Children and Families Bill

Debate between Lord Storey and Lord Addington

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, the three amendments in my name—Amendments 45A, 46A and 46B—all have at heart addressing the idea of training for teachers in the skills required to deal with special educational needs. This is primarily inspired by my work with the British Dyslexia Association; I draw the House’s attention to my interests in this area. I am trying here to clarify how the Government propose using the code, and the ongoing need to train teachers in how to deal with the issue.

The first amendment is about the whole school: what basket of skills is required to deal with these people? Identification is an important part of this. Unless you know what you are looking for, hidden disabilities—dyslexia, dyspraxia—are quite easy to miss. I do not really have to draw on much evidence to say that it has happened throughout the history of organised education. We have got it wrong, and inappropriate training often leads to very negative results for those concerned.

I appreciate that the Minister—my noble friend Lord Nash—has given me some assurances, particularly for the amendment that deals with SENCOs, but actually there I suggest that the person in charge of the overall position get a bit more specific knowledge. The Minister has moved quite a long way already on this, and I thank him, but a little more specific knowledge about the actual nuts and bolts of the subject would be helpful.

The really beneficial provision here is on something that I think will come back, if we do not get it through today: initial teacher training. Some 10% of the population of any school, and indeed of the population as a whole, is dyslexic according to the British definition; you can stick in 3% for dyscalculic and dyspraxic, and you can stick in ADHD and one or two other problems. Those are the hidden problems. If you know what you are looking for, you have the opportunity to call in help and support, and not to make the classic mistake of saying, “Work harder”, which leads to a very negative educational experience. Such an experience invariably leads to the child either being disruptive in the classroom, or doing that wonderful disappearing act into the middle of it and making damn sure that they do not pay any attention to the class and that the class pays no attention to them.

If the Minister can assure us how the Government will work towards the goal of making sure that the entire establishment, and the individuals themselves, are better prepared to provide the help and support that will lead to better outcomes, I will be very much reassured. I beg to move.

[Lord Storey]

I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Addington. I used the expression “a dog with a bone” in Committee. He has stuck with this issue and made real progress on it. I also congratulate the Government, because we have now seen real movement: there have to be properly qualified special educational needs co-ordinators in schools. That is real progress, and the Government are to be congratulated on taking that important step.

My noble friend rightly points out two areas. One is the need to ensure that all teachers, particularly those in primary education, have training—perhaps a unit of training—in special educational needs. Every report has shown that the two crucial elements are early identification of a problem and providing the resources to deal with it. I hope that we might see movement on that. Maybe we can move towards a road map for how we ensure that all teachers going into our schools have an understanding of—maybe a qualification in—of special educational needs. I have forgotten the second issue, so I will sit down.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Lord Storey and Lord Addington

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, for me this is a case of “three times pay for all” when it comes to dyslexia. The reason I have tabled this amendment is because you find abundant evidence of special educational needs among our prison population. The estimates for the number of prisoners on the dyslexia spectrum range from 20% to 50%, the higher figure being the more frequently occurring. It is generally accepted now that every problem to do with literacy and educational attainment occurs in abundance throughout our prison population. I have singled out dyslexia for screening because of my interest in it and because it will probably be the most frequently occurring problem.

Why do we need to conduct screening for dyslexia? A few years ago I became familiar with a project in Chelmsford Prison under the leadership of Jackie Hewitt-Main. She discovered that lots of dyslexics would go nowhere near the education department. One realises in three seconds that they go nowhere near it because it constitutes a bad experience for them. Most prisoners are no longer in school by the age of 14. If someone has not been attaining in the education system, it is an unpleasant experience and they often find themselves getting into enough trouble to send them to prison. It is as if they are saying, “Let us go in there and go through a bad experience in the classroom”. Suddenly, it becomes obvious that they will try to avoid that. The redoubtable individual I mentioned was originally looking at head injuries, of which she found many. She did a survey of prisoners who would not go into the education block. She found that once you had established that link to their previous experience these prisoners became much more open to training and to assistance in changing their lives. The incidence of violence on the wing in question dropped and the prisoners stopped hitting one another quite so much—perhaps they had something to talk about. It was subsequently discovered that half the prison warders were in the same boat. As an aside, dyslexics tend to like regular hours and regular forms et cetera. They do not like promotion when they have to change the form, but that is an aside for another day.

