Special Educational Needs

Julian Sturdy Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

A large number of Members wish to speak, so after the main speech I will straightaway impose a five-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches. People may take their clothes off—within reason.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered SEN support in schools.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, I think for the first time. Before discussing the policy that I wish to address, I will take a moment to emphasise why special educational needs support in schools is such an important topic. I secured the debate because of a number of constituency cases that have come through my surgery. Constituents raised the issue with me and brought me to the point at which I felt the need to discuss it in Westminster Hall. I will not talk specifically about constituency cases, because I want to speak to the wider issue, which affects not just cities such as York but the whole country. That is reflected in the number of Members attending the debate this morning.

I will touch on the importance of SEN and why it is worth taking the time to ensure that the system of support works for all children with SEN. Our starting point should therefore be to see SEN as something that informs mainstream education policy, rather than a specialist area relating to a minority of pupils. More than 1.2 million pupils in England—that is 14.6%—have an identified special educational need, of whom 250,000, or one in five, have either a statement of SEN or an education, health and care plan in place. We should also be conscious of the fact that the SEN of many more students are likely to remain unidentified. For me, that is the wider issue of real concern.

New research by Professor Lucinda Platt at the London School of Economics and Dr Sam Parsons of University College London has helped to inform us about the short, medium and long-term effects on people’s lives of being identified with SEN at school. While the findings are alarming, they serve to underline the obligation on us all to ensure that the next generation of children do not experience their special educational needs as something that impacts negatively on their prospects at school and future life chances.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this incredibly important debate. SEN support has an impact on children throughout my constituency. I am outraged on their behalf and that of their parents when I hear that some students who have an EHCP are left without any education, some for up to a year, or just having it for an hour a week. He mentioned the long-term impact of an SEN diagnosis and schools that cannot cope with the needs of those children, and that is incredibly important. I look forward to hearing him expand a little on that.

[Julian Sturdy]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. Members will mention different examples of constituency cases in the debate, which shows that this is a wide issue. However, I completely accept the point that it is about not just diagnosis but the next steps. I will come on to that, and I will put a few questions to the Minister. I hope that she will be able to respond to them accordingly.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for leading this incredibly important debate. Does he agree that mainstream schools must be supported as much as possible to educate SEN children in that setting? If they cannot and they exclude children, that in turn puts huge pressure on special schools, which cannot then cope, increasing the risk of exclusion into incredibly expensive independent provision, which drains the budget.

[Julian Sturdy]

I entirely agree. There is also a wider issue: it is important for children to be taught together with their peers—I want to come on to this, and the study I mentioned talks about it—because of the potential stigmatisation of being taken out of mainstream education and the consequences that can have for all the students. I completely accept the importance of that.

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. I am listening with interest to his analysis, and I look forward to his further comments. I welcome the extra resources that the Government have given, but real issues and concerns remain. Is he aware that in my borough the high needs in Bexley meant a 14% increase in the number of education, health and care plans during the 2017-18 academic year, but with only a 1.9% increase in the high needs block allocation this year? Bexley works hard to ensure that needs are met, and has agreed a contribution with the schools forum given the schools’ own high needs funding cost pressures, but the increase in demand is letting down our children.

[Julian Sturdy]

I was not aware of the specific percentages and increases in my right hon. Friend’s local borough, but I accept them completely—I think they mirror what we see across the country, and certainly in my region. He makes the point very well, and I am sure that his council is working hard with the resources available to it to ensure that those children get the best education possible.

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman is being generous in giving way. I want to develop the point a little. The reports that I get back from schools in my constituency indicate that the knock-on effect of pressures on local authority funding for such children is on mainstream school budgets. Increasingly, schools have to fund special educational needs from their mainstream budgets to make up for the local authority shortfall. That therefore impacts on the wider educational opportunity, not just that of those who need the specific funding.

--- Later in debate ---

[Julian Sturdy]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, which I accept, and it is certainly what I have seen in the evidence before me. I will develop this further, but the wider point is about schools and local authorities actually identifying all children with SEN—if they identified them all, there might be a financial impact on those specific schools. For me, that is the wider concern in the process.

