Memorandum submitted by the National Association
of Independent Schools and Non-Maintained Special Schools (NASS)
1. INTRODUCTION
This document forms NASS's written evidence
to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education and Skills
Inquiry into Special Educational Needs. NASS is an umbrella organisation,
representing all 72 Non-Maintained Special Schools and 50 Independent
Schools catering wholly or mainly for children with SEN, most
of which have approved status through the Department for Education
and Skills.
NASS schools provide education, social care
and health care for children with the most complex, severe and
low-incidence special educational needs. As a result of these
needs and the subsequent vulnerability of these children and young
people, the cost of individual placements can be high. This frequently
results in assumptions that our schools are "too expensive".
In this evidence, NASS will seek to set out the value of the Non-Maintained
and Independent Special School (NMISS) sector in cost and expertise
terms. There are also responses to the specific areas to be addressed
by the Select Committee.
Given the needs of the children and young people
that NMISS cater for and the inaccuracies that exist in the understanding
many public sector bodies have of our sector, NASS would particularly
welcome the opportunity to give oral evidence to the Committee.
2. NMISS—A VITAL
ELEMENT IN
THE CONTINUUM
OF SEN PROVISION
In 2003, the DfES Special Schools Working Group
Report highlighted the essential role special schools play in
meeting the needs of children with SEN. Within special school
provision, NMISS play a particularly specialist role. Whilst many
Local Authority-maintained special schools cater for children
with a broad range of SEN, each NMISS tends to specialise in only
one or two types of SEN. This gives schools experience that most
mainstream and maintained special schools will not have and allows
for the development of very specialist skills and expertise.
In recent years, Government policy has led to
an increasing number of children with SEN being educated in mainstream
provision. For many children, this has been appropriate and successful.
However, for children with very complex or severe SEN, there is
a risk that attending a mainstream school does not represent real
inclusion. Many mainstream school staff do not have the experience
of working with children with high levels of need or the associated
skills that come from such experience. For some children with
complex or severe SEN, attending a NMISS has been the first time
that they have had a sense of belonging and of being fully involved
in the whole educational experience from teaching and learning
to peer group relationships. NASS strongly believes that inclusion
must be about more than where a child received education and that
special schools can, and do, provide excellent inclusive educational
experiences.
The trend towards inclusion has led to a correlated
trend towards NMISS catering for children with the most complex
and severe SEN. Medical advances have meant that children who
may not have previously survived, are now living into adolescence
and beyond. Many children will have highly specialised health
and social care needs, which smaller Local Authorities struggle
to meet. The specialist nature of NMISS makes them an essential
element in the provision of services for such children.
Where possible, it is appropriate that children
should not have to leave their home and families to receive the
education, social care and health care that they need. It is appropriate
that Local Authorities should be reviewing and developing their
own provision and considering regional provision. NASS argues
that NMISS are ideally placed to be part of that regional picture
of provision. Whilst school places form the core business of NMISS
and allow for the development of expertise and innovative practice,
there are many opportunities for that expertise to be shared with
children and young people, parents and Local Authority-based professionals.
As the evidence will detail at a later stage, many schools are
already engaged in innovative partnership work.
3. COST AND
VALUE FOR
MONEY
Although the cost of comprehensive, high quality
provision is not cheap, NASS strongly argues against accusations
that our schools are "too expensive". A review of Ofsted
and Estyn inspections of NASS schools (available on the NASS website
at www.nasschools.org.uk) reveals that of the 119 schools
surveyed, 100% achieved "sound" or better judgements
for value for money, 75% were "good" or better and 27%
were "very good" or "excellent". These findings
are better than many maintained special schools.
To date, there has been no comprehensive research
that conclusively demonstrates that NASS schools are more expensive
when comparing like with like and taking into account the full
range of education, care and health services that NASS schools
are able to deliver on site. Despite this, there is mounting pressure
on Local Authorities from central government not to make "out
of authority" placements and a reduction in the funding available
to authorities to make such placements. This threatens the choice
of parents and children to opt for specialist educational provision
and leaves many to have to fight for their wishes to be heard
through the SEN and Disability Tribunal. Whilst NASS supports
the mainstream education of children with SEN, with the proper
support, we are very concerned about "inclusion" being
promoted as a cost-cutting exercise.
NASS argues for some level of central government
funding of places in NMISS to remove these financial pressures
from Local Authorities. This would ensure that vital specialist
provision is not lost through the closure of schools where parental
demand for places outstrips supply but the number of placements
made by authorities is falling year on year.
4. HIGH QUALITY
PROVISION
For two years running, Mary Hare School in Berkshire
and RNIB New College in Worcester (both NMSS) have topped the
DfES Value Added tables, achieving educational outcomes for children
with hearing and visual impairments far in excess of what might
be expected. However, because they are small schools, these figures
are not widely published.
