School Meals for Children
Baroness Browning Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
The noble Lord touches on issues relating to how parents bring up their children, which is obviously delicate territory for the Government to pronounce too firmly on. Our messaging around the risks of obesity and on healthy lifestyles more broadly is obviously picked up by parents. Our family hubs also look at things such as nutrition. On the first part of his remarks, I should say that the department centrally offers a service called Get Help Buying for Schools that supports schools to negotiate high-quality and affordable catering arrangements.
Baroness Browning (Con)
I am very pleased to be a member of the committee sitting in this House at the moment looking at ultra-processed foods and obesity. From its evidence sessions that are in the public domain already, the diets of children in school meals, packed lunches and the food that they eat at home should worry everyone in this House. Given what my noble friend has replied today, can I gently suggest that her civil servants please follow the evidence being taken by the House?
Baroness Barran (Con)
I should clarify that I did not in any way want to diminish the importance of addressing ultra-processed foods, but the school food standards already restrict foods that are described as low-quality reformed or reconstituted foods, which include ultra-processed foods.
Schools: Safeguarding
Baroness Browning Excerpts(5 months, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Browning (Con)
My Lords, I, too, welcome and thank my noble friend Lady Jenkin of Kennington for bringing this debate to the Floor of the House today. I draw the House’s attention to my interests in the register on autism as, unsurprisingly, it is that subject that I wish to address today. I will focus on the safeguarding of autistic children in the education system. This will include both those with an autism diagnosis and those as yet undiagnosed, for whom an assessment and a subsequent plan to support the child through education—as outlined in the Autism Act 2009—are often needed right through their transition from childhood into adulthood.
In her representation of today’s debate, my noble friend Lady Jenkin outlined in some detail the Government’s definition of safeguarding in the context of education, so I will not repeat it now. However, I emphasise—not for the first time—that autism is a spectrum and the needs of an individual should be assessed by those with significant training and qualifications in autism and neurodiversity. Autism is different. It is a communication disorder. Both physical and mental bullying are common. The individual’s development of a sense of self can be slower than that of their peer group. Idiosyncratic behaviour, such as echolalia, can attract unwanted hostile responses. Timely assessment, diagnosis and support are essential.
Schools will struggle to carry out their statutory duties in respect of safeguarding until there is rapid improvement in this process. Research from Pro Bono Economics suggests that, in 2021-22, £60 million of public money was wasted on special educational needs and disability tribunals brought by people who had come forward with an assessment or not received one at all. Had those tribunals not responded to the request or rejected them, they could have financed around 9,960 places in SEN units in mainstream schools each year with the money wasted. Even when people get an assessment, many have to go to tribunals to get the support that their child desperately needs.
Ofsted, the schools inspectorate for England, describes what good safeguarding in an education setting should look like:
“It is about the culture a school creates to keep its pupils safe so that they can benefit fully … A positive and open safeguarding culture puts pupils’ interests first. Everyone who works with children is vigilant in identifying risks and reporting concerns. It is also about working openly and transparently with parents, local authorities and other stakeholders to protect pupils from serious harm, both online and offline and about taking prompt and proportionate action”.
I, too, will make some comment, or place some interest, on the question of gender. The Cass review, in particular, demonstrated the shockingly disproportionate high number of autistic children seen by the Tavistock and Portman gender identity service. I emphasise this: 48% of referrals to that clinic had autistic characteristics. Yet, in the course of its work, nobody questioned why. What is going on here?
I am pleased to see that the Department of Health is addressing the Cass review, and I am grateful to the Minister at the Dispatch Box today for the time she has allowed me, in private, to outline to her some of the similar problems experienced in some state schools for autistic children, using information given to me directly by the parents of those children. As I discussed with my noble friend, particularly as far as girls are concerned, parents have been blocked out from what has been going on in schools and has affected their own children. These have included things such as breast binding, initiated by teachers without the parents’ knowledge; referral to doctors, who have prescribed puberty blockers; and things such as changing pupils’ names. Some of these issues have led to court cases. But we know that pubescent teenage girls sometimes struggle with the changes in their bodies and peer pressure to conform—how much more so for autistic girls, who have found these complex issues so much more difficult.
I will try to shed some light on this with a quote, from a post on autism and gender identity written by Jane Galloway. She has suggested that:
“With such a huge number of autistic girls identifying as trans, whether that be as a boy or as non-binary (a feeling that they identify as neither male or female, although they will biologically be female or in rare cases, intersex) we have to ask questions about why this is.
