This post is not quite 'finished'. I was wanting to add a bit more at the end but don't have time. Not all the links are in place. If I don't post it soon it won't get posted at all. So here it is, as it is.
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For followers of such things, there was an interesting moment in the House of Commons last week week (8 June) when Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North, Conservative) sought leave to bring in a Bill “to require the Secretary of State [for Education] to increase parental involvement in provision of education for children with special educational needs”.
Not the least interesting point is that listed second among the proposers of the Bill is David Blunkett, (Lab) Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough and former Secretary of State for Education.
The Parliamentary technicalities are that the Bill will be progressed “to be read a Second time on Friday 2 December and to be printed (Bill 199)”.
The essence of Ms Mordaunt’s case is that in order to increase the involvement of parents of children with SEN in their education, and to strengthen their hands in fighting for their children’s rights and entitlements, change is needed; whilst the SEN Green Paper makes “some progress” in this direction, it does not go far enough. She proposes “five principal areas” that “must be addressed”:
First, in the manner of the NHS constitution, the rights and entitlements of children must be established in law. We must have a document towards which parents can point stubborn local authorities …. and a clear assertion of children’s rights would help to hold authorities to account.
Secondly, there must be means other than a statement by which a child’s needs can be demonstrated and verified. Statementing needs reform, but it can be the only ammunition that parents have. The Green Paper outlined plans for a single assessment process as a replacement for the statement, but to really strengthen parents’ hands other forms of proof should be accepted as evidence of need, even if this simply guarantees that the child undergoes the new assessment. We must remove an LEA’s power to deny that a child has a special educational need despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
The third aspect of necessary change is closely associated with the second; the link between the assessor and the financer must be broken. Currently, local authorities sit in judgment on SEN cases with only one eye on the child’s future—the other is glued to its own bottom line—and that is not a tenable situation.
Fourthly, all providers of appropriate schooling, including independent schools, must be listed by the LEA, as is supposed to happen already.
The last area to address is funding. I applaud the Green Paper’s commitment to personalised funding, but for this to work properly funding must truly follow the pupil, as with the pupil premium. But unlike the pupil premium, it must include the per-pupil funding derived from the LEA. I urge the Government to consider, as part of their review, how school funding can become genuinely per pupil, whether on a total or top-up basis.
The first of Ms Mordaunt’s “five principal areas” that “children’s rights and entitlements must be established in law” might bear some resemblance to California’s Lanterman Act which I have mentioned here before.
The Lanterman Developmental Disabilities Services Act is a California law that says people with developmental disabilities and their families have a right to the services and supports they need to live like people without disabilities. The Act outlines these rights; the structure of (largely non-profit) regional centres and service providers to help individuals get the services and supports they can obtain, how to use the personalised budget and programme plan to get needed services, and … what to do when someone fails to implement the Lanterman Act.
At the core of her second and third points is the issue of parent choice in the education of their child, which is the key to clarity over (a) assessment (which should be by a panel independent of the local authority); (b) the role of the local authority as sole or main provider (which reduces as more schools become Academies) and (c) financing SEN. The need for the separation of these roles is well covered in the Lamb Report and the Commission on Special Educational Needs. The Second Report 2007 chaired by Sir Robert Balchin (now Lord Lingfield). These are critical issues.
Her fourth point is no more than ensuring local authorities comply with their statutory responsibilities – a point that exercises IPSEA in its own response to the SEN Green paper.
Her final point, like her second and third points, is a critical issue, perhaps the most critical. Funding must follow the child. Indeed Ms Mordaunt perhaps ought to go further and press for a stronger linkage between a more finely-graded assessment of a child’s need and the funding associated with it. Funding of the education of children with special educational needs generally is currently the subject of a review. When it is expected to report, I do not at this moment recall. However, the Second Report of the Commission on Special Educational Needs makes the point well:
So, in summary, all children with special educational needs are [currently] placed in one of three boxes: ‘School Action’, ‘School Action Plus’, or XYZ. Having taken evidence from a large number of professionals and parents …. We have come to believe that dividing 1,530,000 children with hugely varied needs into two large groups and one very small one is too crude a method of categorisation” (Commission on Special Educational Needs. The Second Report 2007. Chapter 2.)
Given that the term SEN exists to define those whose education must be modified or particularised to suit their requirements and to allow the authorities to decide on appropriate funding for this provision, it follows that its sub-categories should more clearly define how a child’s education should be tailored to its needs. The funding of SEN support should then be more finely graded in correlation with this. (Commission on Special Educational Needs. The Second Report 2007. Chapter 2.)
Radical reform of the system of funding is the foundation on which all other changes – assessment, provision, placement – depend. The SEN Green Paper, however, whilst alluding to the funding review in progress, and making a welcome radical proposal for a change to assessment, does not go far enough - and perhaps cannot.