Disabled Children: Accessible and Inclusive Education

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Vicky Ford)]

It is a great pleasure to serve with you in the chair, Ms Eagle, and good morning.

I congratulate the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) on securing a debate on this important subject. Let me start by stressing that we want all children and young people, no matter what their special educational need or disability is, to have the ability to reach their full potential and to receive the right support to succeed in their education, and as they move into adult life. The ambition is for every child, no matter what challenges they face, to have access to world-class education—an education that sets them up for life. If education is to be accessible and inclusive, it must also be world-class, which is why we have increased the high needs budget by £1.5 billion, or nearly a quarter, over a two-year period. I am also pleased to report that at the beginning of this month 80% of children with education, health and care plans were back in schools in England.

Ofsted’s regulatory inspections have been recently updated, and Ofsted is explicit in its inspection framework that all schools need to have an inclusive environment that meets the needs of all pupils. In addition, the cross-Government SEND review is looking at the reasons for the increased demand by parents for places in special schools that we have seen over recent years, and one of the review’s aims is to identify ways to strengthen the role of mainstream schools in SEND, by having faster access to extra help where needed.

In 2014, the legislation that we introduced on SEND made it clear that where a child has complex needs, and their parent or the young person themselves wants a mainstream placement, they can express that preference, and local authorities are then under a qualified duty to ensure that preferences for mainstream placement are met wherever possible. However, there are some circumstances where a child’s special educational needs may be best met through specialist provision, and it is absolutely right that parents should have that choice of being able to access places for a child with complex SEND at mainstream or special schools, depending on the child’s individual needs.

Throughout the pandemic, I have had the great pleasure of meeting—often virtually—mainstream and special school leaders up and down the country, and hearing from them about how they are have risen to the challenges of providing education during the outbreak. I really thank all of those staff, headteachers and children who have spoken to me. I am currently on a virtual tour of special schools in tier 3 areas, so I thank everybody who has spoken to me during that. I particularly thank the staff, children and young people from Thriftwood School and College, which is in my constituency, for talking to me as I sat in their playground—in a socially distanced way—about how much being back at school has made a difference to their lives. It has been an absolute privilege to talk to all of those children and teachers.

I am proud of the SEND system in England. There are plenty of things about it that can and must be improved, but fundamentally it is a good system based on the well-supported principles of co-production with children and young people themselves and with their carers, and a focus on the whole child and their education, health and care, as well as a focus on life outcomes, backed up by strong protections of the rights of parents.

We should all acknowledge that life for many families raising children with SEND was already hard before the pandemic came, but then they faced the extra challenges of lockdown and coronavirus. It has been a high priority for me and the Government to put children and young people with SEND and vulnerable children at the heart of our response. That is why I have spoken to many parent carers directly on many occasions and regularly written open letters to them and those working closely with SEND children to let them know what we have done to support them and what they should be expecting from the services on the ground.

Throughout the pandemic, we asked schools to stay open to pupils with EHC plans, where it was safe to do so. I am really proud that, even at the peak of the pandemic in the spring, we were one of very few countries in the world to keep schools and colleges and early years open for vulnerable children. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, keeping those schools and colleges open is critical for children’s wellbeing, as well as for their education. Since September, our priority has been ensuring that those children and young people have returned to college. It has been challenging for certain groups, such as the small number of children who need aerosol-generating procedures, but I am very glad to hear the vast majority of them are now back in school.

We have published detailed guidance throughout this time to schools and colleges, specialist settings, residential special schools and many others to support the return and to support their safety, but we do not underestimate the challenge that this represents. We know that special education settings may face even greater challenges, which is why we work so closely with them.

Our £1 billion covid catch-up package includes £650 million to support schools for lost teaching time, and there is an additional weighting for special schools, which get three times as much as a mainstream school. Headteachers can decide how to use that. They could be spending it on educational psychologists, speech and language therapy or other activities to support children.

We recognise the importance of respite for families with disabled children and young people themselves. We reaffirmed that message and legislated to allow a wide range of respite services to continue, including in the family home. We encourage local authorities to prioritise that support.

