Special educational needs provision - Essay Example

Special Educational Needs Provision The Education reform Act of 1988 marks an historic and radical revision of education in England and Wales based on an ideology starkly at odds with that which guided the system's development in the previous four decades (Cor, 1996). The reliance on market forces as a mechanism of quality control and the unprecedented degree of centralized control of the curriculum, for instance, are principles calling for revolutionary changes in the way teachers operate. Their impact has been made more difficult to assimilate by the speed with which these policies are introduces and there political sponsors refusals to acknowledge what may educationists have argued are potentially dangerous implications. And also in this, special education is not only reflected as a broader educational concept but also as a broader social and political concept. (Len, 1988). Special educational needs are defined in the 1993 Education Act as learning difficulties that call for special provision besides that routinely provided in mainstream schools (1993 Act, para 156). If what is provided routinely does not meet the child's learning needs then a statement of SEN, specifying additional resources will be required. The inexorable rise in the number of children with statements, combined with increasingly high levels of parental expectations concerning special educational needs provision, has led to demands on the founders, the Local Education Authorities (LEAs) which can no longer be met (Ann, 1997). Recognizing this, the 1993 Education Act proposed a Code of Practice to clarify what special educational needs provision should be made generally available in mainstream schools. Children with special educational needs form a substantial minority of the primary school population. The Warnock Report (DES, 1978) suggested that 20 percent of children will have special educational needs at some time during their school careers. This figure, derived from standardized test and survey data, has been criticized as arbitrary and self-fulfilling but is supported by a wide range of research evidence (e.g. Croll and Moses, 1985; Mortimore et al. 1988; Shorrocks et al, 1992). Thus children with a variety of special educational need form a significant group and one that may draw disproportionately on scarce educational resources. To be precise, in 2005 around 18% of all pupils in school in England were categorized as having some sort of special educational need (SEN) (1.5 million children) (Ann, 1997). Around 3% of all children (250,000) had a statement of SEN and around 1% of all children were in special schools (90,000) - which represents approximately one third of children with statements. With such a large number of children involved, it is important to recognize that many children are receiving the education they need in an appropriate setting. It is equally important, however, to highlight the difficulties faced by a large number of parents for whom the system is failing to meet the needs of their children. The influence of the Warnock Report was not restricted to a new conceptualization of special educational needs; it also made wide - ranging recommendations about the way in which special educational provision should be developed. The Committee argued that the provision should be seen as 'additional or supplementary" rather than 'separate or alternative' to regular education, and described a continuum of settings in which it might take place. For most children, their needs would be met in ordinary classrooms, with additional support as required. The Warnock Committee (DES, 1978) heralded a major reform of education for disabled children. The 1981 Education Act introduced the concept of children with special educational needs together with the procedure that quickly became dubbed 'statementing' (David, 1989). Through, this procedure it was intended that an assessment and statement of a child's special educational needs would be undertaken and that this, in turn, would determine the appropriate provision - an example of the 'needs-led' approach which was to become more familiar in the field of community care in the 1990s.Unfortunately it quickly became apparent that the process was complex, protracted and costly for all concerned and failed to pave the way unequivocally for the introduction of inclusion of disabled children and mainstream schools. Inclusion policy - a confused message : The Government's policy of inclusion has come under criticism recently for its confused and changing definition which is reported to be causing the closure of special schools and "forcing" some children into mainstream schools when it is not in their best interests to be there, resulting in distress for pupils and parents. Inclusion is a broad concept that covers a wide range of issues both within and between schools - and interpretations of the concept varies greatly - but, with specific regard to special schools (Clough & Nutbrown, 2006). What is urgently needed is for the Government to clarify its position on SEN - specifically on inclusion - and to provide national strategic direction for the future. The government needs to provide a clear over- arching strategy for SEN and disability policy (Loxley & Thomas, 2001)It needs to provide a vision for the future that everyone involved in SEN can purposefully work towards. The government should be upfront about its change of direction on SEN policy and the inclusion agenda, if this is indeed the case, and should reflect this is updated statutory and non-statutory guidance to the sector. For many children with SEN and disabilities, special schools provide an invaluable contribution to their education. The issue should not be their closure but how to progress to a system based on a broad range of high quality, well resourced, flexible provision to meet the needs of all children. Child - centered provision : The Government needs to develop a child-centered approach with regard to each stage of the statementing process: assessments of needs; allocation of resources; and placement. It should develop a system based on early identification and intervention, where schools are fully resourced and staff is fully equipped to meet those needs, and where there is a broad range of suitable high quality provision available to ensure all children are healthy, safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution, and achieve economic well-being. SEN provision should be integral to the Every Child Matters agenda to ensure a scam less service is in place with multi-agency involvement across key transition phases and through adulthood (Loxley & Thomas, 2001). The Government needs to radically increase investment in training its workforce so that all staff, including teaching staff, is fully equipped and resourced to improve outcomes for children with SEN and disabilities. Thus, Special educational needs should be prioritized, brought into the mainstream education policy