Examination of Witnesses (Questions 320-326)
MR STEVE
HAINES, MS
CATHY CASSERLEY
AND MS
PHILLIPPA RUSSELL
18 JANUARY 2006
Q320 Chairman: Phillippa, this is
the most offensive the three of you have been. I do not want to
make it offensive, but I am putting the question to you. You seem
reticent to criticise or even to come back and tell me what you
think about Warnock and you are a bit reticent to say what you
really believe about special schools. Am I right, or am I being
unfair?
Ms Russell: I hope I was not being
reticent, because I recognise Baroness Warnock's genuine concerns
and we know that there is variable practice within mainstream
and indeed within some special schools. But I would want to reiterate
my point that we are on a learning curve. We do at least believe
that every disabled child is educable—and my son is old
enough for me to have seen him rejected as uneducable before we
got the 1970 Education of Handicapped Children Act. We are on
a learning curve, inasmuch as some children do have very complex
disabilities and special educational needs and at the moment special
schools may be the place where they will indeed get the support
and education that they need, but, because we are learning as
we go, not only will mainstream schools hopefully develop more
capacity—and I am looking to the future—but special
schools themselves will develop different roles, where they perhaps
become specialist support teams or outreach service—and
one sees much more collaboration between the two. We know at the
moment that some children are in special schools because mainstream
has sadly failed them, and we have to address that fact.
Q321 Chairman: But it is okay if
a local authority has no special schools at all.
Ms Russell: If a local authority
were able genuinely to meet the needs of all disabled pupils and
pupils with SEN without special schools, that would be fine, but
I think at the moment one might well find they were using special
schools in other authorities. My personal view—and it is
not a criticism of a view that anybody else holds—is that,
at the moment, certainly, many parents are picking special schools
because they are worried about the capacity and quality of mainstream
to meet their children's needs. But I see ourselves as working
towards a more inclusive education system, with co-location in
specially resourced units, for example, with greater capacity
in mainstream. I see in effect a challenge ahead for both mainstream
and special schools to produce a better education system which
maximises all pupils' abilities.
Q322 Mr Wilson: In an ideal world,
if mainstream schools were properly resourced, there would be
no need for special schools. You are en route to saying that inclusion
has not gone far enough.
Ms Russell: In one sense, inclusion
will maybe never go far enough, because there will always be new
challenges and new groups of children, not necessarily disabled
children, about whose exceptional needs one needs to think very
carefully. I think we have a lot of work to do on the inclusion
agenda.
Q323 Mr Wilson: But your ideal is
that over a period of time there should be no need within local
authority areas for special schools per se, as long as
mainstream schools are properly resourced for special needs students.
Ms Russell: If we were to achieve
that vision—which I hope that one day we might—then
there would have to be very significant changes in the way in
which we organise education services. But, even if there were
no special schools, we would still need special services and specialist
services. Some children will always need that provision, and some
children may sometimes need provision or for part of their education
in a separate place. I think we have to explore further how we
deliver the best possible education for children with severe autistic
spectrum disorders, for example, but I think the point Steve made
was very important: we must ensure that disabled pupils have the
real opportunity to interact with and be part of the wider society
of children and any young people in their area. Inclusion is not
merely attending a mainstream school and sitting in a corner;
it is about being part of the life of that school. Equally, a
special school should endeavour to the best of its efforts to
be inclusive. Some people would say a special school never can
be inclusive, but a special school can work towards enabling a
pupil to acquire the skills and support which will enable him
or her to go back into mainstream. It can enable partnerships
with mainstream services. The real emphasis has to be on that
long-term vision of citizenship, and therefore it is inclusion
in everything, in all the life of the school. I think we do have
quite a long journey to go, but I think we are moving along it—maybe
not fast enough, but it is a pilgrim's progress.
Q324 Mr Wilson: No-one would argue
that changes would need to be made if we are going to reach an
ideal of full inclusion in schools, but the question is should
those changes be made? Should we be working towards those changes,
or should we be investing more in special schools? That is the
argument that is taking place now. I am trying to get your view
on that movement and how quickly it should be made.
Ms Russell: I do not think one
can ever promote positive change in a human service by running
down one sector whilst one endeavours to build up the other—by
which I mean that if there are pupils in special schools now and
in the future we have to be absolutely sure those schools are
properly resourced, that the staff are properly trained and recruited,
and it must mean some investment. I think in many public services
there are transition arrangements. I am thinking of the closure
of the long-stay hospitals which incarcerated many children with
learning disabilities until the 1980s. It would not have been
possible to get those children out unless there had been a parallel
investment in the community-based, children-based services of
the time, which prior to the Children Act 1989 had never thought
about including disabled children. That, I think, is one of our
challenges in promoting positive change, and also exploring, because
some of the children in special schools have very complex needs,
how we meet those needs. Even within a special school there are
some children we have heard about who are not in school at all
because their needs are judged too complex even for a specialist
service for disabled children.
Q325 Mrs Dorries: I would like to
clarify one point you made. Do you absolutely not accept that
there are groups of children, such as those on a high autistic
continuum that you have mentioned, those with Asperger's, who
absolutely would not be able to survive within a mainstream school,
even with the specialist provision. Even with their funding Velcro'd
to them, as we have heard recently, so that they had direct funding,
even in those circumstances, just the type of building, the changing
faces of the main children in the classroom, the noise, all those
kinds of things, makes it impossible for them to survive within
that environment and to be educated in that environment. Do you
not accept at all that there are children who need to be in SEN
provision special schools?
Ms Russell: There will be some
children who need specialist provision. When I talked about a
pilgrim's progress I meant that we have a journey ahead of us
and we must learn along the way about how best to educate children
with the most complex needs. I think that at least for the foreseeable
future some specialist provision is going to be essential. The
point I wanted to underline, however, is that specialist and mainstream
need to and are beginning to work more closely together, that
more autistic spectrum disordered children are now being included
in mainstream with the support of specialist unit support in schools.
Q326 Mrs Dorries: We had evidence
from Newham, who have a low number of statemented children. Most
of the children with SEN needs are educated in mainstream, but
they do have a large number of children who are being educated
outside of Newham in other boroughs. It is not a case that it
is not necessary or that it works; it is just: "Push the
problem away from our borders and send them elsewhere". That
is a borough that has gone further on the pilgrim's progress than
you are suggesting: they have gone right the way down the road.
That is a borough of total inclusion but the children are being
educated outside of Newham. They do not show on the statistics,
but there is still a need and the children go elsewhere.
Ms Russell: Your point about Newham,
which I know very well, complements my earlier point that at the
moment there is no doubt that some children are being placed in
special schools very appropriately and we have to explore whether
in the future more of those children could be in mainstream. It
is very important that we have to build a greater synergy between
the specialist expertise and the mainstream, because I do not
think we always know at the moment whether we can really include
all children effectively and achieve the life outcomes that we
want. It is a matter of working towards inclusion—which
we must do—but it also goes back to my final point about
valuing specialist expertise and specialist provision, and building
bridges—which brings us back almost to the jigsaw—between
specialist and mainstream to maximise opportunities, and having
a real look at and constantly re-evaluating along the way what
is working in the best interests of children and pupils.
Chairman: I am afraid we are out of time.
It has been an absolutely fantastically good session for us, Phillippa
Russell, Cathy Casserley and Steve Haines. We have learned a lot.
Forgive us if we pushed you a little at the end. That is our job.
Thank you very much for coming. I hope you will keep in touch
with the Committee. If, on the way back to your day jobs, you
think of something you should have said to the Committee and you
wish you had, do be in communication with us. Thank you.
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