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Special Educational Needs (Information) Bill

My Lords, first, the idea that the noble Lord, Lord James of Blackheath, might at any stage of his life have been unteachable or educationally subnormal is the most preposterous proposition I have ever heard put forward in this House in my three years of membership. However, his story demonstrates, in a way that no statistics can, how important it is that our teachers are trained and that our local authority systems take full account of the needs of children with special educational needs. His experience, which I am glad was now 60 years ago, I hope would not be repeated today and that it would not be in any way revealing of current practice in providing for such children. On the treatment of the noble Lord’s personal data, I would be pleased to look at that personally if I can be of any assistance. I am not clear what advice he was given by the officials from my department when they appeared before his committee, but I will see whether anything can be done. However, I imagine that his career and job prospects will not be affected by anything that was recorded by that local education authority in the 1940s. The Government are very glad to be supporting this Bill, initiated in another place by my honourable friend Sharon Hodgson and introduced to the House of Lords by my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley with her customary clarity and expertise. I am also delighted to hear from the noble Baronesses, Lady Morris and Lady Walmsley, that there is strong cross-party support. I echo the tribute made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, to all teachers and staff who support children with special educational needs. There is no more important work undertaken in our society and they deserve our full and unstinting support. Both my honourable friend Sharon Hodgson and my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley are champions of the cause of children with special educational needs. So, too, are the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, and the noble Lords, Lord Low and Lord Addington, all of whom have made immense contributions in this area. We also pay tribute to their work today. I and my department absolutely support the work of all organisations to which noble Lords have referred, as well as the many other voluntary organisations which give assistance to children with special educational needs and those who have declared their support for this Bill. The proposal in the Bill is very sensible; that is, children with special educational needs should be specifically taken into account as the Secretary of State exercises his powers in relation to gathering data. It is my department’s highest priority that all barriers to education should be removed for all children, whether they arise from physical, financial, or family circumstances. It is even more imperative for those who are already set at a disadvantage against their peers, including the 570,000 children living with a disability and the 1.6 million children with special educational needs. The Government’s Every Child Matters reforms have begun to embed a more personalised approach to removing barriers to learning. They have helped professionals work together more effectively, with greater focus on the individual needs of particular children and young people. The Children’s Plan, published last December, builds on these foundations. In the plan, we announced £1.2 billion of investment over the next three years to support the personalisation of education, which will include support for children with SEN—for example, through improved training, and more small-group and one-to-one help where this is appropriate. Over the past six years, local authority planned expenditure on SEN has increased by £2.1 billion, which is a 75 per cent increase and signifies the importance that the Government attach to this area. The collection and effective analysis of accurate information is important to ensuring that the education system provides better support for pupils with SEN, not least those with multiple disabilities and needs, as described by the noble Lord, Lord Low. In particular, the noble Lord said that the school census allows schools to identify only a primary type of need. I am pleased to tell him that the school census allows schools to record a primary and a secondary type of need for children at the level of school action plus and with a statement. I will write to the noble Lord to give him further information of the primary and secondary needs of those with visual impairments. My department already gathers data on children with special educational needs from a number of sources, including the school census and the SEN2 survey. It is published annually and provides useful information from individual pupil to local authority level. However, formalising and extending the Secretary of State’s powers and duties in respect of children with special educational needs when gathering data is a sensible next step forward, for all the reasons set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, in her remarks about accountability to parents, the sharing of best practice between local authorities and the promotion of better evidence-based policy. It is for all those reasons that the Government support the Bill. I also accept my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley’s point about the importance of the format of the publication of any such information. Plain English and the DCSF are not always the easiest of bedfellows, but we are giving careful attention to how we can best make additional detailed information available in an easily digestible format. What more can be published or made available at school level, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, will be part of that consideration. It will be subject of course to the concerns which she and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, quite rightly raised about data protection and about ensuring that individual pupils are not in a position of being identified. Our aim is to provide an accessible and valuable reference for parents and professionals, but of course one that respects fully the privacy of individuals. The Bill