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Education and Inspections Bill

moved Amendment No. 81: After Clause 55, insert the following new clause- ““PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS FOR TEACHERS Professional standards for teachers shall require that all those receiving- (a) initial teacher training, (b) assessment for induction or as a main-scale teacher, (c) assessment for threshold or as a senior teacher, (d) assessment for suitability as a headteacher, (e) assessment as a higher level teaching assistant, shall be required to demonstrate an understanding of special educational needs and disability legislation.”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, we move now to a large group of fairly cohesive amendments on special educational needs. In moving Amendment No. 81, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 82 and 82B, which stand in my name, and shall make a few comments on others along the way. First, I will give three short quotes from the Government’s response to the Education and Skills Committee report on special educational needs, which was published only a couple of weeks ago. I should like to demonstrate that I accept that the Government are moving in the right direction. First, on page 4, paragraph 4, the Government said: "““Children with SEN can do well in all types of school—access to high quality, specialist teachers and a commitment by leaders to create opportunities to include all pupils are the keys to success””." Secondly, on page 15, paragraph 40, they said: "““Schools should take action to build staff capacity, improving the confidence of all staff in their ability to support children with a wide range of needs””." Thirdly, on page 18, paragraph 3, they said: "““The Government shares the Committee’s view that a skilled workforce is critical to achieving the five Every Child Matters outcomes for children and young people with SEN and/or disabilities””." I agree with all that. In Committee, when similar amendments to ours were tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, the Minister said, at col. 330 of the Official Report on 5 July, that he agreed with the underlying principles. I hope that he will forgive us today for pressing him further. As I said, I accept that we all want to achieve the same ends, but some of us are always asking for more and better. Amendment No. 81 proposes that professional standards for teachers at all levels, "““should be required to demonstrate an understanding of special educational needs””." The SEN code of practice asserts that all teachers are teachers of children with special educational needs. But the Special Education Consortium has concerns about how well teachers are prepared. It believes that a compulsory element at every level of teacher training is essential to ensure that all teachers are properly prepared for their responsibilities and that the best way is to incorporate requirements into professional standards at every level of the service. Noble Lords will notice that higher level teaching assistants are included in paragraph (e). Unfortunately, there is evidence that despite the current requirements for initial teacher training, teachers are not sufficiently well prepared. In its 2004 report on special educational needs and disability, Ofsted reported: "““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 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 for this task””." The difficulties arise in respect of a number of different aspects of teaching disabled pupils and pupils with special educational needs. For example, on planning and monitoring progress, the same Ofsted report found that many schools, "““undertook too little forward planning to ensure that provision was in place to meet the needs of the pupils with SEN””." In addition to concerns about the core skills for enabling disabled pupils and those with SEN to learn and progress, Ofsted found a lack of understanding of the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act in respect of the planning duties on schools and the requirements to make reasonable adjustments for disabled pupils. We have to accept that the solution is complex and, in many cases, quite costly. Improved outcomes for disabled pupils and pupils with SEN are dependent on the improved knowledge, skills and understanding of those working with and for them. Training holds the key to that. I give every credit to the Government for the large amount of extra money, which the Minister mentioned, to make sure that children with special needs are appropriately dealt with. But, as I said, earlier, we always need more and better. The DfES 10-year strategy for SEN, Removing Barriers to Achievement, is quite clear on what the Government want to see. It states: "““All teachers having the skills and confidence, and access to specialist advice where necessary, to help children with SEN to reach their potential””." The strategy also sets out the Government’s intention to work with the Teacher Training Agency and higher education institutions to ensure that initial teacher training in programmes for CPD provide a good grounding in core skills and knowledge of SEN. I am aware that work has already been commissioned by the TDA for schools to develop programmes on SEN and disability for initial teacher training. However, sadly these will not be compulsory and they are designed for the three and four-year teacher training courses. That will leave teachers on the one-year training course without this input. As the Minister pointed out on 5 July: "““The Secretary of State … already have the power to set professional standards for teachers””.—[Official Report, 5/7/06; col. 333.]" —and of course does so. But I understand that the current standards for teachers are review. Indeed, in their response to the Select Committee on special needs the Government said: "““Standards are important, but much depends on how they are achieved in practice””." Will the Minister examine with the TDA, institutes of higher education, Ofsted and other relevant bodies how SEN and disability can be incorporated into the full range of training, in particular the one-year postgraduate teacher training courses where there is very little time to devote to it, and I do not underestimate the challenge of that fact. I turn now to Amendment No. 82. This amendment would strengthen the existing duty on local authorities to provide special education, explicitly stating that a range of different types of provision is required. It would also require local authorities to report on how this range of provision meets the range of special educational needs which exist in its own local area. For example, although it is unlikely, if an authority were to rely entirely either on inclusion in mainstream or on special schools, it must justify that decision. So I should like to question the Government further on securing access to a range of special educational provision and how the guidance they have announced will achieve this. While the Bill aims for choice and diversity in provision for children without disabilities, that is not a reality for many parents of children with autism or other disabilities unless adequate and appropriate specialist and mainstream places are available in their area. A recent report by the National Autistic Society entitled Make School Make Sense found three things: first, that 66 per cent of parents believe their choice was constrained by a lack of provision; secondly, that half of parents believed their child’s current placement was not the best school for them; and, thirdly, that 30 per cent of secondary school pupils with autism have to travel out of their local authority to access a suitable school. I accept that, realistically, it is sometimes the best choice for them. As a result of these findings, Make School Make Sense called for a range of provision to be enshrined in legislation. The House of Commons Education and Skills Select Committee has endorsed that recommendation, stating: "““The Government should … implement a statutory requirement for local authorities to maintain a broad-ranging and flexible continuum of provision which should be monitored on a regular basis””." Current law requires local authorities to have regard to the need to ensure that special education provision is secured for pupils who have special educational needs. It does not of course specify what sort of provision is made, and it is right and proper that that is left to local authorities to decide, based on local need, as long as the provision is of sufficiently high quality. The Government’s recent response to the Select Committee’s report agreed that access to a range of provision is a desirable goal, but stated strongly that it is the role of local authorities rather than central government to decide on the organisation of special education provision in the area. I agree with the Government on that. The amendment is not intended to restrict local authorities but to present a way of ensuring that provision meets local needs and is reported on to demonstrate how these needs are met. Local authorities vary enormously in how they provide and I believe this matter should be in the public domain. