Why is the council doing this? Why not leave SEN provision as it is?
It would be easy to do nothing!
But we want to give local children the best possible start in life.
We want to:
- Improve specialist provision for all children who at some point in their school years may have particular needs for specialist support
- Increase opportunities for children with such needs to be educated in their local mainstream school and make good progress
- Improve support for behaviour across the borough
What's wrong with the current provision?
A great deal of the current provision is excellent, and the skill and commitment of staff and managers is acknowledged.
However, there is a structural problem, which is simply a matter of history.
We are not an "inclusive" authority. That means we tend to keep children with disabilities and other special needs separate from other children. The proportion of pupils of statutory school age which is educated in special schools is nearly double the national average.
Currently one of the least inclusive of all English local authorities in terms of the proportion of pupils educated in special schools.
This means that we keep more of our children separate from their peers while we provide them with specialist support.
Most other authorities, with children of exactly the same range of difficulties and abilities, are ensuring much higher levels of integration and inclusion.
We need to ensure that all the borough's children who will need specialist support at some point in their 11 years of compulsory schooling get effective support, in the main through their local mainstream school.
We believe that all teachers should expect to teach children with special educational needs and all schools should play their part in educating children from their local community, whatever their background or ability. In addition, all children should have opportunities to learn, play and develop alongside each other within their local schools.
This isn't just the council's view. OfSTED and the Audit Commission have also drawn attention to our need to change.
And there are going to be some major opportunities to invest in excellent new buildings for children in the next few years. South Tyneside will miss out on those opportunities if we try to hang on to the system we now have.
What has this got to do with educational standards?
Our overriding aim is to help raise educational standards – South Tyneside’s highest priority. The council's Children and Young People's Services are working to secure high standards of achievement and attainment.
This is clearly emphasised in our Children and Young People Plan, and all the borough-wide strategic plans.
What is "inclusivity"? In what way is our provision not "inclusive" enough now?
South Tyneside has six separate special schools with a variety of remits, educating 468 children and young people ranging from 2yrs to 19 yrs.
The LA currently also has 7 primary phase units and 2 secondary phase units/ resource bases. This means units with a specialisation in supporting children with a particular need, for example hearing impairment.
There are a further 25 children receiving education in independent and non- maintained schools outside of the borough.
It is believed that many of these children and young people could, with the appropriate support and a personalised curriculum, be educated with a wider peer group in their local mainstream school.
Certainly the comparable statistics shown in the table below indicate that in almost all other authorities a significant proportion of our special school population would be educated in mainstream. (DCSF January 2008).
The table below compares the percentage of pupils 5-15yrs (statutory school age) placed in maintained special schools in South Tyneside against the national.
Clearly, the contrast between our own way of serving young people and the national approach is becoming more stark.
| 2001-2 | 2002-3 | 2003-4 | 2004-5 | 2005-6 | 2006-7 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| England | 1.2% | 1.2% | 1.2% | 1.2% | 1.2% | 1.2% |
| South Tyneside | 1.8% | 1.9% | 1.9% | 2.1% | 2.4% | 2.3% |
This is really all about saving money, isn't it?
No. South Tyneside is a good spender on SEN education and there is no intention to reduce overall expenditure through this review. The issue is how that money is spent.
Why is it proposed to have separate primary and special schools instead of having them both cover all ages?
We want to make sure there are enough children in each year-group to be viable, i.e. to have enough children of similar ages to work together and play together. At present, in some schools where every age-group is catered for, there are very few children in each year-group. As well as preventing children from having a good range of others the same age to mix with, it also can make it harder for teachers to organise classes and cover the whole curriculum.