Special Needs Schools

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, on an excellent introductory speech, on acquiring this debate and on championing the issues of special educational needs and disability so effectively, before and since she came into this House. It is an honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, who was Secretary of State for Education in 2001-02. You can hear the wisdom and experience that flows from her in her speech, and it is an honour to follow that. I also thank Ashmount special school in Leicestershire for the helpful information that it gave me ahead of this debate.

I will come at the contribution that special needs schools and specialist education colleges make to education by referring to another often overlooked part of the system: the parents. Across the school system, school-level factors account for just 20% of the variation in pupils’ attainment, and pupil-level factors, including the home and the community children come from, account for the balance. Half of that 80% is determined by family factors, particularly what parents do. So working hand in glove with parents wherever possible can make or break whether children fulfil their potential and flourish while at school. This is particularly the case when children have special needs.

The closer one is to a family with a special needs child, the more one realises how profoundly every member is affected, especially where those needs are at a high enough level to make them eligible for a place at a special school. Parents’ and siblings’ own needs can be considered by special schools in a far more developed and bespoke way than mainstream settings permit. Far from cosseting them, this whole-family support is indispensable if special needs children are to attend, engage and meet appropriately ambitious educational expectations. To quote one special needs teacher:

“You know it’s going to pay off if you are supportive to the parents because working together is so important for this child’s emotional and behavioural regulation which make their education possible”.


Many schools also take steps to help parents build a support network with each other. The House of Lords Library briefing identified frequent contact with parents or carers and close tracking of children’s progress as one of the important benefits of attending special education. That contact often starts before a child has had their first day at school. Early home visits help to identify the whole family’s needs and particularly their psychological state.

When children start at special school, there is awareness that parents are on a grief curve, which needs to be respected and accommodated. This includes trauma, emotion and stress about things that might seem insignificant but are highly significant to them. First, many had to fight to get the child into special school in the first place and disagree with professionals, which is rarely easy. It is an early priority to relieve anxiety and assure them that they no longer need to convince anyone that their child cannot be in mainstream. Secondly, they are often experts in their child’s needs, including their medical needs, and fear something being missed in case it means the difference, quite literally, between life and death. Many special needs children have had life-threatening conditions, requiring long and complex operations. Parents have handed their children over to anaesthetists and surgeons, unsure whether they will survive. As many conditions are ongoing, sending a special needs child to school is far from straightforward.

Easing families’ burdens can include helping parents fill in the complex paperwork for school transportation, where needed, and for disability living allowance. Such extra cash is essential as it is very hard for both parents to work when care needs are so high, but forms can seem overwhelming when time is cut short by myriad health appointments and associated administration. It is not unusual for profoundly disabled children to have two hospital appointments a week, which might be in different cities.

A child’s education, health and care plan routinely requires special schools to work with multiple professionals, such as speech and language and occupational therapists, social workers and medical consultants. They write letters to GPs on the family’s behalf and make referrals to child and adolescent mental health services. Many special needs children are doubly incontinent, for genuine medical reasons, and teachers literally get their hands dirty providing personal care. Some schools allow parents to use a child’s direct payments to fund a staff member to give respite care on a Saturday afternoon or after school. Teachers’ deep involvement in health and social care means that they are, in effect, triple-hatting in a way that a mainstream teacher would find impossible in a much larger class size where they are required to be driven by data and development deadlines. Ministers have said that they will improve mainstream inclusivity and pick up special needs earlier, but do the Government agree that we will always need special schools?

To reiterate, parents are vital to the education sector. Teachers with experience across both settings refer to a significant lack of understanding in mainstream about what life is like for parents. Will the Minister confirm that this will also be an area for improvement?