Parents desperate to save a special education centre from closure have won a partial victory. A decision about the future of The Cheyne Centre, a full time education and therapy centre based at Chelsea and Wesminster Hospital, London, has been delayed while further research is carried out. Parents of children at the centre say their children’s needs can not be met elsewhere. However, Richard Reiser, of Disability Equality in Education, said it was wholly appropriate that such a centre should be shut down in the twenty-first century. Parents should fight for guaranteed provision in mainstream schools.
Disability Now, October 1, 2004.
A re-organisation of special education in Bradford could rob deaf secondary school pupils of their only specialist sign language school. One plan to be considered for Thorn Park School for the Deaf, a British Sign Language School for nearly 100 deaf children between two and 18, is for it to move to another site and take in only primary-aged children. The secondary school pupils would transfer to a specialist unit in a mainstream secondary school. The idea appalls Yvette Gartery, whose 12-year-old son, Jordan, now attends Thorn Park after spending his primary years in a specialist unit at mainstream. She said: ‘If you are taught in a class say, with 30 hearing children and six deaf, by the time the interpreter has told the children what the teacher has said, the teacher has moved on to another topic. It makes it very difficult for them to ask questions if they do not understand.’
The Independent, October 12, 2004.
Children with special educational needs are not benefiting from the Government’s policy of inclusion in many schools, an Ofsted inspectors’ report said yesterday. Too often they work alone on inappropriate tasks under the supervision of classroom assistants, instead of being included and engaged in lessons. In some schools they are taught separately by assistants in small groups resulting in feelings of isolation and in others they are put in the lowest ability set, which resultant damage to self-esteem. Head teachers are reluctant to take children with behavioural difficulties because of their effect on the rest of the class. The proportion ending up in pupil referral units has gone up by a quarter. As a result, the most needy tend to be concentrated in schools with spare places or in those which have built up a reputation for helping them, which leads to imbalance in the intake. The report is the first in-depth look at the inclusion of special needs pupils in mainstream schools since the policy was enshrined in the Special Educational and Educational Needs Disability Act, 2001.
Daily Telegraph, October 13, 2004.
The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (Cabe) and the Royal Institute of British Architects have joined forces to prompt a ‘great debate’ on the future of school building. In a new report, 21st Century Schools: Learning Environments of the Future, they pinpoint the issues that all school builders will need to think about. Tomorrow’s schools, the report says, will have to respond to demands that were never on the agenda in the past: how best to provide and use technology; how to include children with physical and emotional difficulties; how to adapt to an ever-changing curriculum, how to provide community facilities, and how to respond to environmental concerns.
The Independent (Education), October 14, 2004.
In a joint Letter to the Editor senior officers of the Special Educational Consortium, the Council for Disabled Children, Contact A family, and Mencap, say that they are concerned at suggestions that including disabled children in mainstream schools is not working. According to the four organizations: ‘Just because inclusion is difficult doesn’t mean it is a mistake or can’t be achieved. Given the right attitude and resources, it can provide educational and social benefits for disabled and non-disabled children alike. As Monday’s Ofsted report makes clear, disabled children can do well when mainstream schools adapt to their needs. The challenge for the Government, local authorities and schools is to ensure that every disabled child, wherever taught, receives the right educational support and that this support is better resourced than now.’
The Independent, October 16, 2004.
A new £4m combined primary and special school officially opened its gates in Witney, Oxfordshire, last week. The futuristic building on the Madley Park Estate is home to Springfield Special School, previously at Moorland Close, and the recently-founded Madley Brook Primary School. It’s being hailed as a model of inclusive education. Students from the mainstream and the special school share facilities including school halls, IT suite, food technology room, library and staff room. There are also specialist facilities including a hydrotherapy pool, a soft play room and a sensory theatre. Each school has its own governors, head, and staff but teachers share the staff room. There are now about 100 pupils at Springfield and 160 at Madley Brook.
Oxford Mail, October 19, 2004.
