BALLS ANNOUNCES NEW ACTION AND INVESTMENT OF £38 MILLION FOR CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL

7th January 2009

Children’s Secretary Ed Balls has announced an investigation to tackle poor information to parents of children with special educational needs following interim findings from SEN expert Brian Lamb’s review of parental confidence in special education needs provision.

Mr Lamb has written to Ed Balls raising concerns that parents feel they have to “fight” or “battle” the system to secure high quality provision for their children and listed concerns ranging from a lack of information for parents to failures by local authorities to comply with their duties in relation to children with SEN and disabilities.

The Children’s Secretary also announced a package of measures, including a £31m scheme to raise expectations and outcomes for children with SEN and help them fulfil their potential.

The scheme will develop and highlight best practice in raising aspirations and achievement for pupils with special educational needs. Ed Balls also stressed his commitment to ensuring that SEN and disability issues are fully taken into account in all policy development.

Mr Lamb, who is chair of the Special Educational Consortium, will now extend his current review to look at how information is shared, between agencies and with parents of children with SEN, and look at how parents can be further engaged in their child’s education. This will also inform the implementation of the SEN Information Act and will take place alongside his wider review, which is due to report in Autumn 2009.

Ed Balls also confirmed £7m of investment to strengthen support for pupils with special educations needs including strengthening school leadership.

He will also ask Ofsted to focus on the different legal frameworks for SEN and disabled children’s equality of opportunity and social care when they undertake their review of the overall progress of SEN, planned to report in 2010.

The full details of what Ed Balls is announcing as part of the Children’s Plan One Year On document are as follows:

As part of his inquiry into parental confidence Brian Lamb will lead a comprehensive examination of the information requirements on schools and local authorities to ensure they meet the needs of parents, encourage greater transparency in the system, and focus on outcomes. This will include advice on how to improve compliance;

A £31m pilot will begin in up to 10 local authorities in 2009. The pilot will work with schools to rethink their expectations for children with SEN and will develop tools and approaches that will help all schools adopt an outcomes focus for children with SEN;

Ed Balls will ask Ofsted to review how the legal frameworks for SEN, disabled children’s equality of opportunity and their social care work together to meet the needs of the most vulnerable children;

Ed Balls has endorsed Brian Lamb’s view that SEN and children’s disability issues should be considered in all relevant policy development and the Department will set out its plans for how to do this.

· £7 million will be invested in several ways including: helping to embed high aspirations for children with SEN in school leadership training; allowing the Assessment Expert Group to consider the particular needs of children with SEN and disabled children as part of its review; take forward with Becta online reporting to parents of information on SEN; and further support schools in assessing what constitutes good progress for children with SEN.

Children’s Secretary Ed Balls said:

“Every child should have the opportunity reach their full potential, including those with special educational needs but all to often parents tell us they have to fight the system to get what their children need. I am determined that this will change.

“I see today as the start of a new and more ambitious vision for SEN. I want to eradicate the presumption that mediocre achievement is the best this group of pupils can hope for and will be looking to the pilot schools to develop best practice in raising expectations through challenging goals and improving academic, emotional and social outcomes.

“Some children with Special Educational Needs find school a real challenge. I want to give all teachers the tools and approaches that will see them able to set realistic but challenging goals for children with special educational needs. This has to start with conversations with the parents and children themselves.

“I would also like to thank Brian Lamb for his work in this area so far. I agree that SEN and disability issues should be part of consideration for all policy development. This, combined with his work on how information is presented to parents will take us to a new level of engagement with parents of disabled children and SEN.

“The measures I am setting out today will build on what we already have in place such as the Bercow Review (an action plan will be published shortly), Making Good progress pilots, National Challenge and the changes to RAISEonline.”

Schools Minister Sarah McCarthy-Fry added:

“We are determined that no child should be left behind and that no matter what their background or personal circumstances they have the opportunity to achieve at school and get the grades to help them on to the next stage of education or into employment.”

The Department is also strengthening the skills of the workforce through changes to Initial Teacher Training, requiring all SENCOs to be qualified teachers from 2009, the Inclusion Development programme and asking the National College of School Leadership for advice on how to embed high aspirations for children with Special Educational Needs into school leadership.

For more information visit  http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN.cgi?pn_id=2008_0281

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