time he was seven years old. He
has now been out of school for 15 months."
Parent of an autistic pupil, ringing helpline organisation
2.7 It is quite inappropriate that there
is such over-reliance on the disciplinary route for disabled pupils
and pupils with SEN, particularly when there is evidence of lack
of support and of a failure to make reasonable adjustments which
may amount to disability discrimination. There is a clear need
to put in place appropriate provision and make reasonable adjustments.
This depends on all the appropriate training and support being
in place.
TRAINING
2.8 Training is needed across different
roles and at different levels in the service: curriculum managers,
teachers in initial training, subject specialists in institutes
of higher education, newly qualified teachers in their induction
year, so that all teachers understand their duties towards disabled
pupils and pupils with SEN.
2.9 SEC welcomes the work commissioned by
the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) which is
now getting under way at the Institute for Education, London University.
SEC understands that this work will lead to new programmes in
initial teacher training that should ensure that teachers start
their career with a better understanding of SEN and disability.
However, SEC understands that this work will only affect the three
and four-year initial teacher training courses, and not the one-year
Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE). SEC considers it
is essential that all trainee teachers have access to initial
training on SEN and disability. Post-experience training can then
build on this.
ACCESS TO
SPECIALIST SUPPORT
IN A
DELEGATED SYSTEM
2.10 The provision of support services can
significantly enhance the capacity of schools to respond to a
range of needs. Ofsted identifies the important contribution of
support services:
"Support and outreach services promoted
inclusion and improved the life chances of many vulnerable pupils.
"
Ofsted (2005) Inclusion: the impact of LEA support
and outreach services
2.11 The report by the Audit Commission, [6]in
2002, identified concerns about a "shortfall of specialist
support" and Ofsted identified delegation as undermining
the LEA's ability to target support for pupils with SEN:
"The delegation of funding for support
services had a negative effect on the provision for some pupils
with SEN. It diminished the capacity of many LEAs to monitor the
progress of pupils with SEN and reduced the range and quantity
of specialist staff available to provide advice and support.
"
Ofsted (2005) Inclusion: the impact of LEA support
and outreach services
2.12 SEC argues strongly in favour of the
proposal, in Removing Barriers to Achievement, to draw up generic
minimum standards for SEN support services, to ensure that this
crucial source of advice and support is not further eroded. At
the same time it is important that there is clarity about delegated
funds: what is delegated, what for and how it is being used.
3. IMPROVING
TRANSPARENCY AND
ACCOUNTABILITY
3.1 An important element in improving outcomes
for disabled pupils and pupils with SEN is that schools are held
to account for their progress. It is particularly important that
the new frameworks for school improvement, that rely on schools
working with a school improvement partner, make full use of the
data on pupil progress to inform supported self-review in this
area.
3.2 Regulations[7]
require local authorities to publish information about how they
meet the needs of pupils with SEN. In particular local authorities
are required to set out, in their policies, the respective responsibilities
of schools and themselves in respect of the use of delegated and
centrally retained funds. Clarity about this aspect of local authority
policy has a strategic importance: it should make clear what parents
can expect schools to provide and what they can expect the LEA
to provide. This can also be a tool for showing schools what approaches
they can be expected to have provided for pupils with different
types of need. Schools and parents can see what it is that the
school can be expected to have provided before considering approaching
the local authority for additional resources.
3.3 The LEA is required to publish its policy
on its website. Not all LEAs comply with this requirement, but,
following a survey by the Advisory Centre of Education, and revised
guidance to Ofsted inspectors, more LEAs are now publishing their
policies on their websites. It is important that there is continuing
pressure to make this information available to parents and to
schools.
3.4. Equally important is the information that
schools are required to make available to parents. Schools are
required to make available their SEN policies and their accessibility
plans, and are required to report on these annually. However,
parents regularly report to member organisations the unwillingness
of schools to give them this information. In a small-scale unpublished
survey of 20 parents by Centre 404 and the National Autistic Society,
parents identified real difficulties in getting hold of information
from schools on admissions, exclusions, and policies on SEN, accessibility
and bullying:
"I had to fight for every piece of information
above from school, LEA and in the end I had to go to independent
bodies or charities to receive information. I never did receive
school policies . . . "
"I was given a copy of the bullying policy
but very begrudgingly! "
" [We should be given] all policies regarding
the handling of disabled pupils—these should be given automatically
without you having to ask. "
3.5 The significance of these difficulties
is that it undermines parents' confidence that the school will
be able to meet their child's needs and it puts them at a disadvantage
in accessing schools. Difficulty in getting hold of information
can fuel demand for a statement, simply because parents may not
know what the school should be making available.
