The Association of Teacher and Lecturers meeting in Harrogate, West Yorkshire, called for all staff to be given specialist training to control violent and disruptive pupils. It emerged that teams from Ashworth Special Hospital in Merseyside had been called in to train staff in several schools and nurseries in restraint techniques. The training covers safe ways of restraining violent youngsters, such as arm grips, and ways of leading children away from confrontation or potentially harmful situations.
The Independent, April 2, 1999.

Teachers in Nottingham are expressing concerns about new proposals for special needs education due to be announced soon by Nottingham Council. Since 1991 the Council has been placing an increasing number of children with special needs in mainstream schools and currently only 900 children in the city attend special schools. John Peck, of the National Association of Headteachers said the council could expect a ‘battle royal’ if they tried to push the policy any further. He said teachers and schools felt they were not supported properly and that the LEA had moved too fast already. In their recent report on Notts education authority, inspectors from the Government watchdog, Ofsted, said one third of the schools visited expressed ‘negative and sometimes very critical views’ about the Council’s approach to pupils with special needs.
Nottingham Evening Post, April 6, 1999.

A disabled girl who last month met the world’s top diplomat in New York is continuing to face difficulties with her schooling. Hero Joy Nightingale of Canterbury met Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations on her way to accept an international award in Australia. The severely disabled 12-year-old cannot speak and communicates via her mother. The pair hold hands and Hero’s mother translates her movements. Hero wants Kent County Council to find her an enabler so that she does not have to depend on her mother but the Council have been unable to provide a suitable person. A KCC education official said the Department had done everything possible to help Hero, but their efforts had been disrupted by her family’s demands. ‘We don’t understand the way she communicates and this has made it very difficult to identify the most appropriate education for her needs. We have been trying for some time to undertake independent assessments into her abilities but so far the family has been reluctant to work with us.’
Kentish Gazette (Canterbury) April 8, 1999.

Angry parents demonstrated outside County Hall in Mold, Flintshire, demanding a better deal for dyslexic children. The Shotton-based Dyslexia Action Group is demanding a fair slice of the education cake to meet children’s needs. Action Group secretary Heather Baird, is teaching her daughter at home because of the lack of specialised teaching in the county. She says there are more than 6,500 parents in Flintshire with dyslexic children and they are all fed up with being fobbed off. ‘We think money is being misused. Schools are getting it but they are not using it as it should be used and there is no check on what they do with it’.
Deeside Chronicle, April 9, 1999.

Special education in Leicestershire is set for wide-ranging changes following a two-year investigation. The proposed development plan for special education includes more local services for special needs toddlers, linking special schools with mainstream, developing provision for secondary school pupils with moderate learning difficulties, a unit for autistic children, provision for pupils with visual difficulties, improving access to mainstream, more support for schools with problem children, considering a special school for teenage boys with emotional and behavioural difficulties, better access to information for parents, a three year training plan for staff, teachers, governors and parents and a review of the role of educational psychologists and specialist teachers.
Leicester Mercury, April 20, 1999.

A security guard was called in to protect Lambeth councillors amid chaotic scenes at a special education meeting last week. Anger erupted as the committee decided to issue statutory notices for the phased closure of eight schools including south London’s only school for the visually impaired and a school for children with hearing impairment. The committee chair, Councillor Ty Goddard, said after the meeting that the special needs review was the only way to reduce the borough’s 3,000 surplus school places. He said: ‘Every surplus place damages a Lambeth child because it means resources are being misdirected. This is a painful process for all of us but we want to renew and rebuild schools in the borough for a better future.’
The Mercury, Streatham, Brixton and Clapham, April 28, 1999.

Health chiefs say they have major fears over plans to reduce special school provision in Blackburn and Darwen. Broadlands Nursery, Blackamoor, Dame Evelyn Fox and Crosshill special schools are all under review under plans to integrate more children into mainstream. But East Lancashire Health Authority, which was asked to respond to the proposals, has major reservations. Director Bev Humphreys says resources to meet the needs of children with special educational needs are already at full stretch in the present system and the situation will be much worse if more special needs children are integrated. Health staff and therapy professionals will have far more travelling to do to reach children all over the borough.
Lancashire Evening Telegraph (Blackburn), April 20, 1999.