§ Mr. DoddsTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland how many teachers are employed in North Belfast to cater for children with special educational needs. [127423]
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§ Jane KennedyUnder Special Educational Needs Legislation, Education and Library Boards have a qualified duty to secure education for children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) in a mainstream placement. Therefore the majority of children identified as having SEN will have their needs met by mainstream teachers with, where required, support from a classroom assistant or outside specialist support, such as outreach from special schools, assistance from a behaviour support team, or speech and language therapy help from outside the school. In this sense, all teachers may have a role in providing educational help for children with SEN.
Under Local Management of Schools (LMS) arrangements, mainstream schools have the majority of funding for special needs within their delegated budgets. Schools have discretion as to how the money is spent, e.g. to employ additional teachers for children with SEN. It is therefore not possible to provide specific teacher numbers in primary and post primary schools within the timescale for the question. However, with regard to specialist support services the Belfast ELB provides additional teaching time to assessed pupils within all schools in Belfast for special needs in the areas of learning, dyslexia, behaviour, autism and physical and sensory disability. These services employ an additional 55 teachers.
In all mainstream schools a designated teacher known as the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator (SENCO) will be responsible for the day to day
£ 1999–2000 2000–01 2001–02 2002–03 2003–04 Primary Schools 537,098 509,494 532,226 538,865 528,00 Secondary Schools 409,850 425,124 450,748 472,005 481,000 Total 946,948 934,618 982,874 1,010,870 1,009,000 In addition, since 1998, around £38 million has been provided to support the introduction of the Code of Practice in Northern Ireland. As well as providing SEN training for teachers and school governors, these funds have helped meet the additional costs of strengthening mainstream provision for pupils with SEN, by expanding outreach and peripatetic teaching support and by providing more classroom assistants. Specific allocations to schools in the North Belfast Constituency area are not readily identifiable in the timescale, but it is estimated that in 2002–03 these totalled approximately £70,000 for primary schools and £50,000 for post-primary schools.