There may be circumstances where a child is not able to attend school due to coronavirus—for example, if they are self-isolating—and that is why we have made it clear that schools have a duty, in line with the guidance and the law, to provide remote education for state-funded school-aged children who are unable to attend a school due to coronavirus. We have also reviewed the remote education guidance. Schools should always work collaboratively with families to put in place adjustments to enable pupils with SEND to successfully access remote education alongside their peers.

[Rachael Maskell]

I raised the issue of transport into schools, which comes out of local authority budgets. I have a constituent who currently is not in school because they need specialist transport and cannot travel with others, and the parents are having to pay for 50% of that travel. Will the Minister go back and look at the issue of children being unable to access school because of the insufficiency in the transport budget for local authorities?

[Vicky Ford]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. Of course, we have given local authorities additional funding during this period for exactly the matter of transport, but if she cares to write to me about that specific case, I am very happy to look into it. Some parents have decided that they will do the transportation themselves, particularly if they want to reduce the amount of contact that their child has with other people outside the family bubble or school bubble.

We know that children and young people have needed to work online, and we have provided additional support, including for those children with SEND, but of course there are extra challenges. The Oak National Academy provides video lessons on a broad range of subjects from reception to year 11, including specialist content for children with SEND. In April, we launched the EdTech Demonstrator network, which is a peer-to-peer support network for the expert use of technology. It has done some phenomenal work supporting teachers—especially SEND specialists—across the country. Specialist support is provided by Highfurlong School in Blackpool, and the National Star College in Cheltenham has been running webinars weekly in which over 1,800 schools and colleges have participated so far, with many more accessing the recorded content. That shows how, throughout the pandemic, teachers and staff are absolutely passionate to learn more about how they can use technology to support those with SEND. That will have a lasting, positive benefit.

I am also delighted to announce today that one of those specialist providers, the National Star College, will roll out assistive technology-specific training. As colleagues will know, we are on course to have delivered nearly half a million laptops and tablets by Christmas to support disadvantaged children in years 3 to 11 where face-to-face education may be disrupted. Many of those laptops will be provided to children and young people with SEND.

The hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow mentioned the importance of other medical treatments and specialists. The chief nurse has made it clear that health visitors and school nurses should not be redeployed elsewhere in the NHS this winter. We have also been clear that specialist therapists should be back in schools.

The debate comes at a timely point, because the Government are working both on the new cross-Government disability strategy for publication in the spring and on the autism strategy. As the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) said, autism is extremely important. The Department for Education is working closely with the Department of Health and Social Care on the comprehensive review of the autism strategy. In developing the strategy, we are listening closely to autistic people, including over 2,700 people who contributed to the call for evidence.

Early identification of autism is really important. Under the Government’s opportunity areas programme, there is a fantastic project in Bradford using the outcomes for each individual child at the early years foundation stage tests and teacher observations to find out whether there are markers of early autism. The results are so impressive that we have rolled it out from the 10 first pilot schools to the next 100 schools. I am hopeful that in the future that could lead to much earlier diagnosis.

The SEND review, which the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow asked about, has always aimed to enable the education system to have that transformative effect on those with SEND and to focus on the person as a whole, with a joined-up offer of transparent services co-produced with them and their family to suit the child’s individual needs. That was the driving force behind the legislative changes we made in 2014 and it is the driving force behind the SEND review. It will require significant change from everyone involved in the system to deliver those changes. It is a fundamental and cross-cutting review in which we are working hard to find ways to make best practice in the SEND system become common practice. During the outbreak of the pandemic, it was necessary to reduce the pace of the review, but I and the whole of Government remain completely committed to it, and our ambition is to report in the spring. The areas we aim to improve are of long standing, but we are determined to deliver that real and lasting change.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for drawing our attention to this important agenda. We are as committed as ever to getting the right support in place for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities so that they can thrive and achieve their potential. Both she and the hon. Member for York Central raised important concerns, which I hope she is happy to hear the Government take seriously.