The sector has struggled against unwarranted
accusations that provision in NMISS is of poor quality. In the
review of Ofsted and Estyn inspection reports detailed above,
we found that there is nothing to suggest that the quality of
education and of leadership and management in NMSS and Approved
Independent Special Schools (AISS) are weaker than in maintained
special schools. Indeed, the percentage of NMSS and AISS where
leadership and management are sound or better is 99% compared
with HMCI's figures for all special schools in 2002-03 of 89%.
In the same report HMCI stated: "pupils' achievement in approved
independent schools is similar to that in LEA-maintained special
schools" (Standards and Quality 2002-03. The Annual Report
of HMCI, p 53). This was reiterated in a letter to the NASS Chief
Executive by David Bell, dated 5/02/04: "I hope you will
. . . take comfort from the fact that my Annual Report 2002-03,
published on 4 February 2004, draws attention to the good quality
of provision in approved independent schools."
The safety of children with SEN, particularly
those living away from home, is paramount. Children and young
people are often particularly vulnerable as a result of communication
or emotional needs. The emotional health needs of children with
SEN are often poorly understood or neglected. Schools like Westwood
in Kent are addressing this by employing a full-time school counsellor,
who liaises with the local CAMHS team. This work makes a major
contribution to ensuring that children in school are safe. Despite
criticism of some residential special schools in the recent Safeguarding
Children report, there are numerous examples of excellent practice
in Child Protection in NASS schools. Chailey Heritage School in
East Sussex is nationally recognised for its good practice guidance
on intimate care for disabled children and is represented on its
local Joint Child Protection Forum. Peterhouse School in Southport
recently shared their expertise in working with children with
Autistic Spectrum Disorders at a national conference, "Protecting
Those Who Cannot Tell" and Pegasus School in Derbyshire was
the first school to be awarded a maximum five star audit by the
British Safety Council.
5. INNOVATIVE
PRACTICE
NMISS are perfectly placed to develop innovative
practice in teaching and learning and "hidden curriculum"
activities for children and young people with low-incidence SEN.
The Loddon School has introduced the PLLUSS programme—Personalised
Learning for Life Using Supportive Strategies—which offers
tailor-made education for each child, drawing on preferences for
activity, location and staff. This supports children previously
excluded or rejected from previous schools to access education
fully. Sunfield School near Stourbridge has used its research
centre to develop innovative practice with children with Autistic
Spectrum Disorders ranging from classroom activity to the building
design and decoration of their new residential unit.
Mary Hare School, New College Worcester and
Royal West of England School for the Deaf, are all pathfinders
in the DfES's new programme of Specialist Special Schools, helping
to ensure that their expertise can benefit a wider range of children
and staff.
6. WORKING IN
PARTNERSHIP
Although there are some tensions between NMISS
and Local Authorities surrounding funding, there are also many
examples of strong partnerships. The development of the 11 SEN
Regional Partnerships has created opportunities for NMISS to work
closely with authorities in their area. The Old School in Nuneaton
now works intensively with therapeutic, social and medical services
in each student's locality to ensure that gains made at school
can be sustained and built upon when they leave. In Exeter, the
Royal School for the Deaf provides professional management of
Torbay's Hearing Impairment Service and advises on ICT for pupils
with SEN, reaching a far greater number of children than those
attending the school. St Vincent's School in Liverpool provides
a similar Visual Impairment service for one of its Local Authorities.
Relationships between NMISS and local mainstream
schools are often particularly strong. Many schools have arrangements
in place to share teaching and learning and recreational facilities
and in many cases this means that children with SEN are learning
alongside their peers, whilst still receiving the benefits of
specialised educational support. There are also benefits for staff
with many schools offering opportunities for mainstream staff
to spend time in NMISS or making specialist training courses available.
SUMMARY
NMISS are an essential element of the continuum
of provision for children and young people with SEN, particularly
those with severe and complex disabilities. Funding constraints
and an unwillingness to acknowledge the real cost of fully meeting
the educational, social care and health needs of these children
and young people creates tensions between Local Authorities and
schools and parents. These tensions are often expressed as objections
to NMISS in cost, value for money and quality terms, which are
not borne out by available evidence.
NASS'S RESPONSE
TO SPECIFIC
AREAS IDENTIFIED
BY THE
INQUIRY
(a) Provision for SEN pupils in "mainstream"
schools: availability of resources and expertise; different models
of provision
The majority of children with SEN are educated
in mainstream schools. For many children this is appropriate and
primary schools in particular are often able to meet children's
needs effectively. The experience of children and young people
with SEN in secondary schools is often less successful. Difficulties
which may have been contained within a small primary school can
become manifest in larger secondary schools, where staff are likely
to have less detailed knowledge of individual children and young
people. For children with particular types of SEN, particularly
Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties (BESD) and Autistic
Spectrum Disorders, this lack of containment can lead to the breakdown
of the educational placement.
