SEN Provision & the impact of privatisation

Rachael Thomas ( Bristol NUT )

Inclusion can only work in a culture of collaboration in which there is a sharing of resources and expertise. Competitive market driven policies impact on the most vulnerable children and penalise the most dedicated of teachers.

The statement above is a quote from the final paragraph of the report commissioned by the NUT on “The Costs of Inclusion” . This report by John MacBeath, and others from Cambridge University, is referred to in the Executive’s Motion 45 on SEN provision.

The paragraph goes on to say that: “The most striking aspect of this study is the goodwill of teachers who believe in inclusion and try to make it work but do not find their goodwill repaid by the level of professional support they deserve. It is time for a thorough review of policy and practice.”

These statements sum up the issues for the NUT in terms of privatisation and resourcing to meet individual, additional needs. But, as the Brent amendment (45.1) highlights, we face attacks, not only in the education sector, but also in the health service where lack of funding is denying children access to essential services such as speech and language therapy, occupational therapy and mental health services.

Wasn’t the ‘Every Child Matters’ agenda supposed to make access to these services better? As a SENCo I certainly haven’t seen any evidence of this and, like Brent, my local NHS trust has just withdrawn speech and language therapy for KS2 children.

But, while expressing support for the “NHS Together Campaign”, teachers also need to be aware of the frustration of many NHS campaigners at the sluggishness of the health union leaderships. They have so far failed to organise a national demonstration which could harness the anger of the many thousands who have marched in towns and cities across the country. Socialist Party members will be among those keeping up the pressure for such a demo to be held.

“The Costs of Inclusion” study highlights the huge pressure felt by teachers, most of whom fundamentally believe in inclusion but are not able to overcome the enormous barriers placed in the way by government policy. Teachers then become demoralised and feel guilty for not being able to support children with SEN appropriately. The current “standards” agenda where achievement has to be in the form of national curriculum levels (and will be enshrined in performance management and ultimately teachers’ pay) is difficult for individual teachers to resist.

The onslaught of teaching to targets remains and is used to justify practice that is not in any way inclusive such as streaming and imposed “focus” teaching groups that do not benefit pupils, particularly those with SEN. Neither are the resources made available to schools to really ensure that pupils’ individual needs are met.

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SENCo’s need good quality support from a central team of dedicated SEN expertise

n the current climate, the strategy for developing Inclusive Schools should be based on the premise that a locality has a range of schools – mainly mainstream but with access to specialist provision as and when required. In this model, a vital role of special schools must be to provide outreach and support work to develop inclusivity in mainstream schools. Schools must carry out their responsibility to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to include a diverse intake of pupils, as the Disability Discrimination Act mentioned in amendment 45.2 suggests.

However, as schools are encouraged to compete and operate in isolation, the concept of partnerships between schools will become less and less realistic. The privatisation agenda, where SENCo’s are to be “procurers of services”, allows no mechanism for ensuring the quality and types of services that will be available.

Perhaps missing from the executive’s motion is the issue of the demise of local authority support services which do not seem to fit in to the government’s “personalised learning” agenda. SENCo’s need good quality support from a central team of dedicated SEN expertise on which they can draw upon for advice and support. This support can often make the difference between enabling a child to be included in mainstream and needing to be referred to an appropriate specialist setting.

The other aspect of the inclusion issue which must be examined is the role of TAs and Learning Support Assistants in the inclusion of pupils with special needs. Whilst support staff play a vital role in ensuring children’s needs are met, they are often insufficiently trained. In some cases support staff find they are not guided adequately by their class teachers perhaps due to lack of time or gaps in the teachers’ own expertise.

However, it is now usual practice for the classroom to be run by a ‘team’ of a teacher and a TA. To be an effective team it is important that support staff and teachers receive training together and are provided with time, in the school day if possible, to reflect together on strategies that have worked (or not!) Such arrangements would increase the skill level of both teachers and TAs. It would also be a helpful first step in addressing concern at the number of children who, because they have special needs, have in reality less access to direct teaching from a qualified teacher than their peers. This discrimination needs to be addressed.

As a trade union this is an approach that can build genuine links and partnerships with unions representing support staff and promote collective campaigning to improve working and learning conditions for all. We should also be building on the links already forming between rank and file members of the NUT and other public sector unions to challenge the free market economy and the wholesale dismantling of our comprehensive education system along with other socially inclusive public services. We should, as motion 45 suggests, be calling for a thorough review of policy and practice and the impact of current privatisation initiatives on pupils with SEN as this type of approach, by its nature, is not inclusive either educationally or socially.