Education: Children with Special Needs (Hansard, 27 March 1984)

Baroness Darcy (de Knayth)
My Lords. I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.

§ The Earl of Swinton
My Lords, the Government do not collect information centrally about the movement of individual children. It is, however, possible to gain some impression of what is happening. There would appear to have been no large-scale transfer of children from special to ordinary schools in the 10 months since implementation of the Act. Nevertheless, there is an increasing demand from parents of children with special educational needs, particularly young children, for admission to ordinary schools, and a growing trend for local education authorities to make the first placements for such children in ordinary nursery schools or classes of ordinary primary schools. It seems likely that the integrated system will develop from the early years of childhood rather than by the large-scale transfer of older children from special schools. It is important to recognise that full integration needs considerable preparation and is not simply a matter of placing children in ordinary schools.

Baroness Darcy (de Knayth)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer. May I ask him whether he can predict the annual rate of transfer of children with special educational needs from special schools to ordinary schools and, if he can, what the predicted rate is?

§ The Earl of Swinton
My Lords, I do not believe that anybody can predict the rate of transfer. At the moment the local authorities are preparing figures which will be available later in the year. However, I do not believe that they will necessarily show the rate of transfer.

§ Lord Taylor of Blackburn
My Lords, could the noble Earl the Minister tell us how many of the recommendations of the 1978 Warnock Committee and the 1980 White Paper have been carried out?

§ The Earl of Swinton
My Lords, the great bulk of these recommendations have been carried out. The White Paper was the Government's response to the Warnock Committee. This legislation is based on both the White Paper and the Warnock Report.

§ Baroness Fisher of Rednal
My Lords, is the noble Earl satisfied that children in ordinary schools who are suffering from sensory handicaps are receiving education from qualified teachers of the partially sighted and deaf?

§ The Earl of Swinton
My Lords, this is very much a matter for the local education authorities who, when they decide which school a child should go to under the new Act, have to take into account not only the special educational needs but also the medical needs and the wishes of the parents.

§ Baroness Fisher of Rednal
My Lords, the sensory handicaps which I mentioned come into the category of special educational needs. They are not what one could strictly call medical needs. I am asking about the specially qualified teachers who are needed for these special categories.

§ The Earl of Swinton
My Lords, all this is taken into account when the children are placed.

§ Lord De Freyne
My Lords, does my noble friend have any figures relating to those children with special educational needs who have been moved from their ordinary mainstream schools to special schools?

§ The Earl of Swinton
My Lords, this is the original Question in reverse, as it were. No, we have no such figures.

§ Baroness Masham of Ilton
My Lords, may I ask my noble kinsman or relative whether children with a physical defect or a speech problem who go to ordinary schools will get the physiotherapy or speech therapy which they need? Would he agree with me that if they do not get the treatment needed they might develop further defects?

§ The Earl of Swinton
My Lords, in the case of children formally assessed under Section 5 of the Education Act 1981 the statement should include the medical and health care needs as well as the educational needs. I think that I made that point to the noble Baroness, Lady Fisher. It is hoped that district health authorities will be able to meet those needs. However, it is realised that the problems of providing services to a population dispersed across a range of ordinary schools are greater than when providing similar services to pupils grouped together in a special school. This is one of the factors that should be considered by the LEA when determining the appropriate placement for each child. Also, the parents are of course consulted a great deal on where the children go. They may decide that they would 134 rather the child was educated in an ordinary school and receive the necessary medical treatment at the weekend, if they thought that was better in the overall interest of the child.

§ Lord Molloy
My Lords, does the noble Earl not agree that there is one group of children who cannot be transferred to ordinary schools; namely, those children who are both mentally and physically handicapped? In view of the existence of the remarkable teaching staff who are trained to help such afflicted children, will the Minister ensure that they are in some way helped and that we in no way dodge responsibility by having them transferred to ordinary schools?

§ The Earl of Swinton
My Lords, I agree entirely with the noble Lord; there will always be special schools, and there will always be special children who need special treatment.

Lord Chelwood
My Lords, is this not a matter of such importance that central records ought to be kept showing transfers between the mainstream schools and special schools and vice versa? How has it come about that there are no records? Will my noble friend look at the possibility of keeping such records and making them available annually?

§ The Earl of Swinton
My Lords, it would be a very complicated programme indeed if that was undertaken. The records which the local education authority has to send in during the course of the year to be analysed just refer to children with statements made under the Education Act 1981. Because of changing definitions and procedures, information will not readily be comparable with statistical data produced for earlier years.
With regard to information collected centrally about children with special educational needs in ordinary schools who do not have statements under the Act, this would involve requiring the schools to make a great many subjective judgments about their pupils and would create enormous difficulties in practice. The boundary between children with special educational needs and other children is not a clear one; some children will move between the two groups. Local education authorities will, however, require information about this wider group for their own purposes. The Government support the recommendations of the Warnock Committee in paragraph 4.78 of its report, that authorities should devise their own framework for collecting such information from their own schools.

§ Baroness David
My Lords, following upon a much earlier answer given by the Minister about the difficulty of receiving these children with special educational needs into ordinary schools, can the Minister say how much in-service training is under way to prepare teachers in ordinary schools for receiving children who might have problems?

§ The Earl of Swinton
My Lords, I see the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, on the Front Bench opposite, and so I should like to thank the noble Baroness for that question.
135 There is already a wide range of in-service provision available for teachers responsible for the education of children with special educational needs. These include long full-time or part-time courses at teacher training institutions, short courses provided by local education authorities and their advisory services, regional courses funded by the department, and short courses organised by HMI.
Additionally, meeting special educational needs in ordinary schools is one of the priority areas to be supported by the new scheme of specific grants for in-service teacher training. In the period to 31st August of this year, about £1 million will be available for training in special educational needs in ordinary schools. My right honourable friend has invited the Advisory Committee on the Supply and Education of Teachers to review training provision relating to special education and to report early in 1984. Also, the department has launched an audio-visual in-service training pack for teachers in ordinary schools who have children with special educational needs in their classes. This pack is being very well received.

§ Lord Mishcon
My Lords, perhaps I may thank the noble Earl the Minister for his very brief and concise reply.

§ Viscount Ingleby
My Lords, is the noble Earl the Minister aware of the case of James, who is aged seven and is a pupil at one of our local primary schools in North Yorkshire? He could not hear anything but for the phonic ear that he wears. His teacher now wears a device that enables her to correspond directly with him—and because of this, he is making excellent progress.

§ The Earl of Swinton
My Lords, I did not know about James. Strangely enough, I do know about a great many children at some of the special schools in North Yorkshire. I am very delighted to hear that James is being well looked after.

§ Viscount Ingleby
The point is, my Lords, that he is in an ordinarv school.