Children: SEN Assessment Criteria (Hansard, 11 January 1999)

§ The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Baroness Blackstone)
My Lords, the Government are satisfied with the two statutory criteria for deciding whether school-age children have special educational needs. These criteria are, first, whether the children have a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of children of their age, and, secondly, whether the children have a disability which prevents or hinders them in making use of educational facilities of the kind generally provided for children of their age. It is the responsibility of schools to decide whether an individual child has special educational needs.

§ Lord Quirk
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that explanatory reply. As special educational needs may arise from a complex array of psycho-physical conditions, many of them ambiguous, there is obviously scope for disagreement and inconsistency about assessment. But does that explain the quite staggering variation in the percentage of SEN pupils throughout the country? How can it be that in the single London borough of Tower Hamlets and among children from strictly similar social and ethnic backgrounds, 5 per cent. of pupils are classified as having special educational needs in one school—the Kobi Nazrul School—while between 60 per cent. and 70 per cent. of pupils are classified as SEN in neighbouring schools? Can it possibly be that, in some instances at least, we face not children with learning disabilities but staff with teaching disabilities?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, the Government would be concerned to see variations such as those cited by the noble Lord, Lord Quirk, unless there were good reasons for them. It is open to schools to seek the advice of local education authority educational psychologists, who have the expertise, to support school assessments. 9 I shall take up the noble Lord's specific point about neighbouring schools in Tower Hamlets and shall write to him about it.

§ Lord Rix
My Lords, is the Minister satisfied that children with special educational needs, particularly those with profound and multiple disabilities, are being properly assessed and their parents fully consulted before such children are excluded?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, it is extremely important that parents are consulted when children with special educational needs are being assessed—and certainly before a child is excluded from a mainstream school. As the noble Lord knows, the Government have relatively recently issued a Green Paper on special educational needs and have responded with an action programme for improving provision for such children. As a result of the Comprehensive Spending Review the Government have also invested considerable additional sums in supporting such children in mainstream schools as well as in continuing to provide good facilities in special schools for the small numbers who need to be separately supported in such schools.

§ Lord Taylor of Blackburn
My Lords, is my noble friend continuing the previous government's practice of adhering to the principles of the Warnock Report? Furthermore, will the Government build on those principles?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, since coming into office in May 1997, the Government have issued a Green Paper and have consulted on special educational needs. Tomorrow we are publishing a consultation document to review the SEN code of practice. I am sure that that will lead to revisions to the previous provisions in the light of further consultation on the code of practice.

§ Lord Tope
My Lords, are the Government now satisfied that there is general recognition in all maintained schools of the special needs of dyslexic pupils and that appropriate methods are being used to help such pupils to overcome their problems? How many teachers in England and Wales have successfully completed approved courses in helping dyslexic pupils?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, I cannot give a specific answer on the number of teachers who have received special training for dealing with dyslexic pupils. However, it is certainly the case that over many years teachers insufficiently recognised that some children have that problem. Indeed, the existence of that problem was sometimes denied. I believe that the new requirements for initial teaching training courses, introduced in 1996, will ensure that newly qualified teachers understand their particular responsibilities for identifying the problem. The Government will continue to monitor the progress that is being made.

Lord Renton
My Lords, will the Minister bear in mind that if a child with special educational needs 10 (although not severely handicapped in that way) attends an ordinary school, he or she will be at a psychological disadvantage which may add to his or her other problems and that, in any event, it will interfere to some extent with the education of the other children at that ordinary school?

§ Baroness Blackstone
No, my Lords, the Government do not accept that proposition. We are anxious to ensure that as many children with moderate learning difficulties as possible can be integrated into mainstream schools. The Government believe that many teachers are committed to supporting such children in ordinary schools. Moreover, the Government take the view that it is beneficial to children who do not have such needs to mix with those who do and to help to encourage such children rather than separating and segregating them for their entire school careers.

§ Baroness David
My Lords, can my noble friend tell me whether local authorities are coping with the number of children coming forward for statements? I believe that at one time they had to wait for quite a long time before they could be provided with the statements they had requested.

§ Baroness Blackstone
; My Lords, approximately 3 per cent. of children are given statements. That is a small proportion of the total number of school pupils. However, the Government are anxious to try to reduce the number who have statements and to deal with their needs without going through what is a complex, time-consuming, and, to some extent, bureaucratic process involving a lot of paperwork. It is sensible to try to respond to the needs of such children without using the statementing process and by carrying out that work in schools. I believe that that is the right approach. If we go down that route we shall not have large numbers of parents waiting for statements for many months.

§ Lord Quirk
My Lords, although the 1994 code of practice which the Minister says is currently being reviewed and revised rightly stresses the earliest possible intervention for the assessment of special educational needs, does not the Minister agree that over-assessment of SEN—that is, so assessing too many children—is likely to produce a double jeopardy: on the one hand, lowering the self-esteem of otherwise perfectly normal children and, on the other hand, diluting resources which should be devoted to those who are genuinely and severely in need?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, the Government accept that this is a difficult balance to strike. It would be wrong to fail to support those children who have special educational needs. They must be identified. Moreover, they should be identified early. The Government are attempting to do that through their early assessment of children before they reach the age of five. On the other hand, we must avoid too many children 11 being unnecessarily labelled as having special educational needs. They should be allowed the opportunity to develop without being given such a label.