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, drew attention to it at Committee stage. For example, there is almost a fivefold difference in the proportion of pupils with statements in different authorities, from 1.08 per cent of all pupils having statements in Nottinghamshire to 4.83 per cent in Halton in Cheshire. In addition, the percentage of pupils placed in maintained special schools varies from zero to 60 per cent across different local authorities. The percentage in mainstream schools varies from 19 to 73 per cent. The variation across local authorities in placing pupils in independent special schools runs from 0.4 per cent to over 19 per cent. This is a remarkable level of variation and demonstrates the extent to which local authorities decide their own strategies for the provision for children with SEN. In 2002, the Audit Commission believed that this was an unacceptable level of variation in provision between different parts of the country and stated that it continued to be, "““especially concerned about pupils with low incidence needs (such as autism and multi-sensory impairment) and those with a disability, who are potentially the most disadvantage pupils in the educational system””." In 2004, Ofsted echoed that concern. It found that lack of strategic planning was common and services available in any one area varied considerably. There are many examples of very good practice and I will give one. As noble Lords might expect, it is a Liberal Democrat council—Liverpool. Over the past five years there have been enormous changes in Liverpool. They began by Liverpool being cited by the Centre of Studies on Inclusive Education as the least inclusive local authority in the country because it had a higher proportion of children in special schools than elsewhere. It believed that this was too simplistic an analysis; however, very serious attention was paid to what could be done. Of serious concern at that time were the 600 pupils in moderate learning difficulty schools. They were no less able than many pupils in mainstream. Their special school status was often based on parental pressure, on mainstream school rejection or a response to bullying, which should have been dealt with by the mainstream school. Some among them had more complex learning needs but many passed a number of GCSEs. Ofsted particularly identified this group as being educated separately for no good reason. Liverpool’s revised policy contains the following elements. It statements only where necessary. It says why go through the process with a deaf child when their special need is quite obvious; you should simply access the appropriate school place without delay, and that is what it did. It has also returned pupils from expensive out of city places where their needs can be met locally with some support. It has paid a lot of attention to early intervention and some early years assessment provision has been relocated into mainstream sites, where separate education assessment can take place but opportunities for integration in selective classroom situations can be maximised. It has developed 20 resource bases, which are frequently identified by Ofsted as excellent, five resource-plus schools encapsulated within mainstream sites, several reserved bases for SEN on mainstream sites, pupil referring services and services for children with social and behavioural problems. Liverpool has not had a dogmatic special schools or not special schools approach; it has assessed individual needs and matched provision accordingly. The glue that cements all this together is the £1.4 million that funds the special schools to provide outreach support to the mainstream schools and their learning networks. While the press and some of us politicians bicker about inclusion, Liverpool is one of a number of authorities that has got on with assessing children and meeting their needs. The amount of money spent on SEN has kept well in line with inflation, if not exceeded it. What is as important as all these structural things is that individual schools have a culture of inclusion and communicate that to the children. Only this morning I heard about a school where sixth-form pupils were encouraged to sit with some of the children with special needs lower down the school. That had great benefits for all of them; being closer in age, they could identify with each other quite well. It did the children with special needs good and helped the sixth formers to understand and help children with special needs. Indeed, one or two of them went on to work with children with special needs. Amendment No. 82B would not just require that all SEN co-ordinators were qualified teachers with an understanding of legislation relevant to the post and experience to support them; it would also ensure that they were part of the school’s senior management team and received appropriate ongoing training. A consensus has emerged on the value that the role of SEN co-ordinator brings to a school when the person is authoritative and informed. This is a probing amendment to confirm the Government’s intentions regarding SENCOs following their response to the Education and Skills Committee report on SEN. The part of the response that said that the person taking on the lead responsibility should be a teacher and a member of the senior leadership team in the school was most welcome. In addition, the letter of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, to the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, of 12 October made it clear that the Government intend SENCOs to be teachers. Government Amendment No. 140 requires governing bodies to appoint a SENCO to co-ordinate the provision of education for children with SEN and gives the Secretary of State a power to make regulations relating to the role. However, the National Autistic Society and the Special Educational Consortium are still keen to receive assurances from the Minister, which I hope he can give us today, that the language of the legislation will be clear in stating that a SENCO must be not just a teacher but a member of the senior leadership team of the school. When he speaks to Amendment No. 140, it will be useful to hear more about the Government’s planned requirements for the role. I am sorry that I have spoken for so long, but I cannot resist having a very brief word about the excellent amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, in particular Amendment No. 117A. I have no doubt that, when she speaks to it, she will remind noble Lords that many young people who are excluded from school have special educational needs or disabilities. It is not fair that the provision that the school has been making for a child is judged along with that child when exclusion is considered. For many children, exclusion is partly due to the fact that they have not been provided for appropriately in the school, and have kicked out in response. However, I leave that to what will no doubt be an excellent speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. I beg to move.