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Pupil special needs statements to be scrapped Special needs support promises more parent power
(about 7 hours later)
By Hannah Richardson BBC News education reporter Support for young people in England with special educational needs faces a major overhaul.
Ministers are due to unveil a major shake-up of special educational needs (SEN) support in England's schools. The government wants to replace the current complex system of statements of need with a simpler, more family-friendly assessment.
Under the proposals, education and health care plans are set to replace statements, which detail the support children with the severest level of need can expect. Parents of special needs children are also being promised control over support budgets by 2014.
The plans would be drawn up after a single assessment, rather than the numerous checks children now undergo. But teachers' union leader Mary Bousted warned that reforms could be undermined by spending cuts.
A green paper detailing the proposals is due to be published on Wednesday. There could also be a bigger role for voluntary groups in providing services.
The SEN system is one of the most controversial areas of England's education system. In 2006 a Commons education committee labelled it "not fit for purpose". The proposals, set out in a Green Paper, are being claimed as the biggest shake up for special needs education for three decades.
Currently, children who have a severe, multiple health or learning need or disability are supposed to be assessed by their local authority for the support that they need at school. 'Battle'
'More mediation' They are intended to make the support system less confusing and "adversarial" and to help parents feel that they are not always having to "battle" to get the services they need.
A statement of special educational needs is then drawn up. This relates to about 2.7% of children in England. A further 21% have a lower level of SEN which is supported directly by the school. The system of statements - setting out the details of what help is needed for individual children - is to be replaced by a single assessment process.
But parents and special needs campaigners claim councils can be unwilling to "statement" pupils, because of the legal entitlement and possible extra costs that it brings. Many face a long fight to get to the stage where a statement is drawn up. At present, about 2.7% of children in England, with severe, profound or multiple health and learning needs, have such a statement.
And although statements are supposed to have regard to health needs there can be problems getting access to the services required because they are funded separately. The proposed system aims to address children's needs in a more integrated way, bringing together schools, health and social care.
The whole process can lead to numerous assessments by different agencies involved with the child, such as the school, health and social services. The Council for Disabled Children estimates that a disabled child experiences 32 different assessments on average. The government also proposes scrapping the two categories which cover the majority of children with special needs - school action and school action plus".
It can also mean delays in children getting the support that they need to learn effectively and a huge amount of stress for parents who are left to fight for what they believe their child is entitled to. These would be replaced by a school-based scheme, aimed at raising attainment.
A possible new single assessment system, and accompanying education and health care plan, is to be piloted in 25 local authorities to try out how to get all the services working with the child working together. This reflects concerns that the label of special educational needs can be applied too broadly, losing focus on those children with the greatest need.
'Conflict of interest' Children's Minister Sarah Teather said she wanted to reduce the sense that parents were being frustrated by the system.
It is envisaged that instead of a child undergoing many separate assessments on separate days, everyone involved would meet together at the same time. "We have heard time and time again that parents are frustrated with endless delays to getting the help their child needs, and by being caught in the middle when local services don't work together," she said.
There have also been complaints that the organisation carrying out the assessment, the local authority, is the one who pays for the support it sets out. The chief executive of the National Autistic Society, Mark Lever, said parents too often had to "fight huge battles to have their child's needs recognised, understood and met".
"At the moment we know that parents' confidence in the system is seriously undermined by that perceived conflict of interest," a Department for Education spokesman said. But Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, warned that the promise of extra support would be undermined by the scale of spending cuts.
So ministers will also look at involving state-funded voluntary groups in co-ordinating the support packages families need. "Savage cuts are already being made to many of the specialist services teachers rely on to help them support children with special educational needs.
This might mean a deaf children's charity co-ordinating the package of need for a child who has hearing problems, for example. "Educational psychologists and speech and language therapists are being made redundant as local authorities cut their funding following budget cuts from government."
More mediation will be encouraged for cases where parents and local authorities cannot agree on the support for a child, in a bid to reduce the adversarial nature of the system. Labour's education spokesman Andy Burnham welcomed the proposals for a simpler system, but he said because of cuts to educational support services "these noble aims seem hopelessly out of touch with the reality on the ground".
There are also plans to give children personal budgets so that their parents can control how the funding allocated to them can be spent. "The Green Paper sets out a vision of integrated services but the Tory-led government's own health and education reforms make that harder," he said.
What should the plans include? How should special needs be assessed? Do you have a child with special educational needs?What should the plans include? How should special needs be assessed? Do you have a child with special educational needs?