So having a form of assessment on entrance into the system would seem to be sensible idea. Once again, I have one caveat, which I have given before: you should probably extend this to a list of other conditions. For example, I discovered that Asperger’s is overrepresented as well. If you have problems with communication and you have problems with the law, once again it becomes quite obvious how that could happen and you go down the list. But the principle of screening is a good one. Of course, you have to back this up with the correct action. I am afraid that bits of the Prison Service have a history of screening and saying, “Yes you are”, and then doing nothing about it. An awareness programme must back it up. That is what is required.

The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who I am afraid has had to leave us, asked me to speak to his Amendment 213. The idea that you should maintain the EHC plans once you are inside the prison system or custody service does not require much thought. If you have an identified process going or a pattern of activity, it should be maintained or at least replaced by something extremely similar to it or better. That is fairly straightforward.

Then we come to another thing that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, has tabled: removing Clause 70 from the Bill. I was half thinking about putting my name to this amendment, but I was beaten on the draw by many other Members of the Committee. Noble Lords should not press this if the Minister can tell us that the Ministry of Justice has a specially constructed programme that will address the needs of its client base that goes beyond, and is more appropriate than, that provided outside. That would be a good reason for not removing the clause because—nobody disputes this—we have a very high need base. If there is something that it is appropriate for adults or young people disaffected with the education system and is especially suited to them, you should not remove it.

If we do not get that quality assurance, we will not get people who will be able to talk about administering educational needs identification or coping strategies for how to access further education, where it is appropriate, and there will be problems. If you do not have people with a degree of sensitivity and skill in there, you should remove the clause. If we hear that we are going to do lots of wonderful things with people who are not properly trained, not skilled and not accustomed to the environment they are going into, the possibility of achieving nothing or even doing damage is high. These are probing amendments and I look forward to hearing what my noble friend has to say.

[Lord Storey]

Any hope of improving the education of detained young people must include addressing their special educational needs. It is a frightening statistic that 70% of those young people have special educational needs and 20% of them currently have statements.

The existing statutory duties placed on those councils that have a youth offender institution in their area—a host authority—by the Apprenticeship, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 are to use,

“best endeavours to secure that appropriate special educational provision is made”,

but of course councils have never had the funding or the commissioning responsibility for securing that education. Those duties are currently fulfilled through contracts made by the Education Funding Agency funded by the Ministry of Justice.

As the concept of the host authority has never been implemented in practice, it would perhaps be helpful to see this complicated situation resolved by repealing those clauses in the Apprenticeship, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009 that refer to the host authorities. The Government have acknowledged that the current situation is not working, and could use the opportunity to make provision for young offenders with special educational needs that can work in practice and really address the needs of those young people.

Education and Training: People with Hidden Disabilities

Debate between Lord Storey and Lord Addington

Thursday 28th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington]

My Lords, first, I thank everyone who has taken the trouble to put their names down for this debate. I must also declare a series of interests. I am not only dyslexic but vice-president of the British Dyslexia Association and patron of the Adult Dyslexia Organisation, and I work for Microlink, a company that provides support for those with disabilities and of which I am chairman.

When I linked autism and dyslexia and included them in hidden disabilities, the main point that I was trying to make was that anything that is not easily spotted at the start of the educational process, whenever someone chooses to take that, leads to problems if it impedes one’s learning or classroom situation. How early one gets in and identifies the problem is crucial.

