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Education and Inspections Bill

I shall speak to Amendment No. 183 in my name in this group. It has come to us from the Special Education Consortium, which wants to see a requirement that teachers at all levels of the service can demonstrate an understanding of special educational needs and disability. When a similar amendment was tabled in another place, the Minister said that there was no need to set out specific standards in primary legislation and he assured Members that the current standards for teachers were under review. Well, so they need to be, because the Special Education Consortium has concerns about how well teachers are prepared to teach children with special needs and believes that a compulsory element at every level of teacher training is essential to ensure that all teachers are properly trained and prepared for their responsibilities. There is evidence for that concern from Ofsted and the Audit Commission. Ofsted reports that, "““the quality of teaching seen on the visits for pupils with SEN was of varying quality, with a high proportion of lessons involving pupils with SEN having important shortcomings””." In a significant proportion of lessons, Ofsted found that, "““teaching for the lowest-attaining pupils had weaknesses which prevented those pupils fully reaching their potential, even when the teaching for the rest of the class was good””." That must change if every child is to fulfil their educational potential, as the early part of the Bill states. In 2002, the Audit Commission reported: "““Many teachers feel under considerable pressure, on the one hand to meet the needs of individual pupils and on the other to deliver a demanding national curriculum and achieve ever-better test results; research suggests that many feel ill-equipped forthis task””." Teachers are expected to be able to cope with a very wide range of abilities and challenges from their pupils and there is no substitute for specific and good quality training to help them to do that. The special educational needs co-ordinators, interviewed as part of the Audit Commission research, identified curriculum differentiation and behaviour management as being among the topstaff training priorities. The Special Education Consortium regards it as crucial, therefore, that these issues are addressed during initial teacher training and that the development of those skills is fostered at every level of the service—probably through continuous professional development courses. In addition to concerns about the core skills for enabling disabled pupils and those with SEN to learn and to progress, Ofsted found a lack of understanding of the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act. In respect of the planning duties on schools, Ofsted reports: "““Schools are required by the Disability Discrimination Act 2001 to plan to increase access to education for disabled pupils. This planning duty applies to access to premises, the curriculum and to providing written information in alternative formats. Schools are required to produce their first accessibility plans by April 2003.""In four out of ten schools visited there was satisfactory planning for improved access to premises, particularly when this could be achieved with relatively small adaptations. A few schools had planned for increased access to the curriculum... However, over half of the schools had no disability access plans and, of those that did exist, the majority focused only on accommodation””." So there seems to be a very great shortfall in access to the curriculum in particular. The solution to ensuring improved outcomes for disabled pupils and for those with special educational needs depends on the improved skills, knowledge and understanding of those working with and for them. Training holds the key to that, and that is why we are promoting this amendment.