Memorandum submitted by Mrs Sharon Tringham, Kent

Part time dyslexia /EFL tutor - Mother of 4 children with SpLD (Dyslexia/Dyscalculia/Dysgraphia) aged 11- 21 giving over 20 years of experience with SpLD dyslexia.

Member of National Handwriting Association /Contributor on BECTA SENco forum.

 

On the presumption that local authorities would continue to fund special needs provision, the Committee is seeking views on the following issues in particular:

1a) Please do not presume that LEA's fund special educational needs provision, or should continue to do so. Central agency maybe more cost effective, efficient & fairer.

How might assessment of special educational needs be undertaken other than by the relevant local authority without the establishment of a new separate agency for the purpose?

1b) Agencies & processes exist for assessing Student Disability Allowance. Requires desire for change plus rearrangement and pruning of existing statementing arrangements

How might local accountability for assessment be maintained if the local authority does not directly undertake the assessment?

1c) Nationally capped rates for assessors etc., whether LEA employed or not and Tribunal type process available for LEA to fight support provision on behalf of a school, rather than the other way around as currently happens where a parent with no experience of process has to fight for provision (and often omitting to ask for something the child actually needs due to lack of knowledge of process.

What other issues need to be addressed in order to make the separation of assessment and provision effective?

1d) Central agency in charge of assessing & allocating funds for new (all age) SDA rather than individual LEA's.

What models from other countries could usefully be drawn on to demonstrate how separation of assessment and funding for special educational needs might be achieved?

1e) Scotland appear able to support SEN inclusively without as many issues.

2) Impartiality problems or 3) funding issues?

Many problems arise because of lack of LEA impartiality, but as often in the first instance because of funding provision where SEN funding has been devolved to schools based on formulaic combinations of social deprivation, current statements and past needs - none of which can predict the level of funding needed in mainstream schools year on year. Until this is resolved who assesses for need is largely irrelevant.

Case History:

10 year old - severe dyslexia /high IQ initially unsupported at school due to reliance on individual LEA diagnostic criteria (deeming student as ineligible for specialist support) rather than Code of Practice guidelines.

SENDist Tribunal awarded 2 hours 1:1 support with a specialist SpLD teacher plus 5 hours with an LSA (on top of existing provision). School governor (& parent) told the Tribunal that the school could not pay for specialist support due to the devolved SEN budget having being allocated/spent for that year. Tribunal was asked if this meant the child should wait until money was available in the school budget in order to get the support they needed. Tribunal disagreed and made LEA pay.

Like it or not funding is a mitigating factor. It is why LEA's want Statement numbers reduced and why schools are often unwilling to support Statementing requests unless the Statement will transfer the child out of their school (and budget requirements).

2) Impartiality - LEA EP was not allowed to write in the report that 1:1 support with a specialist teacher was needed, even though the EP agreed with the parent views that this was the only way forward. Lack of LEA impartiality.

3) At Tribunal LEA was adamant that the school should pay from existing budget should a Statement be issued. Tribunal disagreed and insisted that the money be made available from LEA additional funds. Money was initially made available at Primary school level, but this pertinent piece of information was NOT passed to the receiving secondary school even though the LEA named the school on the Statement of Educational need thus - absolving LEA of further cost implications.

4) Inclusive practice v. including students with Statements

Despite protestations by the LEA about inclusive practices, some receiving schools WILL go to great lengths to avoid taking in students with complex Statement support needs, solely based on cost. This leads to lengthier processes for parent and child and more Tribunals that could be avoided if funding was supplied centrally or from outside of the schools current SEN budget. It is not that the school does not want to admit the child, or that they could not support them with extra resources/money, but that they do not have the necessary money. How can schools be expected to budget for students that they do not know exist? Centrally issued money for specialist support could follow the child without impacting any schools day to day SEN provision such as training, resources or the provision of general Classroom Assistants.

More, not less, parents will push for a Statement if this is the only way to get appropriate support, or retain some element of control over what happens to their child. This does not sit well with the government drive to keep Statements solely for students with severe & complex needs or down to a level of around 2%.

5) Governments and schools seem to forget that Education is a service industry.

The way to avoid all the above is to extend Student Disability Allowances (SDA) down from University access only to be applicable to all age students unable to access education, and where money for their additional support come from a central fund.

Also:

5a) TRAINING : Initial screening and assessment for Specific Learning Difficulties or General Learning difficulties by SENco's with appropriate training to include use of ICT software, and intelligence tests such as K-BIT or similar and including understanding and interpretation of test results. This should result in less need for EP's initially where students are of a level where their SEN is expected to be supported in school without reference to specialists.

If support cannot be met within School Action (devolved SEN budget) the students should be assessed independently with support paid for from central funds via SDA - giving no conflict of interest and a better outcome.

5b) Referral to EP only for severe end of any non-medical SEN spectrum - this service currently has to be 'bought in' or paid for out of SEN devolved budget so schools should look outside of the LEA for independent reports. EP report or a similar specialist report to trigger assessment for SDA.

5c) Referral to or via doctors for SEN with medical roots - visual, auditory, physical or genetic condition via appropriate specialists before direct application for SDA.

5d) Countrywide (not countywide) checklists for identifying SEN initially and set criteria for support to avoid 'postcode lottery'.

6) Currently SDA money (or Access to Work) is paid by lump sum to equipment or support providers with student (and parent) input at assessment as how best to do this. This may initially appear more costly as more students may actually be able to get the support they need in order to access an education, but removing layers of LEA interference, subsequent mediation and Tribunals could offset costs. If the two systems above can work then it might be a better model for Statementing or high level support needs such as severe dyslexia, and removing the loyalty divide between SENco/LEA and SENco/parent when deciding what is best for each child.

7) Personal experience

That my eldest daughter has a 132 IQ that enabled her to survive long enough in the education system to reach University is testament to her determination and abilities. That she now qualifies for SDA for her SpLD (dyslexia) indicates the lack of earlier efficient identification and support. The current support system, especially for those with dyslexia, is not working.

I would love to think as time passed that earlier assessment and support is now available to those who need it, but as the Case History shows I have another child still struggling within the system due to late identification of SpLD (dyslexia) even though there is now a Statement of Educational Need in place.

Worse of all is that I have two children in Year 11 and Year 6 with SpLD dyslexia who will 'fail' academically due to lack of appropriate support - not because they don't need it or deserve it, but because I cannot be everywhere at once fighting the current system.

The opportunity to go to University and access the SDA that they too would undoubtedly qualify may now never happen for them. The barriers to learning should not be so great that 2 children with IQ's in the top 2% cannot get past them.

When, not if, they drop out of education, it is they that will be labelled as 'failures', not the government nor education system that actually failed them and this cannot be allowed to continue.

June 2007