I will say only a few words on autism, starting with Asperger’s, for the simple reason that there are many people in the Chamber who know far more about the subject and can talk from greater depth of knowledge than I will ever be able to. Those with Asperger’s, who are on the edge of a spectrum, are often identified later as a result of interaction with other people outside the home when it becomes less difficult to spot. This would be made much easier if someone was trained in the initial stages of education and in the classroom, and indeed if that training was not a limited introduction, to be able to spot it later on as problems start to manifest themselves, often simply because they were not dealt with earlier.

The problems of social interaction—taking things too literally; not being able to communicate properly; non-verbal communication, which is so important even when talking in this Chamber—create other problems if they are not picked up. We must have someone who can recognise these problems and get in earlier. I am really calling for people to be trained throughout the education process to pick these up. Also, education and training are supposed to be lifelong. All conditions for which there is not this embedded knowledge, and even sometimes when there is, are going to be spotted later on in life. Therefore, we must not limit ourselves to training just in the education sector.

I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Hill, may find himself having questions directed at him that might go to BIS, to the Department for Work and Pensions, or to the Department of Health—certainly in the case of autism. We had a little exchange earlier in the week when he asked what the best lead department would be to drive something. I suggest that when it comes to some of these conditions, the Department for Education could be of the most benefit, certainly for dyslexics. The basic few examples that I have given for autism and dyslexia are very clearly there.

A good point is dyslexia, because the problem occurs when one starts to use written language. Dyslexia, which I believe means “difficulty with words” in Greek, becomes apparent of course when one starts to learn to read and write. To access all forms of education and training in our society as we are going through, one has to have those two basic skills. If you do not deal with those, you are at an eternal disadvantage.

This situation is getting more prominent—I was about to say worse—for the simple reason that as we formalise our skill base more, measure it and try to support people, there are more and more occasions when you have to write something down or react to written information. Whether it is on paper or on the screen, that requirement is always there. There is a greater emphasis on the written paper in the modern driving test, as opposed to the one that I took. I do not have to go on much further because we can all think of examples. That is what we have if we do not deal with the situation for certain people.

It is reckoned that 10% of the population are on the dyslexia spectrum. I think it is 1% for autism. We could have mentioned many other hidden spectrums, such as ADHD, dyspraxia and dyscalculia. We are probably getting up to about 15% without trying. I do not know what that percentage is in every classroom, but it is a very high one, so we must have a degree of knowledge based in that classroom for early intervention.

Why have I brought this matter forward at this present time? It is because we are having a look at the whole special educational needs sector—we are coming down the track. The Government have made proposals. However, I do not know whether this was intentional—I hope that it was not—but the people concerned with these non-obvious disabilities have heard warning bells rung by some of the language that was used. This may be a chance for the Minister to muffle those bells a little in the process of his speech. I refer to things like, “We will concentrate on things and get a whole cross-departmental approach towards making sure that people go through. We will cut down the number of people on the special educational needs register. We will concentrate better”.

Unless we have people with expertise based in the front, identifying the problem, we cannot do these things. Even if we redefine someone with dyslexia as not having a special educational need, because the system can use it, they are still dyslexic, and dyslexic throughout their lives. It is not something that you get rid of; it is a disability and it is to do with the organisation of your brain. It is there for ever, as I know to my cost.

Aside from this, going into my personal history, I wonder how many other people in this Chamber have been congratulated on their improving handwriting on Christmas cards in their forties.

[Lord Storey]

The opposite!

[Lord Addington]

My noble friend says “the opposite”. I look forward to hearing from him later on.

It is something that stays with you, and you have a different developmental pattern. Sir Jim Rose said in his report:

“Dyslexia is a learning difficulty that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling … Characteristic features of dyslexia are difficulties in phonological awareness”—

I shall not try to say that twice—

“verbal memory and verbal processing speed … Dyslexia occurs across the range of intellectual abilities”.