builds on steps we have already taken to improve the quality and use of data we collect on children with special educational needs. We have incorporated new indicators into the national indicator set for local government to measure the gap between children with SEN and their peers. We have incorporated into the national curriculum attainment scales for children with SEN who are currently falling below national curriculum level 1. From summer 2008, schools will be required to provide information at the end of each key stage on teacher assessments for those pupils still falling below level 1. And in response to the points made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Warnock, about parental engagement and confidence that the system provides well for children with special educational needs, we have committed to research into how these parents feel about the way their school and local authority assess and provide for their children’s needs. This work is being led by Brian Lamb, the respected chair of the Special Educational Consortium. It will also look at the statementing process referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. Brian Lamb will report to us next year and we will look at what further improvements we can make in the light of his recommendations. Under the Children’s Plan that we launched at the end of last year, an additional £18 million over the next three years will be specifically targeted at children with special educational needs. Part of this investment will be used to develop better SEN data for schools and guidance on what constitutes best practice. The guidance and materials will be published in the spring of next year. To review our progress in this area, we have asked HM Chief Inspector of Schools to undertake a review of SEN provision in 2009-10, and to include in her consideration the collection and use of data to support the improvement of provision. We will consider whether changes are necessary to the SEN Framework and our information-gathering arrangements in the light of HMCI’s recommendations. My noble friend stressed the importance of teacher training and staff support in improving the provision for children with SEN, not least so that they can make effective use of the additional information that this Bill will promote. Helping teachers to identify children with SEN and then to give them the additional support they need is essential if we are to raise outcomes, and we recognise that many teachers feel they lack confidence in this area. That is why, working with the Training and Development Agency for Schools, we have been pioneering accredited training for special educational needs co-ordinators in all schools, which will soon be mandatory for all new SEN co-ordinators. We have also developed new specialist training units for trainee teachers designed to improve SEN and disability skills. These units, developed for primary undergraduate initial teacher-training courses, have been successfully piloted and will now be rolled out more generally from the summer this year. Further, I will hold a meeting with teacher-training providers next year to promote these units and see that they are offered as a matter of course in teacher-training institutions across the country. Work is also beginning on similar units for secondary undergraduate courses, and primary and secondary PGCE courses. We aim to roll out these elements in the summer of 2009. Further, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, rightly said, the development of the masters degree in teaching and learning, which was also announced in The Children’s Plan, will provide an opportunity for teachers, as part of their ongoing professional development, to undertake further training in the needs of pupils with special educational needs. In addition, we are continuing to strengthen and extend opportunities for trainees to undertake placements in special schools or other specialist provision, and we are looking for ways of strengthening induction arrangements for SEN and disability. For those teachers already in post, last October we launched our Inclusion Development Programme. It is disseminating new, specially produced training resources in areas that we know teachers find particularly challenging. These materials are designed to bolster the confidence of serving teachers. This year, the materials focus on children with dyslexia or speech, language and communication needs. Next year, the programme will focus on children with autistic spectrum disorders, and in 2010 on children with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties. We intend to commission an independent evaluation to look at the take-up and impact of the teacher-training support being developed, that will in no small part help to form our views about the design of the masters degree in teaching and learning. In terms of the Inclusion Development Programme, the evaluation team will look at how the resources are being delivered locally, how further needs identified through that training are being pursued, and critically how far the materials are improving the confidence of serving teachers. We envisage that this major piece of work will begin later this year and run through to 2011 with interim reports at regular intervals. To make sure our teacher training programmes remain up to date, we are continuing research into best practice in identifying and supporting children with SEN. The issue of dyslexia, I know, is a particular cause of concern to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and I am glad to be able to tell him that we are working with a number of partner organisations, including the British Dyslexia Association, on a ““No to Failure””, a pilot project for schools in three local authorities which will help to identify pupils with dyslexia and then provide individual specialist tuition. We are also looking at whether such specialist tuition should be extended more widely across the country. Around £1 million of funding over three years is being provided to support the project. In addition, we have asked Sir Jim Rose to make recommendations on the identification and teaching of children with dyslexia as part of his broad-ranging review of the primary school curriculum which is being undertaken at the moment.