The mode age for placement in NMISS is 15. Frequently
placements are made at a point of crisis, where mainstream school
placements have broken down and Local Authorities have exhausted
their own resources. These types of arrangement are far from ideal
for the young people involved and do not provide a good starting
point for NMISS in working effectively with them. NASS welcomes
the focus in Every Child Matters and Removing Barriers to Achievement
on early intervention. From the perspective of NMISS, the opportunity
to provide specialist input to children at an early stage increases
the possibility of that child or young person returning to mainstream
schooling at some point in their education.
As noted in our earlier evidence, a number of
NMISS provide or manage Local Authority support services. This
is an excellent use of their expertise and NASS would seek further
developments of this nature within the Change for Children programme.
The exchange of staff and training mentioned earlier would also
contribute to developing expertise in mainstream school staff.
The Special Schools Working Report and current Audit into Low-Incidence
SEN have both mentioned the possible development of "Regional
Centres of Expertise". NMISS should be an integral part of
these, whether in terms of providing a bricks and mortar base
and/or being viewed as a significant source of the expertise.
(b) Provision for SEN pupils in Special Schools
Special schools must continue to be recognised
as a vital part of the continuum of provision for children with
SEN. Inclusion is not simply about where a child is educated but
about how they are educated. As noted earlier, children in NASS
schools report positive educational experiences and a sense of
belonging and of having their needs understood and met. It is
inaccurate to assume that a special school placement cannot, by
definition, offer an inclusive educational experience. The use
of dual placements and closer links between special and mainstream
schools have reduced the "either/or" distinction and
reduce the potential for isolation.
The funding of placements in NMISS would benefit
from review. Until the late 1990s despite successful fundraising
activities for particular projects funding for the sector was
primarily pupil placement based. Although individual schools were
able to bid annually for some aspects of capital funding this
source of funding was very limited. A few schools were sometimes
able to receive specific grants to support a portion of specialist
staff training costs through arrangements with their local education
authorities but again this was both limited and inconsistent across
the country.
Through the work of NASS a number of direct
funding streams to the sector have been established in recent
years. These have included several year-on-year allocations (eg
Standards Fund, School Standards Grant, Devolved Capital Funding),
various funds to support specific arrangements (eg Threshold Funding
to UPS1, some aspects of leadership training) and some indirect
grants to fund particular initiatives (eg ICT training, Laptops
for Teachers, PLASC). The amount of Capital Grant available for
bids from the sector has also increased.
These new funding arrangements have been welcome
but there remain inconsistencies and anomalies eg payment for
progression to UPS2, Pension contribution arrangements. The restriction
of these funds to NMSS while AISS continue to provide very similar
services also remains a concern. Only through the fees charged
for placements can AISS fund the same initiatives for the benefit
of their pupils.
Funding arrangements based almost entirely on
annual placement costs for pupils with statements have significant
disadvantages for NMISS which constantly strive to keep placement
costs to a minimum in accordance with their charitable objects
and operating principles:
— schools are extremely vulnerable
to short-term changes in placement patterns and significantly
reduced numbers in a particular year or two-year period can threaten
and sometimes irreversibly undermine the viability of some NMISS
jeopardising their viability or future existence at a point in
time when, due to health or demographic trends, demand will rise
again and their services will again be required;
— where schools make provision for
pupils from several LEAs viability is dependent on total intake
and one or two LEAs changing their placement arrangements can
have an adverse impact on provision for pupils from other LEAs
placed in the school;
— uncertainty about pupil numbers and
intake can undermine the stability of employment of established
expert staff and encourage them to seek careers elsewhere;
— maintaining high quality provision
and curriculum breadth can be seriously challenged where highly
specialised staff are lost to less specialist but more secure
employment;
— working within a narrow income and
expenditure margin leaves few opportunities for long-term planning
and very little funding for new initiatives and developments (eg
outreach work);
— existing funding arrangements allow
for very little more than a maintenance of the status quo; and
— inconsistencies in funding streams
for NMSS and AISS put the latter at a significant disadvantage
when it comes to determining fee levels.
LSC funding of placements at specialist colleges
has for some time now been based on an annually pre-determined
fee matrix system. Through this identified individual student
needs and agreed levels of support and provision automatically
allocate the level of fee to be paid for the placement of each
student. Application of this type of model to NMISS or a new model
of core funding for the sector warrants further investigation.
