Academies: Special Educational Needs Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateBaroness King of Bow
Main Page: Baroness King of Bow (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness King of Bow's debates with the Department for Education
(9 years, 11 months ago)
Lords Chamber
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of academies on the education of children with special educational needs.
My Lords, the Academies Annual Report sets out how academies cater for vulnerable and disadvantaged pupils, including those with special educational needs. In 2013, the results for SEN pupils in primary sponsored academies improved at a faster rate than in local authority maintained schools. In secondary sponsored academies, the results improved at a similar rate to those of local authority maintained schools. The results for SEN pupils in primary and secondary converter academies remained well above those for SEN pupils in local authority maintained schools.
I thank the noble Lord for that reply. Is he shocked by the refusal of some academies to admit pupils with special educational needs on the basis that they do not contribute to the,
“efficient education of other pupils”?
One such excluded SEN pupil was an 11 year-old boy with cerebral palsy who already had passed his maths GCSE with an A* grade and was a prefect and reading mentor at his primary school. Will the Minister take another look at academies’ admissions policies towards SEN pupils because if gifted pupils like the one I have described can be selected out, what hope is there for other children with special educational needs?
I have already answered the point in relation to 16-19 academies but all other schools must have a SENCO, and we have funded more than 10,000 new SENCOs since 2009. We have funded more than 1,000 teachers to get postgraduate SEN qualifications. We are also investing heavily in the Achievement for All programme, which is reaching many schools, to help leaders improve their SEN provision.
The Minister said that he did not recognise the case that I set out of the disabled child who was rejected on the basis of his disability. That is a well known tribunal case. There are others like it, which I will write to the Minister with details of. In the light of those cases, will the Minister review the Government’s policy in this area, as well as the fact that parents want redress at a local level when they cannot get their kids into school? They do not want to have to write to the Secretary of State.
I will of course look at any points the noble Baroness writes to me about, but I think it is fair to say that this Government have done more than any other Government in recent generations to reform the whole provision for SEN, as demonstrated by the Children and Families Act that came through your Lordships’ House earlier this year.