C.E. Jottings

SEN Policy - legal requirement on local authorities?

Can anyone tell me whether local authorities in England are under a statutory requirement to have a Policy on children with special educational needs, or similar group? Can anyone tell me, if so, where I can locate the specific regulation? Many thanks for your help. Read more →

It's the little things ....

"It's the little things that can tip you over the edge", says Asher Nardone, mother of two boys, one of whom is disabled. So begins an article in today's Times "Desperate People Do Desperate Things" (the online story is headlined "Bringing up a severely disabled child"). Mothers caring for disabled children share the difficulties they (we all?) face in bringing up a disabled child, following a mother's sentencing to prison this week for murdering her daughter with cerebral palsy. One... Read more →

Russia 12. Holland 1. The Times on cerebral palsy

At the Paralympic Games in Beijing on Wednesday, the Russian 7-a-side football team thrashed the Dutch 12-1, leading to questions about classification of athletes, especially those with cerebral palsy. The Times* picked up the story, including an explanation of cerebral palsy. Along with the now standard medical account, it was stated that: "It is a misconception that people with cerebral palsy have learning difficulties". This sentence, in a nutshell, is the prevailing view. If conductive education is to prevail, we... Read more →

Upping the drawbridge against care workers

The Migration Advisory Committee has advised the pulling up of the immigration drawbridge against carers from outside Europe. Philippe Legrain writes in today's Guardian, "We need an immigration system that favours care workers, not oligarchs and investment bankers". In yesterday's Independent, Ian Birrell wrote "Why turn away these people we need so badly". Ian has a profoundly disabled teenage daughter who needs 24 hour care. His article is well worth a read. Read more →

Evidence-based practice & education (Part 3)

"I feared that my brain was actually heating up and might explode. I visualized brain matter flying all over the room, splattering the walls. Whenever I sat at a desk and tried to read, I caught myself putting my hands up to either side of my head, trying to hold it all in." Elyn Saks had had bizarre thoughts and hallucinations since childhood. At 27 years old and in her first semester at Yale Law School, when she experienced these... Read more →

Evidence-based practice & education (Part 2)

Things that work and things that don't. As I reported in the Part 1 of this discussion about evidence-based practice and education, David Colquhoun, Research Professor of Pharmacology at University College London, argues strongly that, in medicine, "things that work and things that don't" is the only distinction that matters. Might the same distinction be applied to Education? I offer this for you to ponder on, taken from the Executive Summary to Understanding the Brain: Towards a New Learning Science... Read more →