Growing up in a culture soaked by internet porn, in which women are expected to conform to highly sexualised, performative femininity, young girls are often facing impossible beauty standards. They are seeing a world of toxic gender roles that speak neither for nor to them”—
that also applies to young lesbians as well as autistic girls. She goes on to say that
“the temptation to reject it outright … is overwhelming. Add in the differentiated theory of mind”,
documented by Francesca Happé many years ago, which throws light on the way the autistic mind works, and it is no wonder that, for
“girls who are autistic … many of them will assume ‘Because I am not this, I must … be that’”.
Perhaps that question should have been asked at the Tavistock clinic. It is certainly a question that I hope we will ask in education, as far as autistic girls in classrooms are concerned. In the guidelines that are to come, I hope my noble friend will be able to influence that.
Education: Special Educational Needs Budget
Baroness Browning Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Agnew of Oulton
The right reverend Prelate is correct that there seems to be an increasing trend of mental health needs in young people, and I urge all noble Lords who are concerned with this area to look at why this is happening. It is certainly happening, but there is not enough discussion around why it is happening. To restate our commitment, we have increased high needs funding from £5 billion a year in 2013 to £6.3 billion this year and over £7 billion next year. As I mentioned in an earlier answer, we have increased core school budgets by 5%, which will indeed help with the lower levels of SEN not specifically addressed in the high needs budget.
Baroness Browning (Con)
In respect of children with special needs who require diagnosis and then further assessment—I am particularly thinking of those on the autism spectrum—when they reach the age of nine or 10 and the prospect of having to go on to a more senior school, that is a critical point for parents who are still waiting for diagnosis and assessment. One of the weaknesses is of course the question of the resources of CAMHS. How regularly does my noble friend’s department discuss the particular problems of this age group with CAMHS?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
My Lords, I cannot answer that specific question but I am happy to write to my noble friend on the matter. As I mentioned earlier, we are carrying out a review of the SEN code of practice, which will be completed by the end of next year, and I will ask the relevant Ministers to ensure that that is part of that review.
Schools: Religious Education
Baroness Browning Excerpts(7 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Browning (Con)
My noble friend mentioned science in respect of religious studies. However, will he accept that science is quite properly evidence-based, while whatever faith a person is it is not called faith for nothing?
Education and Training: People with Hidden Disabilities
Baroness Browning Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Browning
My Lords, I refer the House to the Register with my interest in autism charities. It is a great privilege to follow my noble friend who has brought the debate to the Floor of the House today. He is a passionate advocate, particularly for those with dyslexia, and also always speaks out for those with what he termed—I think quite rightly—the “hidden disabilities”. As he said, somebody can meet someone they do not know, talk to them, observe them and not think that there is a problem—particularly with dyslexics and those with autism, and those on the more able end of the autistic spectrum such as people with Asperger’s syndrome.
Although there is still so much more to do, we know that several things have been done that have improved matters for all these children. When I started out as an MP more than 20 years ago, I remember in my constituency casework meeting professionals both in education and in health—doctors and teachers—who denied that autism or dyslexia existed at all. There were parents in my constituency who were paying privately for their dyslexic children to have tuition on Saturday while their classroom teachers denied that such a condition existed.
It has been a real battle to get autism up the agenda. Of course, both Houses agreed in the previous Parliament to an Autism Act. I say to my noble friend that I am increasingly concerned at the number of government departments that seem to be oblivious to the fact that there is an Autism Act on the statute book. Yes, it does focus very much on health, social care and integration—but it particularly affects those in transition out of education through those very difficult years into adulthood. I urge my noble friend—as I have urged other colleagues in other government departments—to make sure that, when they are legislating and looking at codes of practice, they look at what the House has determined should be the future for people coming out of education who are on the autistic spectrum.
In the classroom there are so many things that relate both to dyslexia and to the more able children on the autistic spectrum. I was very interested to see the article, “Dyslexia Still Matters”, in Dyslexia Action, which sets out effective practice that would make a difference. There were four very simple points, any of which could apply to autism as well. The first referred to:
“A whole school ethos that respects individuals’ differences, maintains high expectations for all”.
We know that children who are different in any way very quickly become subject to playground bullying and name-calling. All too often in a classroom situation it will become apparent to other children that they are struggling with the work. This of course applies to both autism and dyslexia. I hope that we have gone past the stage where they are subject to name-calling by teachers. That sounds rather shocking but I can think of several examples where teachers told children that they were “thick”. These memories will have remained with them well into their adulthood. One can only speculate on the impact that this had on both their self-confidence and their ability and willingness to learn in later life.
Dyslexia Action also refers to:
“Knowledgeable and sensitive teachers who understand the processes of learning”.