(c) Raising standards of achievement for
SEN pupils
Despite the introduction of PLASC and P Scale
benchmarking there is still no solid research that makes comparisons
between pupils with SEN in different forms of education provision.
Looking beyond educational achievement, there are very limited
mechanisms for evaluating how well children with SEN are meeting
the five outcomes set out in the Children Act 2004. There is a
real need for large scale longitudinal research studies to track
children and young people through education and beyond to provide
evidence on the impact different education experiences have on
life chances. Such evidence is essential for making valid comparisons
between different types of education provision, including those
of cost-effectiveness, and both purchasers and providers are hampered
by its lack.
(d) The system of statements of need for
SEN pupils ("the statementing process")
There are valid concerns about the length of
time the statementing process takes and the amount of resources
tied up in the process. NASS supports a review of the process
but is cautious about simply ending statementing in the absence
of a wider review of parental wishes and access to specialist
support. For many parents, the statement becomes the only vehicle
by which they can assert their wish for a specialist placement
in a NMISS. This situation becomes more frequent with increasing
pressures on Local Authority funding of "out of authority
placements" and many of these cases result in a tribunal.
NASS would seek reassurance that any change to the statementing
process would not result in children and young people who require
specialist support being denied access to a place in a NMISS.
(e) The role of parents in decisions about
their children's education
The right of parents to choose a mainstream
or special school education is often a struggle in practice. As
detailed above, the wish of parents for a NMISS placement for
their child is not always acknowledged by Local Authorities. Parents
are often not made aware that such placements exist or are forced
to go through the lengthy and stressful tribunal process to secure
a place. Some NMISS find themselves placed in a difficult position
whereby offering support to parents through the tribunal process
puts them in direct conflict with the Local Authority who does
not wish to place the child there. This does nothing to enhance
relationships between NMISS and Local Authorities and is detrimental
to future partnership working. However, there is very little support
for parents in this position, who often feel that the NMISS are
the first people to listen to and attend to their needs. Some
NMISS have responded to this by developing family support services,
notably Sunfield, who have run a number of successful events for
families, including fathers' and siblings' days.
(f) How special educational needs are defined
The four bands set out in the SEN Code of Practice
do not adequately categorise the range of needs that children
might have. This becomes a particular issue when funding is attached
to this banding and when there are a range of professionals working
with a child or young person. Professionals from education, health
and social care backgrounds tend to define needs differently and
this is likely to be problematic as we move towards Children's
Trusts and pooled budgets.
(g) Provision for different types and levels
of SEN, including emotional, behavioural and social difficulties
(EBSD)
Given that NASS schools cater for the full range
of SEN, a full exploration of each type, in each region of the
country, would be too lengthy for this submission. However, we
would be able and pleased to provide oral evidence about the position
relating to each specialism. As a brief introduction to the subject
we would offer the following observations:
Sensory Impairment—although many children
with visual or hearing impairments have good experiences in mainstream
schools there are still many who benefit from special school provision
or support. Many authorities have reduced or cut their central
support services at the same time that NMISS catering for sensory
impairment have noted falling pupil numbers. Our experience that
this is not related to falling demand from children and families
but an increased reluctance from placing authorities to use this
provision.
Behavioural, Emotional and Social Difficulties—as
noted earlier, the pattern of referral to NMISS is of referral
at age 15, only when other placements have broken down irreparably.
This is a particular case where earlier intervention is greatly
needed.
Autistic Spectrum Disorders—the number
of children and young people with ASD who are out of school is
a serious concern. Estimates are likely to be the tip of an iceberg
with other children—especially those in mainstream—on
part time programmes (half day) or not allowed to stay for lunch.
There is an argument that this is the result of including children
with Autism and AS in mainstream settings without adequate skilled
support and without the school making sufficient adaptations to
the way it operates. Parents in particular report a lack of specialist
education places and the difficulty in securing such a place for
their child.
(h) The legislative framework for SEN provision
and the effects of the Disability Act 2001, which extended the
Disability Discrimination Act to education
NASS would note potential tensions between SEN
legislation and the new Children Act 2004 and subsequent Change
for Children programme. Change for Children has a holistic focus
on children and young people that has the potential to make real
changes for Children with SEN. Given that the focus is on all
children, it offers a real opportunity to do away with the sometimes
artificial distinction between those children and young people
with SEN and those without. This could be adversely affected by
a continued reliance on the SEN Code of Practice. At the same
time, balances need to be in place to ensure that budgetary pressures
do not lead to a reduced service for children and young people
with additional needs and their families.
The extension of the Disability Act 2001 to
education has been appropriate but has focused largely on schools,
both mainstream and special, making material changes to buildings.
This does not fully address the real process of inclusion in terms
of educational experience as well as location.
January 2006
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