Education: Special Educational Needs

Baroness Linklater of Butterstone Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Linklater of Butterstone]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, for initiating this debate. She is a towering figure in the world of SEN since her seminal report in 1978, followed by her pamphlet in 2005 reappraising SEN provision and practice and showing where things ought to change. Hers is a voice of sweet reason and we all owe her a great deal.

I declare an interest as the founder and first chairman 18 years ago of a small, specialist school for children with SEN in Scotland. I was inspired by the experience of our daughter, who was borderline for a statement in England. She endured four miserable years in mainstream schools in England and Scotland and failed to learn or thrive in that experience. That changed for her and all those who have since come to the New School, Butterstone, which is my school. By the time they leave us, these children are resilient—having had a full, appropriate curriculum—ready to go on to college or work and, most importantly, visibly more confident and happy human beings who know what it is like to have friends, to be valued and to have a life to look forward to. That is not the fate of many children in this field.

The Ofsted review, A Statement is not Enough, resonates all too strongly. The truth is that large numbers of children identified with SEN are being failed by the system—1.7 million children in England alone. In the school population, 2.7 per cent of children have a statement of need, and school action or school action plus applies to a further 18.2 per cent. Of course, there is a huge variation in standards and Ofsted was quick to show that provision was good or outstanding in 41 per cent of visited providers and 36 per cent of their case studies.

The key messages from the Ofsted review are that there must be a shift to a proper focus on outcomes for children rather than on process; that the standards of assessment must be improved in quality and consistency; and that statements are not used as a panacea for inadequate teaching or indeed straight laziness, as the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, has said. That last comment is particularly damaging. As has already been said, the system has become confusing and complex in its legislation and language. Identification should come much earlier for most children. In turn, that demonstrates the urgent need for better training of teachers in SEN generally, a greater understanding of needs and an ability to deliver. With appropriately trained teachers and good assessments, children’s outcomes are vastly improved in terms of academic achievement and, so importantly, of their life chances.

There is powerful evidence in the review of the battles that families go through in getting assessments, appropriate help and provision for their needs. It is a miserable, frustrating and lonely experience, which often reflects the child’s experiences in school. Parents and siblings pay a price and much more account should be taken of their needs and wishes too. Inclusion in mainstream is the key challenge and it is where most with SEN will spend their whole life. Just being avoided, let alone bullied, can mean that you are as excluded as if you were on a desert island. Hardly a child comes to my school who has not experienced significant teasing and bullying, where their crime is being vulnerable and different. It can make learning impossible. The noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, describes inclusion as a feeling of belonging, which underpins well-being and successful learning, too. When unconditional acceptance is truly felt, it is wonderful to see how self-esteem grows, starting with eye contact, changed body language, and so on, followed by achievements in the classroom which exceed all expectations. Without true inclusion, the long-term price to be paid by these children, their families, the adult services, the criminal justice system and others is high indeed, as I know both from my social work and from prison life.

The specialist school TreeHouse’s findings for autistic children’s life chances, of which we shall hear more shortly from my noble friend, show that, after school, 15 per cent can look forward to a full-time job and 90 per cent will be living at home with carers or in residential homes. The latest and only relevant figures I could find for 2009-10 show that, of the adults in the general population with broader learning disabilities, aged 18 to 64 and known to the adult social services, only 6.4 per cent were in employment of some kind. We must do better by this group, whose life chances depend so much on their early life opportunities. That is not a future a child with SEN should have to aspire to.

The Minister, Sarah Teather, is producing a Green Paper and has outlined her priorities as: the improvement of parental choice and a less adversarial system; preventing the unnecessary closure of special schools; a transformation of funding to a more transparent, cost-effective and high-quality process; better support post-16; and better early diagnosis. She has definitely got the message, and I look forward to seeing her deliver.