27th August 2012 12:20
By Blue Tutors
Schools Perpetuate a Culture of Low Expectations
The government looks to have done something good recently in terms of education policy. After saying that there were ‘perverse incentives to over-identify children as having SEN’, the number of children labelled as having special educational needs has fallen by almost 90,000 in just two years, official figures have revealed.
Ofsted inspectors have also said the children were being wrongly identified as SEN simply because teaching wasn’t good enough.
The fall is in those children identified as having less severe needs, who ae then placed on the School Action and School Action Plus registers. The number of children with SEN statements - which have to be agreed by experts, rather than teachers - has remained static at just under 3% of all pupils.
Paul Williams, chair of the SEN committee at the NAHT heads’ union, said the drop could be prompted by Ofsted’s critical report two years ago, but that a lack of funding - schools have to provide for their own Schools Register needs now - and an increase in SEN training in teachers which helps with earlier intervention could also be responsible.
Brian Lamb, who led a review of parental confidence in the SEN system, says that it is most important that children’s needs were being met. That as long as schools are not failing to address SEN children then the fall must be a good thing.