Inclusive education
Disabled children could be removed from mainstream schools and educated in segregated establishments for children with special needs under a Tory government.
The Conservatives have started a review of "inclusive" education, which encourages the teaching of disabled pupils alongside their able-bodied peers, in a move that will prove controversial among disability groups, which have campaigned for years for the right to access mainstream schools.
Stakeholder Response: National Association of Schoolmaster and Union of Women Teachers
Chris Keates, acting general secretary of NASUWT, said: "NASUWT argues that a truly inclusive education service provides a range of services to meet the variety of individual needs.
"Inclusion needs to be redefined to inclusion in education and not admission to a particular school.
"It has to be recognised that one single school cannot meet every diverse need. Instead, a number of institutions with different strengths should work together to provide every level of support and educational opportunity that young people require.
"Re-thinking the current system of each school operating as a single unit and replacing this with collaboration between schools would help break down prejudices and misconceptions as well as offering a wider range of educational opportunities.
"To seek to maintain such pupils in a mainstream setting, as part of a dogmatic adherence to inclusion, is a betrayal of the entitlements and needs of certain pupils.
"NASUWT has been concerned for sometime about the decline of high quality specialist provision in some LEAs which restricts parental choice and results in pupils who cannot cope in mainstream having increasingly limited options available.
"The goal should be a genuinely inclusive education service where all pupils have access to high quality provision in schools which are appropriate to their needs."
Stakeholder Response: Disabilities Trust
A spokesman for the Disabilities Trust said: "The Disabilities Trust is one of those organisations that has been asked to comment on the Conservatives Party's proposed review of disability policy.
"We welcome the chance to do so and hope that the Conservatives are genuinely committed to ensuring that their future policies are progressive and truly responsive to the needs and views of disabled people themselves.
"The Trust believes it is important to engage with all the main political parties as they seek to formulate future policy, especially as we might be entering the run-up to a General Election next year with the outcome more uncertain than for some time.
"The Independent piece does at first glance appear to give a slightly distorted view of the consultation in its emphasis on special needs education and the inference that the Tories are thinking of reinstating segregated schools, as a matter of course. Although the Party has indeed raised it as an issue, it appears to be only one of a series of questions asked of respondents.
"For our part, the Trust itself manages a school for children and young people with high functioning autism and Asperger Syndrome - Heathermount, in Ascot.
"Although we do not take a firm position in the debate over inclusion, it is true to say that a significant number of Heathermount's students have come to us as a result of difficulties experienced in mainstream education.
"Often they have been to a number of schools before they are eventually referred to us. The Trust is not saying that mainstream 'fails' as such, or that it is the fault of teachers themselves, many of whom do not have the understanding, experience or skills necessary to support pupils with profound needs such as autism.
"However, we believe it does underline the fact that until mainstream education is fully accessible, (not just in a physical sense, but also in terms of the culture and support structures in place) and also is tailored to individual pupils themselves, then there will be a continuing need for some forms of specialist education."
Stakeholder Response: Disabiltiy Rights Commission
A spokeman for the Disabilty Rights Commission said: "The Disability Rights Commission welcomes the Conservative Party’s commitment to the equality of disabled people, and in particular the acknowledgement that there is a great deal still to be done to create the conditions by which disabled people can become equal citizens.
"Britain has a shameful history of actively excluded disabled people from mainstream society.
"Whilst we have chosen a new course towards disabled people belonging in all areas of life, the legacy of exclusion is still strongly felt and is wide spread in our schools.
"Few teachers have any training before entering the profession on inclusion of disabled pupils, and many of our schools buildings have been designed without any thought to their full participation.
"The net result is that the educational opportunities available to disabled children and the quality of education on offer varies considerably.
"The DRC believes that to a great extent, the ‘choice’ to send disabled children to special schools is not a choice made freely, but represents the lack of confidence parents have in many of our mainstream schools.
"There remains a major gap in the educational outcomes for disabled and non-disabled children, and the DRC wants to see this gap closed. Only 30 years ago however, many disabled children were considered completely uneducable, hence their routine exclusion, and had few if any qualifications at all.
"There can be no retreat to the days when disabled children were routinely separated from their friends, family and society at large as a matter of policy.
"Schools are children’s communities, and involve considerably more than just the interaction of teachers and children.
"They are where our children learn about each other, gain experiences and form views and opinions which last throughout their lives.
"The DRC shares Paul Goodman’s concern about the extent to which disabled children are included in our mainstream schools.
"We do not however support the proposal that the solution can be found in actively excluding them.
"With such unprecedented investment in our education system, we have a golden opportunity to right the wrongs of the past and make great strides towards a society in which disabled children at last have the opportunity to fully belong.
"This requires us to maintain the faith in the benefits of full inclusion and to commit to eliminating the barriers that seem determined to take us back to a failed past."
Stakeholder Response: National Deaf Childrens Society
Susan Daniels, National Deaf Children’s Society chief executive, said: “Every deaf child’s educational needs are different depending on their chosen form of communication, their level of deafness, their home life and language, and the age they were identified as deaf.
"The idea that all deaf children should be educated in separate schools outside mainstream education generalises the needs of deaf children and would not be in their best interests.
“Deaf children and their parents should be provided with full and impartial information so they can choose how their deaf child is educated. As a child grows older his or her needs may change.
"The option of educating a deaf child in a school for the deaf or in a mainstream school at any stage of their education should continue to be available to families.
“NDCS strongly believes that every deaf child should have access to an education which enables them to reach their full potential at school and beyond. Educating all deaf children in segregated establishments would not support this aim.”
Stakeholder Response: Institute of Education
“It rolls back existing UK legislation in the UK, which recognises the importance of all children and young people being educated together and shows a lack of awareness that the principles of inclusive education are now largely accepted.
“The movement to inclusive education is supported by substantial research evidence that all children benefit from being educated together. The Conservative proposal undermines the work and struggles of disabled people over the past thirty years to overcome discrimination and be treated with dignity.
“Instead, greater resources need to be put in to achieving a fully comprehensive system of education in which all flourish and all have the right to full participation regardless of difference.”
Related Stakeholders
Related News
- Speech help for children is 'patchy'
- Specialist schools effectiveness questioned
- Schools set for 'radical reform'
- Specialist schools outperform rivals
- New boost to specialist schools
Discuss this article via video now
