Lord Bishop of Durham
Main Page: Lord Bishop of Durham (Bishops - Bishops)Department Debates - View all Lord Bishop of Durham's debates with the Department for Education
(2 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I recently visited a school in County Durham—not a church school in this instance—where 25% of the children had special educational needs. The head teacher pointed out to me the significance of not only the teachers but the teaching assistants, and the training that they too required, and said that there was pressure on her budget to sustain that level of staffing with some specialism. Can the Minister comment on that?
Again, different schools will approach these issues in different ways. Our commitment is to give them sufficient funding to deliver on the needs of children. However, the right reverend Prelate will be aware that there is some discretion in how schools define whether a child has special educational needs. One thing that we hope will come out of the Green Paper is much more consistency on that.