Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [ Lords ] (Fifth sitting)

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 7th December 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Perkins]

I rise to oppose Government amendment 23, and to discuss new clause 2, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle. I believe that clause 19 is an important clarification added to the Bill by the Lords. The Minister spoke passionately about the need for ensuring that those who attended ITT further education courses have awareness of special needs. However, it is precisely because of that that we believe clause 19 is sensible. Government amendment 23 removes clause 19(3), which ensures the duty for initial teacher training providers to provide special educational needs awareness training.

That is particularly important because a huge number of people, later in life, are identifying that they have learning difficulties, be that autism, attention deficit disorder, or Asperger’s syndrome. These were not picked up throughout their school career because there has been such a low level of awareness about such issues within much of the teaching profession.

We know that awareness of issues like autism has improved a great deal in recent years, but there are still many people going through our school system with other conditions, such as dyslexia, dyspraxia and others. With access to the right support, teaching could have been provided that recognised their disability and enabled them to access the curriculum to the best of their ability. It would have also enabled them to understand themselves. That is a crucial point about special needs; we must help people to understand themselves. I have spoken to many people who say, “I always knew I was different, but I never knew what it was. It was only in my 20s or my 30s that I realised.” There is a family member of mine in their 40s who has recently identified having a disability of this kind.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

I speak as someone with both dyslexia and dyspraxia; I was diagnosed when I was 12. Does the hon. Member agree that it is important to ensure that every single teacher—not just SEN specialists, but regular teachers—have a certain level of understanding of different types of disability, and that not all young people, or adults, process information in the same way?

[Mr Perkins]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. That is precisely the value of this provision. It makes this not the responsibility of the special needs co-ordinator—who, if they get an opportunity to sit down with someone would have that professional awareness— but, instead, makes sure that people right across the sector are able to identify these needs. We would not expect every teacher to become a full SENCO expert, but it is about them having the awareness to identify that there may be issues that need to be given further consideration—that is what I think is of real value.

New clause 2 attempts to find a different way to deliver the same initiative as the one proposed by their noble lordships in clause 19, whose subsection (3) places a duty on teacher training providers to ensure that SEN training is part of their work. In new clause 2, the obligation is on all providers of FE colleges to ensure that all their staff have been provided with special needs awareness training. There are two different ways to deliver that training. It can be delivered at the point where someone is qualifying, or can be certified at the point where someone is employed. There is merit in either approach; simply to dismiss both approaches is really disappointing.

New clause 2 would place a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that there was adequate special educational needs training for teachers of students in further education. Given the high number of students with special educational needs who access further or adult education, often as a second chance when they have had a negative experience of school, it is particularly crucial that trainee teachers in the sector have an awareness of the issues the students face.

We must remember that people within the further education sector are far more likely to have an identified special educational need than those in mainstream schooling. The sector needs this kind of awareness. The Department for Education’s own figures show that the percentage of pupils with a special educational need, but no education, health and care plan, has increased to 12.2%, continuing an upward trend.

[Tom Hunt]

As the hon. Member will know, it is important to provide support at that stage, but it is also important to start as early as possible. What are his views on the ten-minute rule Bill being introduced today by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), which would require the assessment of every primary school kid for dyslexia, and whether that should be extended to dyspraxia?

[The Chair]

I am sure Mr Perkins will draw that comment back to the subject of the debate here today, as opposed to what might be going on elsewhere.