The study by LSE and UCL found that children with SEN at school are three times more likely than their peers to lack a close friend and to experience bullying most days. Sadly, problems experienced at school have long-term consequences, and the study found that by the time those children are young adults, those with SEN are nearly twice as likely to see friends only once or twice a year and to feel that they have no one to listen to their problems. There is also an impact on relationships and family life in middle age. Adults who had SEN at school are four times as likely to be single and twice as likely not to have children.

The report also suggests that the pressure that children with SEN face at school to perform socially and academically is having a detrimental impact on their long-term mental health and wellbeing. They are twice as likely as their non-SEN peers to feel that life’s problems are too much. There is also a significant concern that a disproportionate number of those caught up in the criminal justice system have a special educational need—the relevant studies find that they represent between 25% and 50% of offenders. All that is extremely alarming.

Addressing the disparity in outcomes for SEN children has been a priority of successive Governments of all political persuasions and colours. There is evidence that policy changes have made a positive impact on the lives of a new generation of SEN children. The reforms brought in by the Children and Families Act 2014, and the introduction of education, health and care plans—touched on already by hon. Members—were welcomed as positive step towards providing more reliable and individually tailored support for those with the greatest needs.

Last week the Government talked about creating 37 new SEN schools. Although I welcome the 3,400 extra high-quality school places that could be created, I am not convinced that will address the need for early intervention in mainstream schools, as other hon. Members have mentioned. It is possible that will further contribute to the social marginalisation of SEN children.

[Melanie Onn]

What does the hon. Gentleman think about the role of teaching assistants in schools? For children with SEN or EHCPs, one of the fundamental support mechanisms in school is teaching assistants, but their numbers have been drastically reduced; they are often the first to lose their jobs when there is restructuring and school budget cuts.

[Julian Sturdy]

The hon. Lady makes an important intervention. Teaching assistants and teachers have a huge role to play—I will touch on that later in my speech—because it is about spotting SEN at an early age. If we can tackle it at the beginning, it will be easier to tailor support for those children. The first port of call has to be teachers and teaching assistants at school.

The Government’s announcement last year that they would invest an additional £365 million from 2018 to 2021 is to be welcomed. However, I am not convinced that funding alone can address the disparities that children with SEN face. Far-reaching policy changes are required. The first of those that I want to touch on is exams. By far the largest query that I receive from constituents in relation to SEN is about assessment concessions—extra time in exams. Although I understand that the recent move towards an exam-based system in schools, from the perspective of academic rigour, is probably the right way to go, I am concerned that has had the undesirable side effect of limiting the potential of SEN students.

Constituents tell me time and again that their children’s two biggest problems in exams are the anxiety that they inevitably generate and the unfair concentration on one small aspect of that child’s ability: namely, the ability to memorise facts. The GCSE religious studies exam includes a requirement to learn 64 quotations. I do not think I could do that; perhaps a number of Members could, but it would be beyond my ability. The GCSE physics exam requires the ability to memorise 24 formulae—I might find that slightly easier.

The default response to the disadvantages that SEN students face in exams is to offer extra time, but no amount of extra time will address the fact that exams as a means of assessment are intrinsically unsuitable for some types of students and learners. The solution has to be to revisit the place of coursework, which once made up 40% to 50% of GCSE assessment. Coursework does not discriminate against SEN children with high cognitive ability but for whom memorising facts does not come that easily. Coursework has the additional benefit of alleviating the anxiety of one assessment and spreading the pressure throughout the year, rather than concentrating on the examination period.

[James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)]

The traditional argument has been that we need coursework for people who cannot do exams, and that those who can do exams are fine, but that binary choice is unhelpful. The parent of a child with autism in Bury spoke to me about his daughter’s ability to take the new times tables test that has been introduced. In fact, she is really good at maths; what she struggles with is the speed at which an immovable testing mechanism is applied. Although her ability to calculate is not a problem, she is expected to answer questions that move on at a fast rate. We must not fall into the trap of suggesting that those with special educational needs are somehow non-academic or unable to perform in mainstream education, because all they need is a better, more dynamic service.