There is a great deal more in that vein to be found in the document from Dyslexia Action. It is always there, and you will always have a different learning process, which means that every time you go into a new phase of your educational and training process you will always have the problem. The way in which it is dealt with will change over time, as will the way in which you deal with it and your interactions with other people. That will change under the pressures on you, but it is always there. If we get teachers trained initially and then make sure that others throughout the system have the support and knowledge of what was happening, we will take a huge step forward. We must make sure that the interaction and the different learning process never become a barrier. We must allow people to explain it.

If someone has the condition explained to them, they start to be able to take the appropriate steps to mitigate the condition. If a teacher goes up to a child and says, “You’re not stupid, you’re dyslexic”, that teacher and all other teachers have an infinitely better chance of a positive relationship than they would if they did not identify the problem. You can then go and tell the parents. The dyslexia world is full of the recurring story of parents saying, “My child is dyslexic and I have discovered that I am”. How do people get through life? They will say, “I never take notes—I always ask someone to do it for me”—as a result of having never kept a pen on their person for more than about three seconds at a time. They are dependent on partners, and so on. Those are the success stories.

In our prison population, about 70% or 80% are reckoned to have problems with literacy. Every single assessment of the prison population that has looked at it has come up with the figure of about 50% being in the dyslexia spectrum. If you take on board the idea that if you cannot access education you cannot access training because you cannot go through the process with a technical ability to read and write—and thus you cannot get employment—you have a far greater likelihood of becoming an offender. Asperger’s, I am afraid, is also highly represented. Possibly not communicating as other people do might lead to conflict. It is a very complicated and worrying situation. If you do not get in there early and coherently, it will cause problems.

What do I want done? Sir Jim Rose presented, under the previous Government, a model for the better training of dyslexics within the teacher training programme. You have to make sure that that is used not only in the initial training but throughout the system. Throughout the process of training, it is equally appropriate. The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, might well be able to regale my noble friend on the Front Bench with the long series of meetings that we have had over apprenticeships. The previous Government decided that they would reassure employers about standards in training and said that everyone must pass an English key skills—now functional skills—test. When challenged on this, they said that they would make a change, but I think that it fell through the cracks in the changeover of Governments. All I know is that I have spent the better part of two years chasing around to get those people the same support and help to get an apprenticeship that you currently have to get a degree—or at least for there to be no greater barriers.

At the last meeting I had, it was agreed that assisted technology could probably be used to get through this test. Someone said, “Well, no one has complained about it—we haven’t had one letter or e-mail”. You get that degree of resistance further up. I have had meetings with the Department for Work and Pensions, usually under the last Government. There is nothing new here. They said, “Well, yes, we’ve got people with needs who are long-term unemployed. We should help them”. “How?” “Oh, it’s complicated—we’d have to get more training packages”. “Yes, please do”. The Department for Education is uniquely placed to set a precedent for good training and awareness. That department can drive this. If it cannot, it can at least build the engine and hope that someone else will put their foot on the accelerator.

We must do something here to address the problem. Some 10% of the population with dyslexia are underachieving in many cases, sometimes becoming a drag on our society. The figures for autism might be smaller, but the problem is as profound, man for man, if not more so. We have to try to address the problem, but we will not do so unless we get a greater degree of awareness throughout the system. We have to get agreement. Every time a dyslexic has to deal with a form, they are at a disadvantage. Every time you ask someone to fill in a process that has anything to do with reading and writing, a dyslexic is potentially disadvantaged. We have to make sure that at all these points there is someone there who understands and, when you say, “I am dyslexic”, will understand that slight adaptions should be made. Assistive voice to text and text to voice technology is very old beer now. I have been using it personally for over 12 years. It is now comparatively easy to use. We have a way forward. This is something that could be integrated into the classroom more easily. It need not be that big a problem—all you need is slightly different patterns of dealing with this.

I look forward to hearing from my noble friend when he replies that the Government are taking this on board and that his department is driving this through the whole machinery of government. If it does not do so and merely concentrates on the schools aspect, it will leave people with a wonderful set of skills for one part of their lives and leave them to fall off a cliff the next.