Two special schools in Darlington are trying to find the cash to go ahead with a joint bid to gain technology college status. Abbey Hill School in Stockton and Beaumont Hill School in Darlington want to be a technology base for all students with learning difficulties in the Tees Valley. Mike Venning, headteacher at Abbey Hill, said: ‘It would be the first nationally if our special schools get this status so we would be pace setters in that sense. We would establish a centre of excellence.’
Northern Echo (Darlington), March 5, 1999.

Special schools are to be scrapped in Islington, London, in a long-term plan to integrate children in mainstream education. The five special schools in the area will shut and children with special needs will attend mainstream classes or special units within primary and secondary schools. Islington Council aims to model itself on Newham where special schools have been phased out over the past 11 years. Pupils from Rosemary School for children with severe learning difficulties are likely to be the first to be integrated.
Highbury and Islington Express, March 5, 1999.

Children with Down’s Syndrome are being denied the right to attend mainstream schools, according to a new survey. A quarter of parents interviewed for the survey said they had faced opposition from local education authorities in choosing mainstream education for their children over special schools. And the survey also found out that when their children were accepted into mainstream schools the support services provided varied widely. For example, provision of help from learning support assistants varied from one hour to 37 hours a week, depending on the LEA. Carol Boys, director of the Down’s Syndrome Association, said that a number of LEAs are unwilling to provide the support required to allow children with Down’s Syndrome to attend the school of their choice which for many parents is the local mainstream school.
Western Morning News (Plymouth), March 8, 1999.

A parent governor at Barbara Priestman Special School in Sunderland which is due to close says that comments that many people are supportive of inclusion is misleading. According to the governor, Ms M. Binns: ‘It is true that many people submitting proposals were supportive of the principle of inclusion but it has also been pointed out by thousands of Wearside objectors that these people only support this principle in an ideal world situation. ‘Surely not even the bureaucrats at the Civic Centre are so arrogant as to suggest that they can create such a world for our children?’
Sunderland Echo, March 13, 1999.

Cheshire County Council’s Education Committee voted by an 8-5 majority to close Brook Farm Special School which takes children with emotional and behaviour difficulties from across Cheshire and Wirral. Councillors were unanimous in their praise of Brook Farm but some said the closure was inevitable because of falling numbers.
Chester Chronicle (Country), March 19, 1999.

There has been criticism of a headteacher’s comments that the success of his Buckinghamshire school was partly due to not having children with special educational needs. In a letter to the Editor, Deborah Armstrong writes: ‘I think it is a shame if we take these league tables seriously and worry about academic achievement in this narrow-minded way. I always thought that good schools were down to teachers and supportive parents working together with adequate county funding to help children achieve their individual best at whatever level. I would be very wary of proclaiming a school top of the league based solely on the results of one year’s class in a key stage test.’
Bucks Free Press, March 19, 1999.

A series of investigative articles by a Gloucestershire newspaper has concluded with new proposals for a re-organisation of special educational needs provision in the county. According to the investigation, councillors of all parties show a marked reluctance to press ahead quickly with reform before the detailed logistics of a major policy change are known. Now the headteacher of the county’s largest special school, the Milestone School, is suggesting what he calls a ‘middle way’. Vincent Stroud, who is researching the integration of special need pupils for a doctorate, suggests that special schools should be encouraged to work alongside mainstream schools over a five year period so that pupils who are ready can transfer to the mainstream with support. Mr Stroud pointed out that already some children were being integrated into mainstream from special school each year in a structured and supported way and added: ‘I ask that we work together to create the right kind of provision for pupils with special educational needs which makes special schools a part of education as a whole, and not apart from it’.
Gloucester Citizen, March 23, 1999.

Claims that parents want their children educated in mainstream schools in Gloucester have been hotly denied. Wendy Wilding, who is a parent and school secretary, says the reason why numbers are falling in special schools is because children need to have a statement of special educational needs to be considered for a special school and the education authority has made it ‘almost impossible’ to obtain one. She adds: ‘Let’s face it. They got it all wrong when they decided on care in the community and I am sure they have got it wrong now’.
Gloucester Citizen, March 23, 1999.

Parents in Greenwich fear their children will suffer at the expense of a new super-school to be build near the Millennium Dome. They fear that the Millennium School which will be built in the eco-village near the Dome will poach pupils and cash from several other struggling schools in the area with the result that small schools which are important to the community will face closure. Among other benefits, the showcase school will boast state-of-the art computers and will include children with special needs throughout the age-range. Parents think that an exodus from other schools to the Millennium School will be sparked because childless, yuppie couples attracted to the area will not fill it. Greenwich Council insists that the school will not open until there are enough school-age children in the eco-village peninsula and say that the Government offer for funding for the first year is too good an opportunity to turn down.
New Shopper Greenwich and Charlton, March 24, 1999.

Parents with children with severe learning difficulties in Harrow are battling to have them sent outside the Borough because they claim local special education is not good enough. Now they have launched a campaign to improve Harrow’s only school for children with severe learning difficulties, Whittlesea School. They say it has not got the facilities to meet the specific needs of the range of pupils it educates, is overcrowded and badly organised.
Stanmore and Edgware Observer, March 25, 1999.