[Julian Sturdy]

I entirely agree; the hon. Gentleman makes the point very well. Many of those children have really high ability, but their ability needs to be managed so that they can get through the system. The point I want to make, as he mentioned, is that ultimately we need a balance to be struck. It is not all about the individual exam, and it is not all about a shift to coursework. When major changes such as moving from coursework back to exams are made, there will be consequences. The system has to recognise that a balance has to be struck.

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that regarding the education of those with special educational needs, we need to look longer term to career prospects? I find it fascinating that some employers specifically look for those with autism because they are better at dealing with computer challenges than others. Those with special educational needs have some strengths that those without them do not. Surely, the education system should recognise that and take it into account when developing programmes, so those children can take advantage of their employability when they leave school.

[Julian Sturdy]

That is a fair point, but I reiterate that this is not about compartmentalising individuals; it is about making sure they are kept in mainstream education and have the ability to thrive and prosper, as everyone should have. The system has to allow that.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman about spreading the pressure throughout the course, but he mentioned children being included in school. Does he agree that we really need the Government to look at the exclusion policies adopted of late by academies? Many children are excluded just before the exam and never get the opportunity to sit it.

[Julian Sturdy]

Is the hon. Gentleman’s point about exclusions that are to do with targets?

[Alex Cunningham]

That is very much the case in some instances, but there are also children who misbehave or get into trouble towards the end of their academic course and find themselves excluded from the exam altogether.

[Julian Sturdy]

That is a really important point. Where that happens—I know it does in certain circumstances—it hugely impacts the life prospects of the student involved. Ultimately, this is about ensuring that young people have the best opportunities in life, and that we harness their individual skills—they all have them—and maximise their life prospects. We must ensure that we do not in any way damage them or, ultimately, exclude them from the system or from society as a whole.

This point has already been raised in interventions, but another thing I believe can make a real difference is the professional development of teachers. Research by the Children’s Commissioner in 2013, and the Salt review in 2010, found that training does not always adequately prepare teachers to teach pupils with SEN. That has contributed to pupils with SEN not being identified and supported sufficiently early in their education, which can have huge implications later on. Catching children at an early age can make a real difference. Such awareness is vital if we are to increase early intervention for students with SEN. That is important for literacy skills, which are more challenging for older children and adults to acquire. If children with SEN are not identified early enough, the problem gets worse.

Mainstream schools have taken to relying exclusively on SEN co-ordinators, or SENCOs. Valuable though they are, SENCOs are often overstretched, as demands on their time and resources increase. The British Dyslexia Association recommends that the Government should consider an integrated approach instead. Training existing teachers would result in more responsive early interventions and allow SEN support to be conducted without compromising course delivery. That has the potential to reduce costs and, really importantly, to ensure that those children do not feel marginalised from mainstream education. I have already touched on some of the hidden consequences of that; we must not forget that really important point.

Teachers need to be trained to an appropriate level to teach children with the full range of SEN that they may encounter. I am not a professional in this, but I am told that three levels of SEN professional development are available to teachers: accredited learning support assistant; approved teacher/tutor status; and associate membership of the BDA. The first qualification entails 24 hours of contact time and 20 hours of monitored support, all integrated within the teacher’s work in school. I suggest that directing money to such professional development may result in significant savings and improve the prospects of children with complex needs. Fundamentally, though, my constituents tell me that the way we approach SEN funding for schools has to be reconsidered.

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

The contributions we have heard will make a real difference, but on the hon. Gentleman’s point about somebody being responsible, our constituents often tell us that they always seem to have to fight the system, which never delivers for them just as a matter of public policy. That is not out of any lack of desire in the system; it just seems that everybody is responsible but nobody is. Parent after parent tells me, “This is what I’m entitled to; I can’t get it,” or, “This is what I need; I can’t get it.” Their child’s plan says they should have it, but it just does not happen. It just seems that the system does not work, even though everyone is trying to make it work. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with that, and does he find that the fact that parents have to fight the system is one of the frustrations we all share?

