UK Disability Resource of Disabled Needs

Tories unveil special needs school reforms
Last updated at 12:19pm on 30th July 2007

Proposals to reform the system for pupils with special education needs, introducing new independent assessments and boosting places at special schools, were unveiled by the Conservatives today.

The party's Commission on Special Needs in Education recommends that new expert "profile assessors" allocate children to one of a dozen "support categories".

The experts would be professionals such as educational psychologists, independent of local authorities, and use objective assessment criteria.

Each category would legally attract a sum of money to be paid to the special or mainstream school where the parent had negotiated a place.

The commission, which is chaired by Sir Robert Balchin, also calls for state special schools to have the freedoms of "special academy status".

Tories have long campaigned against the closure of special schools and while today's proposals are not a policy commitment, party leader David Cameron, whose son Ivan has severe special needs, is expected to be receptive.

He will also be seeking to regain the momentum on education policy after the party's bitter and divisive row over grammar schools.

The latest government figures show 1.6 million school-age children in England have special educational needs (SEN).

Currently local authorities assess each child's needs and pay for their support, which has prompted accusations that councils underestimate needs to cut costs.

In a report published today, the commission calls for statementing to be replaced with a less "crude" system - profiles drawn up by expert assessors subject to peer review and financial scrutiny.

It sharply criticises the ideology of "inclusion" - placing special-needs children in mainstream schools where possible - and warns: "The benefits are, in our judgment, far outweighed by the grievous damage that this policy has caused, not just to children with SEN but to their peers in mainstream education, their teachers, and their parents.

"The needs, it seems to us, of the individual child should be paramount and not subservient to a ideology conceived in spurious egalitarian grounds."

The commission said 9,000 special school places had been lost since 1997 and recommended a moratorium on closures alongside a drive to recreate places.

Calling for "a rich mix of provision", it said special state schools should have the right to "special academy status" - giving them legal ownership of premises, exemption from National Curriculum requirements, and the ability to allocate their own funds and employ staff.

The Commons all-party education select committee last year branded the special needs system "no longer fit for purpose".
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Good to see that they are thinking about bringing back special school places. They never should have closed all those schools in the first place.

Integration into mainstream works for some kids but for many it is a nightmare for them and the teaching staff.

Thanks for posting this Wendy.

I agree that they should never have been closed.
I know of parents that have had to travel many miles to get their child into a more suitable school.
This is not fair on the carers or the child who will have had to make new friends, etc.

thanks for posting this wendy, most interesting. i know so many people that are having struggles with the schools their children are in because the children just cannot manage within a mainstream setting even when well supported. the worse thing the government ever did was reduce some special school recources.