Discrimination against people with disabilities is being challenged by a new campaign. ‘Are We taking The Dis?’ launched by the Disability Rights Commission (DRC), aims to highlight the impact of disability discrimination and features real life stories of disabled people receiving unfair treatment. It points out how disabled 16-year-olds are twice as likely to be out of education or work as their non-disabled peers, while disabled adults are more likely to be out of work or in low paid jobs than non-disabled people and earn an average of ten per cent. less per hour than non-disabled people.
Chingford Guardian, March 2, 2006

A public consultation has begun on a blueprint to boost services for children with special educational needs in Derbyshire. The move is part of a review by Derbyshire County Council about the way services are provided to young people with learning difficulties – including sight and hearing problems and autism. Some of the main ideas include increasing the number of pupils who get help with special educational needs in mainstream schools, developing a greater level of specialism at all ten special schools run by Derbyshire County Council, creating more places in mainstream schools to help children with autism or physical disabilities, and involving young people with special educational needs in decisions about their future.
Derbyshire Times, March 16, 2006

A new £37.3m education village will help provide an inclusive atmosphere for children of all educational abilities and ages, say council bosses. The Education Village in Darlington brings together Springfield Primary School, Haughton Community School and special needs school Beaumont Hill Technology College. It includes sports facilities, a performance hall and dance and drama studios. Chief Executive, Dame Dela Smith, said it would provide a unique learning experience. ‘What’s unique here is we’ve got the special needs school in the centre of the village – not in isolation or at the side. We want it to be an integral part and not a bolt-on or an add-on.’
Northern Echo, Darlington/South Durham, March 18, 2006

Police are being asked to investigate school staff who stripped and showered a pupil with cerebral palsy. The 14-year-old was left in tears after staff at Woodlawn School in Whitley Bay stripped and showered him after claiming he smelled of urine. As revealed in the Chronicle, education chiefs have found the youngster a new school after this mum refused to send him back to Woodlawn. Now as the teenager begins his new school life, his mum said she is going to report that he was stripped and showered to the police as a possible assault. A North Tyneside Council spokeswoman said: ‘Although a child protection hearing confirmed that no action was required she is within her rights to pursue this. As legal action is possible it would be in appropriate to comment further at this time.’
Evening Chronicle, Newcastle, March 22, 2006

Peter Gordon, head of Hazel Court, a special school in Eastbourne on a mainstream site, says that co-location is the way forward for inclusion for children with severe learning difficulties. Mr. Gordon, who also runs a further education unit on the same site, said he believed that pupils got the best of both worlds. ‘We’ve got specialised staff and superb facilities here. We’ve got a hydrotherapy pool and a soft play area but we have also got access to two dining halls, an assembly hall, sports facilities and a library. Half our children go to some lessons in mainstream and loads of their youngsters come over to us every day to help with classes. They look at what our children achieve and learn to have respect for them. This is quite a deprived area of Eastbourne but we have never had one incident of bullying. We share the same uniform and we join in on school trips.’
The Independent (Education), March 23, 2006

A dyslexic man who says he fell through the educational net and was forgotten today launched a claim for £500,000 damages. Richard Smith, 27, was of above average intelligence and without any other disability when he was removed from mainstream school at the age of eight because of his literacy problems. He was placed in the special school system where he remained, neither identified or treated, until he was 16, his counsel, Nicholas Bowen told Judge Seymour QC at London’s High Court. Mr Smith is suing Hampshire County Council and Knowsley Metropolitan District Council, claiming that he has been ‘disabled by the education system itself’. He argues that he was ‘grossly misplaced’ by Hampshire County Council for his education between eight and 15 and that when he moved to Knowsley the authority missed the opportunity to keep him in education until he was 19 and make good the damage.
PA Newswire, March 28, 2006

Writing in the Scotsman newspaper, Kristina Woolnough questions whether cutting support for disabled children by reducing hours for learning assistants at schools in Edinburgh can be considered as contravening the new Additional Support for Learning Act. She says: ‘Edinburgh City Council has decided to reduce learning assistant hours with no analysis of need and no room for negotiation. Is this legal under the terms of the act? Or will school staff, compromised by being in the employ of the Council, have to adjust their strategies accordingly?’
The Scotsman, March 29, 2006