I am a great advocate of integrated education for children with a whole range of disabilities but I draw a line where the school does not understand the condition well enough to take those practical steps—very often environmental ones—that will enable a child to learn. I emphasise “learn” because there are children who because of their nature sit passively at the back of the classroom and allow education to wash over them year after year. It is quite common, for example, that children with autism are very sensitive to light and noise—even to the noise of a lot of children talking in close proximity. They struggle to concentrate and hold on to thought processes and eventually give up.
What happens to those children? It is not rocket science. There have been enough studies into this for us to be able to deal with it. It should not be an ongoing problem. These children start to develop what we might describe as challenging behaviour in the classroom. The children—particularly the autistic ones—who start to chuck the chairs about are the ones who suddenly get the attention. The ones who sit quietly at the back and end their school days without the benefit of the proper education that their intelligence tells you that they were clearly capable of obtaining—they are the ones we are letting down. I come back to those who start throwing the furniture about. Challenging behaviour is difficult for any teacher in a classroom setting. We are all aware of the need for the teacher to think of the whole class and not just that one child who, on an ongoing basis, may be disrupting the education of the others.
I must say to my noble friend that I have concerns and have had them for a long time. Although the Government—and the previous Government—no longer believe that so many statements should be issued, one of the reasons for trying to obtain a statement for a difficult child in a classroom setting concerns the allocation of extra teaching hours for a teaching assistant. All too often that teaching assistant is not trained in the needs of that individual child—whether dyslexic, dyspraxic or autistic—but is used all too often to assist the teacher with the general management of the class as a whole. Therefore, the need for the individual child who has a statement of educational needs to really motor on with their education is something that, very often, is not addressed just by having a teaching assistant in the classroom, particularly in respect to autistic children.
Of course, autistic children are different. It is a danger to just lump them all together. Their needs will be different. They are individuals. Their teaching needs will be best addressed by an environment and a teaching process that recognise what those needs are—which needs to be put together after very careful assessment. If we are going down the route of not having as many statements—I am a great advocate of statements; I cannot think of how many constituents I have gone into battle for who wanted a statement or challenged one, and I feel that statementing helped a great many children—there is at least a need for all children, statemented or not, to come through education with their needs being assessed and recognised. That is important not just while they are in the classroom; it is equally important when they go through that transitional period of adolescence and into adulthood, when they may need to access training such as apprenticeships, further education or, in many cases, higher education, which a great many of these children are capable of obtaining if they have the right package of support.
I want to share something with my noble friend. I suspect that his colleague in another place, Sarah Teather, will already be aware of it because on 11 July she will address the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Autism. The group has put together recommendations that we believe should apply to all autistic children. This will read across to other children. The recommendations are that every school should have a lead teacher for autism, and that all children and young people with autism and special educational needs should have an action plan, whether or not they have a statement, so that as they move through the transition period a record of what their educational needs were in school can go with them. The thing about children and education is that how you communicate with them when they have a communication disorder will apply as much when they become adults as it did when they were in the classroom. We are now talking about skills and services for life because, as my noble friend said, they will have this condition throughout adulthood—it does not apply only to the classroom.
The all-party group also recommends that there should be meaningful support for all young people with autism and SEN up to 25 years of age, including those who are not in further education. Some of these children, including some of the brightest, take a few more years than other people, because of their needs, to get there. If you do not give them the opportunity, the cut-off points in terms of their age can be detrimental. We have had debates in this House about the need to consider the needs of children through to age 25, and I think that the Government have been receptive. I hope that my noble friend will accept this.
Of the adult community with autism, 60% rely on their families for financial support and 40% live with their parents. Many people who have adult children with autism and other types of lifelong disability would recognise immediately that parenting is for life—it is for as long as you can continue to support that child. There are, therefore, very elderly pensioners supporting pension-age children. That is not unusual. It is important that we address the fact that many of these adults are sitting at home without the training or opportunity to make the positive contribution that many of them would like to make. That does not mean that you can just fix them up with a job. I commend my noble friend Lord Freud, who is not here, for personally taking a great interest in seeking to raise the number of people with Asperger’s syndrome who get into work. He has set up a group that is liaising with employers to show them that such people, with the right package of support, can make a great contribution to their own independence in paid employment and to the economy of the country.
However, we should recognise that some issues regarding disabilities in training and employment in the workplace are more easily resolved than others. Some adaptations for disabilities, after management has been made aware and has put in practical adaptations, do not subsequently take up any management time. This is particularly the case with the Asperger’s group. They need ongoing support in the workplace—although not to do the job; they can do some high-level jobs—and someone who understands how they function. How the individual functions and what works for them is as important in the classroom as it is in the workplace. We should help them make that transition and give them as much support and education in the workplace as we provide in the classroom.