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Special Educational Needs and Disability (Support) Bill

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman; the condition is established. A few months ago, one hon. Member made a similar comment about dyslexia. Such expressions of ignorance do not deal with the problem. It is not our job or a teacher's job to decide what is or is not a special need; rather, it is our job to respond to such needs. I built a very close relationship with the mother of the young man to whom I referred. She worked as a support assistant nearby and would often come along and assist. By the time that young man left my school, he was happy and making progress. I felt that my school had done an excellent job in supporting him. The big problem is that that does not happen in every case. Sometimes, the relentless pursuit of exam results and improved gradings means that some teachers and some schools decide that certain individuals are not going to contribute to their school's success and, unfortunately, they are asked to go elsewhere. That is wrong. Clause 1 concentrates on training. It would make training provision a duty and a responsibility. Rightly, the clause mentions those with special educational needs and disabilities, and not only those who are statemented. We need to be able to cater for the whole range. The requirement in the clause for local authorities to publish plans for how they are going to meet those needs would go a long way towards dealing with some of the postcode lottery issues. Any parent whose child has a special educational need going into school is presented with a vast panoply of bodies that they have to consult and with which they must involve themselves. Finding the support and help that they need can be a maze. Whether they should deal with the local PCT, education psychologists or the school itself is not clear. We all have a duty—the Bill does not prescribe it, but it does set out a means—to ensure that the process is signposted. The support and help that is given to parents needs to be clear so that they can get the help that they need. My sister has two dyslexic boys. I remember the problems she experienced when they were in primary school. The local authority refused to arrange a test so that the boys' dyslexia could be established. In fact, because she was able to do so, she paid for a dyslexia society to undertake the test, which was the only way for her to get that support. She is an articulate, very determined woman who does not take no for an answer. I am concerned that many parents do not get the support that they need, not because they do not want to push the door, but because they do not know how to push in the right direction to get what they need. Requiring local authorities to publish plans to say what will be available will go a long way. It would reinforce the Government's statutory code of practice for special needs, which is already established. I very much welcome that proposal. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Flello) mentioned special educational needs co-ordinators—SENCOs. They do not necessarily have to be qualified teachers. We had one in my school who was not, and she was excellent. She was widely respected in the school and did an excellent job in supporting all of us in delivering that particular service. It is right that all SENCOs should have training and, to back up what the hon. Member for Buckingham said, that someone at senior management level in the school should have responsibility for this area, and that they too should have training. That was the case in my school. We had a deputy with special training, and a SENCO. The deputy provided the support at senior management level to ensure that what was needed was actually provided. The Government have decided this year to abolish key stage 2 tests. That provides them with a golden opportunity to use the resources that have been freed up to provide a statutory assessment for all pupils at the age of five. That is certainly my party's policy. Rather than parents having to fight their way through a maze of different people and organisations to get an assessment, we would provide one for all young people as of right, using the resources that have been freed. That would take us a good way forward. I agree with the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) about the separation of the assessment and the provision of statements. There is often a conflict in local authorities between the available resources and the statementing process. A separation of the two functions—so that the people providing the assessment were not also the people who had to provide the funding for the statement—would help parents and pupils to get what they were entitled to. That separation is long overdue, and its implementation is certainly my party's policy. I support the clause requiring the management of special needs to be an integral part of a successful Ofsted appraisal. During the passage of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill, the Schools Minister said that it was highly unlikely that a school would get a good Ofsted rating if that provision for special needs was not of equal standing. The provision in the hon. Gentleman's Bill puts beyond doubt that that provision should form an integral part of any successful Ofsted. This would make it clear to all schools that such provision was as important as successful exam results, as relationships with parents and as how the school is managed. I believe that that is the right way to go. Clause 3 deals with permanent exclusions. My experience is that they represent a failure of the system to provide an education. If the process is working properly, some other provision can be made long before resorting to such a measure. At my school, we had to admit on many occasions that what we were able to provide for a young person was not meeting their needs. We therefore made alternative provision, often using the school's resources to buy in expertise or to buy time elsewhere. I find it hugely tragic that a third of all statemented pupils have had a permanent exclusion. There is clearly something wrong with the system and, as the hon. Member for Buckingham has said, a statemented child is nine times more likely to be excluded, which illustrates that something is going on in the system that is not meeting the young person's needs. Although the numbers are low—780 in the last year for which figures are available—that is 780 permanent exclusions too many. Beneath that, there will probably be a much larger number of fixed-term exclusions, which in all probability will have built up to lead to that permanent exclusion. My experience of the best schools is that before someone ever gets to that position, something has happened lower down. If the Bill is considered further, I think that that should be explored. I was lucky in the sense that our governors always took a much stronger interest in exclusions, whether they were fixed term or permanent, and before they would agree with any exclusion for anybody who presented with a special need—not necessarily just a statement—we had to be able to demonstrate that every other avenue had been explored. Sadly, that is sometimes not the case. In conclusion, I welcome the Bill. I am delighted that the hon. Member for Buckingham has promoted it. It will strengthen the system. It sets a framework in place from which we can build and it is not too prescriptive—in my view, that is the best way. It builds on what the Government have already done and provides a framework from which we can move forward to ensure that we get the best out of all our young people. As the Government have rightly said, every child matters. In this case, we should say that every child with special needs and every disabled child matters as much as every other child. I welcome and support the Bill.