Special Educational Needs Debate

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: Department for Education

Special Educational Needs

Lord Bishop of Durham Excerpts
Monday 20th June 2022

(2 years, 5 months ago)

Lords Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Bishop of Durham Portrait The Lord Bishop of Durham
- Hansard - -

My 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?

Baroness Barran Portrait Baroness Barran (Con)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

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.