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Special Educational Needs (Information) Bill

I understand my hon. Friend’s point, which could apply whether Ofsted or another organisation was involved. The situation certainly needs to be closely monitored. Although at the moment the Government have good intentions on these issues, when it comes to the practical realities in the classrooms of our constituents’ children, those intentions are not being carried through. That causes enormous concern for all involved. I reiterate my earlier point about the work done by Xtraordinary People, which campaigns tirelessly on behalf of dyslexic children. In the absence of further Government statistics, it did its own research in November 2007 among 1,000 parents. Three quarters of them said that their children were receiving support from people who were not trained in dealing with dyslexia or specific learning difficulties. Kate Griggs, the founder of the organisation, sums up the situation that many of my constituents, and perhaps those of other hon. Members, feel they face. She says:"““I can’t understand why the teaching methods that have been used to support dyslexics for decades are still not a compulsory part of our teachers’ training””." In the current requirements, there is no compulsory requirement for SEN training that I can find articulated in any of the documentation for trainees or for qualified teachers; there is only a need to demonstrate an ability to make effective personalised learning provision for those with special educational needs. Does the Minister feel that that does as much as possible to ensure that this group of children are really and truly reaching their potential, because many feel that they may not be? The Training and Development Agency for Schools has developed two new modules with the Institute of Education at the University of London, but for initial teacher training only, despite the fact that the bulk—about 80 per cent.—of new teachers now come through the postgraduate certificate of education route, and it is not even compulsory. Little wonder that the problems of early identification and effective teaching in schools are at the level that they are today. I pay immense tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham for the work that he does for the House and for communities throughout the country in the field of special educational needs. In his characteristic style and with his characteristic eloquence, he made many points, but I particularly want to pick up on the importance of early identification and of identifying special needs before the age of five. The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) also picked up on the importance of training for people who work in the early education sector. The Minister needs to give us some thoughts on how the Government are progressing on that issue, given the consequences of failure to achieve early identification, which were graphically pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham. As the hon. Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West said, perhaps consideration could be given to the inclusion of new work force census data in a format that parents can understand. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham also talked about the importance of far-sighted local authorities. Some local authorities have a well-developed training programme for teachers to fill the gap that may exist in teacher training. Continuous professional development is a vital element of any professional training programme, but it can do little to help newly qualified teachers and those who are still on their training placements, to return to the experience of the hon. Member for Stourbridge. I applaud the excellent work done by the children’s services department at Hampshire county council, which is my own local authority. It has a comprehensive set of continuous professional development courses available to teachers in the Hampshire area, including a learning support assistant course that is accredited by the British Dyslexia Association, with 30 hours taught and school-based assignments. There is also a Hampshire certificate in dyslexia for teachers and special educational needs co-ordinators, with 27 hours taught and school-based assignments. I am sure that many other local authorities have similar supportive schemes for their staff, but there are no data on how many take that approach. Perhaps the Bill could help to establish how widespread this sort of good practice is and, indeed, how to spread it, or help to identify where the postcode lottery exists. There are another couple of vital pieces of information that we may want to consider in Committee, such as information for parents to assess whether the delivery of SEN in their school or local authority ensures that children are making the progress that they should. That was brought up by Ofsted in its report of July 2006. We have discussed a wide variety of special educational needs. It is understandably difficult always to set objectives for children that will ensure that they achieve their true potential, but perhaps the Minister could say something about how things are faring with RAISE—reporting and analysis for improvement through school self-evaluation—online. In the Government’s response to the Ofsted report, they said that RAISE online could give schools the opportunity to monitor better the progress made by students with special educational needs. Perhaps the Minister will say how widespread the use of that system is and whether it is delivering the monitoring and evaluation of pupil progress that was suggested. I raise the third candidate for data collection on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb), who is an assiduous champion of the importance of synthetic phonics for all children. My three children learned to read with the help of synthetic phonics and I know how crucial the system is. Importantly, the March 2005 report by the Select Committee on Education and Skills concluded that the use of synthetic phonics could have a significant impact on improving the ability of children who are at risk of reading difficulties to make good progress.