[Julian Sturdy]

I entirely agree. That is what drove me to introduce this debate. Constituents come to me to say exactly those things. I will touch on this in my conclusion, but we have to remember that there are parents out there—I do not blame parents—who are prepared to go out and fight for their children, get them in where they need to be and get the right support, but there are also disadvantaged children who may not have parents who are prepared to go and fight for them. They are the ones who fall through the gaps.

[James Frith]

This is about parents’ ability to go out and fight, not their preparedness to do so. Again, please let us not fall into thinking that the parents who reach our door are those who are prepared to. They are simply the ones who are able to. Someone who faces changing shift patterns and has to use public transport, for example, may be prevented from reaching our door. The fact that we hear so much about these issues from parents who are able to reach us shows that there are great swathes of parents who do not speak to us directly about them but very much face the same, if not worse, issues.

[Julian Sturdy]

I accept that. That is a very important point. The point I was making is that there are parents from all backgrounds who, if I am brutally honest, will not know that their children might need support. As I said, it is those children with unidentified needs who fall through the gaps and do not get that support. That goes back to what I said about the whole system and the need for early identification. Schools and teachers need to be able to work with parents so they get that support. We should not have the problem, which the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) identified—I entirely agree with him—of parents having to go to their local MP or their local councillor, or to the different voluntary associations that work with parents, to try to break down barriers or get through doors to get that support for their children. That is the wider problem. I think everyone present would agree that parents should not have to do that.

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

The Education Committee is conducting an inquiry into this hugely important subject. The Committee heard that most people accept the positive intention of the policy introduced in 2014—the education, health and care plans and so on, which my hon. Friend has covered. In theory, that policy puts more power and control in the hands of parents, but does he agree that it is impossible to deliver what is supposed to be a needs-based system with a finite budget? Problems are created because the things pupils need are not deliverable on the budget available.

[Julian Sturdy]

Absolutely—that is a very important point. I will touch on some of the Select Committee’s findings, but I entirely agree.

[Alex Chalk]

My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) makes a really important point about the extent of the budget. Do we as a community not have to recognise that needs are much higher than they were even 20 years ago? The special schools in my constituency—whether it is Belmont, Bettridge or Ridge—increasingly deal with medical issues that impact some of these children’s ability to learn, yet those medical needs have to be funded from the education budget. That simply adds to the strain on that budget.

[Julian Sturdy]

That is a good point and I am glad I took the intervention, to which I hope the Minister will respond. I did not want the debate to turn into one about child adolescent mental health services referrals but I am sure all Members have experienced frustration over the referral time lag. I have raised questions in the House and it is immensely frustrating—and part of the reason is that it is a cross-departmental matter, between education and health. However, as my hon. Friend pointed out, a lot of the money comes from the schools budget.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is being generous in giving way. Does he agree, on the issue of school budgets, that there is an inequality between schools? The fact that schools are forced to pay for the first 11 hours of meeting an EHCP from their own budgets disadvantages those that do the right thing and take significant numbers of children with special educational needs, and inadvertently helps those that do not. Would it not then be wiser for the Government to agree that EHCPs should be directly funded so that the money followed the pupil entirely, instead of penalising schools that do the right thing?

--- Later in debate ---

[Julian Sturdy]

Thank you, Mr Davies. I will try not to take any more interventions, and to bring my remarks to a conclusion, but the point that the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) made was the one I wanted to go on to. There is genuine concern that the system provides a perverse incentive to schools not to rigorously identify and protect children with special educational needs. Schools are not provided with straightforward per pupil funding. Rather, a notional proportion of their overall budget is earmarked as SEN funding. Crucially, however, that is not ring-fenced, which means that by identifying more children with SEN, and funding them, schools will allocate up to £6,000 per pupil that they could have spent on other areas. That is exactly the point that the hon. Gentleman made.