agenda and radically improved. The range of special educational need and provision : Special educational need arises from a complex interaction of personal and environmental factors, and may be viewed as a mismatch between the emotional, social and learning demands that are made of a pupil and the resources that the pupil has to meet these demands. It follows, therefore, that the difficulties a pupil experiences cannot be understood in isolation from the context in which they occur. In the majority of cases, special education need is identified at school, when aspects of a pupil's progress or behavior gives cause for concern (Corbett & Clough, 2000). Because educational needs are relative to the learning contexts that pupils experience, and to the attitudes and expectations of others, teacher judgments about pupils are likely to be affected by the general levels of attainment in a class, as well as by school and LEA practice. Nevertheless, for a minority of pupils the assessment of special educational need is based primarily on the diagnosis of some specific impairment which restricts their ability to participate fully in the educational opportunities that are generally available. It is important, therefore, that teachers are aware of the nature of such impairments. Usually, although not always, these are likely to have been detected prior to a child starting school. More boys than girls are likely to be affected, but, unlike the larger categories of special educational need, the presence of specific impairment is not associated with specific socio-economic variables (Farrell & Tallberg, 2003). One of the guiding principles underpinning the Code of Practice is that 'children with special educational needs require the greatest possible access to a broad and balanced education, including the National Curriculum' (DfE 1994a: para, 1:2). It gives a legal entitlement to all children to share in a set of common curricular experiences. In doing so, it required their teachers to the provision of a curriculum that should be not only broad and balanced, nut also 'relevant and differentiated', in order to meet the full range of pupils needs. To understand the ways in which this provision has developed, it is helpful to consider the approaches to the curriculum that have influenced special education in the past. A particular strength was always in the explicit attention paid to aspects of learning that tend to remain part of the 'hidden' curriculum in mainstream education (Shorrock, 1992). That is, there was usually an emphasis on planned activities which aimed to enhance both feelings of personal worth and also confidence and competence in social interaction. However, the focus tended to be more on the special than on the common educational need of the pupils, and a risk associated with this was that it could lead to an underestimation of achievement. Thus, the introduction of the National Curriculum meant that children with special educational needs in both special and mainstream contexts should have access to a wider range of learning experiences. The social and emotional context for learning : An interactive concept of special educational needs emphasizes that pupils experience difficulties where there is a significant mismatch between what they themselves bring to bear in learning situations and the expectations those are made of them (Wolfendale,1992).It should be acknowledged, however, that the informal or 'hidden' curriculum of relationships and interactions at school can also pose considerable demands of pupils with respect to their social competence and their personal resources, such as self- confidence. The interrelationships between children's learning achievements and their social and personal development are complex, but it is generally accepted that pupils learn most effectively when they feel valued and secure, trust their teachers, and both understand and accept the full range of classroom demands (Polland, 1988). However, this might be particularly important for those with special educational needs. CONCLUSION: Under the 1944 Education Act, children with special educational needs were categorized by their disabilities defined in medical terms. Many children were considered to be "uneducable" and pupils were labeled into categories such as "maladjusted" or "educationally sub-normal" and given "special educational treatment" in separate schools. The Warnock Report in 1978, followed by the 1981 Education Act, radically changed the conceptualization of special educational needs. It introduced the idea of special educational needs (SEN), "statements" of SEN, and an "integrative" - which later became known as inclusive approach, based on common educational goals for all children regardless of their abilities or disabilities namely independence, enjoyment and understanding. The various acts and legislations that have followed demonstrate the progress in attitude that has taken place since the Warnock report towards the aim of trying to include all children in a common education framework and away from categorizing children with SEN or disabilities as a race apart (Len,1988). This has been representative of a broader international trend. REFERENCES : Alur & Hegarty (2002). Education and Children with Special Needs: From Segregation to Inclusion, Paul Chapman Publishing Barton Len (1988). The Politics of Special Educational Needs. Routledgefalmer publishers. Clough & Corbett (2000). Theories of Inclusive Education: A Student's Guide. Paul Chapman Publishing. Croll & Moses (1985). One in Five: The Assessment and Incidence of Special Educational Needs. Routledge and Kegan Paul. Diane Shorrocks (1992). Evaluating key stage 1 assessments: the testing time of May 1991, Early Years, 13, 1, Autumn 1992, 16-20 Evans, Lunt & Wedell (1992) Special Needs and the 1988 Act. Cassell. Farrell & Tallberg (2003). Understanding Special Educational Needs. Routledge Frederickson, N. & Cline, T. (2002) Special Educational Needs, Inclusion and Diversity: A Textbook. Paul Chapman Publishing Griffiths, M. and Davies, C. (1995) In Fairness to Children. London: David Fulton Jones & Docking (1992). Special Educational Needs and the Education Reform Act. Trentham Books publishers. Lewis Ann (1997). Special Needs Provision in Mainstream Primary Schools. Trentham Books publishers. Meijer Cor (1996). New perspectives in Special Education. Routledge. Mortimore, P. et. al. (1988) School Matters: The Junior Years Somerset: Open Books Nutbrown, C. and Clough, P. (2006) Inclusion in the Early Years. Paul Chapman Publishing Sugden David (1989). Cognitive Approaches in Special Education. Routledgefalmer publishers. Thomas, G. & Loxley, A. (2001) Deconstructing Special Education and Constructing Inclusion. Open University Press. Upton & Gulliford (1992). Special Educational Needs. Routledge Wilson Ruth (2003). Special Educational Needs in the Early Years. Routledge. Wolfendale, S. (1992) Primary Schools and Special Needs London: Cassell http://www.dfes.gov.uk/sen/ Read More