Special Educational Needs

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

One of the key principles of the review is co-production with parents, families and carers, so that they can input into that review their diverse range of experiences. I cannot pre-empt the outcome of that review, but I can tell the noble Baroness that we are already putting additional resources into the system, with £730 million going into high needs next year, which is a 10% increase.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my declared interests. Does the Minister agree that many parents have to fight to get their child recognised as having special educational needs? We simply do not train our teachers sufficiently to spot even the most commonly occurring conditions, such as dyslexia, which affects about 10% of the population. Does she agree that, unless this is dealt with, there will always be problems later on when people try to catch up when problems are spotted?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, since 2018 the department has funded the National Association for Special Educational Needs on behalf of the Whole School SEND Consortium for a programme of work to embed SEND into school improvement practice and equip the workforce to deliver high-quality teaching across all types of SEND, including dyslexia.