Schools have access to additional funding from local authorities for children with especially complex needs, but my concern is the effect that that has on children whose SEN provision schools have to fund in its entirety. Alarmingly, the percentage of pupils with identified SEN but whose needs are not complex enough to qualify for a statement or EHCP reduced from 18.3% in 2010 to 11.7% in 2018, while the proportion with complex needs remained static. I do not want to prejudge the reason for the reduction, but it is certainly dramatic. Surely it reflects not an actual reduction in the number of children with SEN, but rather a reduction in the number who have been identified. In the absence of a proactive approach from schools, parents tell me they have to fund diagnoses for their children privately and are becoming frustrated with schools that are failing to investigate their concerns properly. As we have heard, Members across the House face the issue regularly in their surgeries.

On the other side of the matter are local authorities, which have also complained about pressures on the high needs funding block. The National Autistic Society has raised concerns about the wait that children face to be provided with appropriate support, and a worrying increase in the number of requests for EHCP assessments that are refused by local authorities. In November, Mr Dave Hill, the executive director for children, families and learning at Surrey County Council, told the Education Committee that SEN funding was approaching a “national crisis” because of

“all the money being spent on firefighting and no money being spent on prevention.”

Indeed, North Yorkshire County Council’s high needs funding has increased by only 0.75% at the same time as demand has risen by 10%. Councils are now liable to fund children with complex needs from the ages of nought to 25 under an EHCP.

As I mentioned earlier, the introduction of EHCPs is to be welcomed and indeed they have proved popular with parents, providing both certainty and individual flexibility. However, councils have expressed concerns that their high needs budgets are becoming increasingly committed to the funding of the 20% of SEN pupils who qualify through having an EHCP, leaving little to spare for the remaining 80% of SEN students who do not qualify. That is an important point. It is particularly frustrating for the parents of children with complex needs who just fail to meet the threshold for EHCP qualification. The concern is that that is creating an all-or-nothing system, where a dramatic difference in support results from the fine margin on which someone does or does not qualify for an EHCP.

I want to draw my remarks to a conclusion because I know a number of Members want to speak. We need to look at the exam assessment concession system and whether it adequately addresses the disadvantages that SEN children face.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Order. Perhaps you can try to bring your remarks to a close in a moment. I am already down to two and a half minutes each for other speakers. Carry on—you are entitled to speak as long as you like, but be aware that there are eight speakers, plus the Front Benchers.

[Julian Sturdy]

I will take 30 seconds, Mr Davies. I have obviously taken a lot of interventions, which have affected what I wanted to say.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

I am just advising you.

[Julian Sturdy]

I appreciate that advice, Mr Davies.

We need to review the perverse incentives that result in schools failing to identify children as SEN, and the controversy between parents and local authorities over EHCP qualification. We need to prioritise teacher training, so that all teachers have basic skills for working with children with SEN, creating a more integrated approach. I have questions whether the policy of new SEN free schools is the right way of addressing the underlying issues, as I have mentioned.

Finally, we need to look at the effectiveness of education, health and care plans, especially in regard to the proportion of local government higher needs SEN funding spent on those plans at the expense of the 80% of SEN children and students who are not on the plans or who just miss out on qualifying for an EHCP. Ultimately those children are falling through the gaps, and the consequences for their future development and potential opportunities are huge. We Westminster politicians must not forget that, and must face up to it and react. I hope that the debate, given the number of colleagues present from across the House, will mean that we can try to move things on. I look forward to hearing what the Minister and other Front-Bench speakers have to say.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

I was going to call the Front Benchers at 10.25 but I will now call them at 10.30, and give them eight, eight and 12 minutes. Other Members will have two and a half minutes.

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[Julian Sturdy]

I thank the Minister for her response and Members in all parts of the Chamber for their contributions. It has been a very good debate, especially among Back Benchers. I have a huge amount of respect for the Minister, and I hope that she has listened to the contributions from across the Chamber, because very little disagreement has been expressed in speeches and interventions across the parties. As has been said, ultimately the issue is a ticking time bomb, and of real concern to many constituents who knock on our doors and come to our surgeries. We cannot allow the life chances of some of those children and students to be detrimentally affected by it because, ultimately, we are failing them.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered SEN support in schools.