4. THE SYSTEM
OF STATEMENTS
OF NEED
FOR SEN PUPILS
4.1 SEC dislikes the confrontation surrounding
statements. However, parents do not start out wanting or needing
a statement for their child. Statutory assessments and statements
are necessary to secure the appropriate provision to meet the
needs of the child. As statements provide access to additional
resources there will always be a need to use some form of assessment
in order to determine entitlement to those resources, and indeed
such assessment systems existed well before the publication of
the Warnock report and the passage of the 1981 Act. While access
to additional resources is always important in meeting special
educational needs, some of the confrontation around statements
arises from a lack of clarity about the respective responsibilities
of schools and local authorities.
4.2 It is the allocation of resources through
statements that has enabled disabled pupils and pupils with SEN
to be included into mainstream schools and to access support and
resources there.
5. THE LEGISLATIVE
FRAMEWORK FOR
SEN PROVISION AND
THE EFFECTS
OF THE
DISABILITY ACT
2001, WHICH EXTENDED
THE DISABILITY
DISCRIMINATION ACT
TO EDUCATION
5.1 The DDA duties are less well known than
the SEN framework, both to schools and to parents. The DDA duties
have been in force for a shorter time and they require a different
way of thinking: rather than focusing on the needs of the child,
the duties in the DDA require us to consider the changes we can
make in the environment to better enable a disabled pupil to access
provision and to participate fully in the life of the school.
5.2 Organisations in membership of SEC occasionally
report parents' positive experiences of visiting schools and finding
a ready welcome, but they also report the negative messages parents
receive, some of which may amount to discrimination:
"Try the school down the road. It has
a much better SEN department."
" [School X] has more experience of children
with SEN."
"I cant imagine anyone anywhere having
anything good to say about your son"
"We can't take your child unless he stops
having fits" (of a child with epilepsy)
5.3 Only a small number of claims of discrimination
has been brought to the SEN and Disability Tribunal. Between September
2002 and January 2005, 188 claims were made. Commenting, in 2003,
on the slow rate of claims to the SENDIST, Trevor Aldridge, the
outgoing President of the Tribunal commented:
"Of the total of 3,610 cases registered
by the Tribunal during the year only 78 were claims for disability
discrimination, just over 2% of the total workload. It seems likely
that this small number results from ignorance of the role which
the Tribunal can now play, rather than a near-absence of discrimination."
SENDIST Annual Report 2002-03
5.4 Schools have also been slow to respond
to the requirement to publish an accessibility plan:
"Over half the schools visited had no
disability access plans and, of those that did exist, the majority
focused on accommodation."
Ofsted (2004)
Special educational needs and disability: towards
inclusive schools
5.5 It is a matter of urgency that schools
develop a greater awareness of the DDA duties and operate in the
light of these duties. The new duties in the DDA 2005 place schools
under a more active requirement to promote equality of opportunity
between disabled and non-disabled pupils.
6. SEN AND DISABILITY
IN EVERY
POLICY
6.1 SEC has welcomed the Government's SEN
Strategy, Removing Barriers to Achievement, and would argue that
the Strategy needs to be given a higher profile across the DfES
and in other Government policies. There are instances of the SEN
and disability dimensions being omitted from other initiatives
through an oversight, as with the original publication of the
National Literacy Strategy and, more recently, the guidance on
Speaking and Listening. Disabled children and children with SEN
are also absent from the Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners
DfES (2004), where the strong emphasis on equal opportunities
and outcomes might have argued that they should have a key focus.
6.2 There are other instances where SEN
and disability perspectives run counter to the prevailing culture,
for example:
— the abolition of the annual report
of the governing body to parents. For parents of disabled children
and children with SEN, this removed an important point of access
to information in a document that was widely circulated and no
one had to ask for. The proposed school profile does not contain
the SEN and disability information that was in the annual report.
It is proposed that the SEN and disability information, which
is required annually, should be reported in the prospectus;
— when proposals on school transport
were published in autumn 2004, they took little account of disabled
children and children with SEN;
— Academies: there has been a small
number of difficulties reported by members of SEC in relation
to admissions and exclusions from academies. SEC members are monitoring
evidence from helplines. There is also a matter of principle.
SEC is concerned that children with a statement of SEN have a
lesser right of access than their peers and a lesser right of
access to an Academy than to a maintained school. There is concern
that this may amount to discrimination.
January 2006
1 Ofsted (2004) Special Educational Needs and Disability:
Towards inclusive schools. Back
2
DfES (2004) Removing barriers to achievement: The Government's
strategy for SEN. Back
3
Baroness Warnock (2005) paper on inclusion for the Philosophy
of Education Society of Great Britain, Special Educational Needs:
a new look. Back
4
Audit Commission (2002) Special educational needs: a mainstream
issue. Back
5
Office of National Statistics (2005) Mental Health of children
and young people in Great Britain. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Back
6
Audit Commission (2002) Special educational needs: a mainstream
issue. Back
7
The Special Educational Needs (Provision of Information by Local
Education Authorities) (England) Regulations 2001. Back
| 
