Consultation on revived plans for a shake up of special schools in County Durham will begin next week. Durham County Council education chiefs gave the go-ahead last week to begin talks on the possible closure of four existing schools and their replacement with two new ones. If approved, the proposals would see Murphy Crescent and Warwick Road School in Bishop Auckland along with Whitworth House in Spennymoor and Rosebank in Ferryhill replaced. The plan is to build a 160-pupil school for pupils with a wide range of special needs, aged from 2 to 11, years on the Warwick Road site and an 200-place school for pupils aged 11 to 19 at Spennymoor Comprehensive lower site at a total cost of £7.3m. When similar proposals were put forward four years ago there was fierce opposition from two of the schools but since then one has burned down and agreement has been reached at the other.
Wear Valley Advertiser, June 3, 1999.

A charity campaigning to allow terminally ill children to stay on at school after their illness has been diagnosed has received a lottery grant of £127,167. Researchers for the Children’s Hospice South West believe that too many children with life-threatening diseases are excluded from school because head teachers feared they would be blamed in anything happened to them. Jill Farwell, who founded the hospice near Barnstaple, North Devon, said school gave sick children’s lives an element of normality and continuity and gave parents a break. It also helped other children to come to terms with death. Researcher Tricia Nash said: ‘It must be terribly upsetting for a child if they know they are being excluded from school. It is difficult for the parents too. They are made to feel like outcasts.’
The Times, June, 1999.

Parents of a girl with Down’s Syndrome, who has been repeatedly sent home from school because of staff absence, have decided to send her to a special school. Geoffrey and Lesley Hetherington say they have been forced to take Sarah, 10, out of Whitleigh Junior School after she was sent home 15 times since January. Head teacher, David Vickers, said it was hard to get staff to stand in. Sarah had done well socially and academically and he was sad to see her go. A spokesperson for Plymouth City Council said it was satisfied with the support given to special needs pupils at Whitleigh. ‘This is a matter of choice for the parents.’
Plymouth Evening Herald, June 9, 1999

Parents of children with learning disabilities yesterday vowed to break the law and keep their youngsters off school if a special school is closed. The pledge came after Hartlepool Borough Council decided to close Thornhill Special School by 2001. Angry mothers and their children gathered outside Hartlepool Civic Centre with placards to lobby councillors in a vain attempt to prevent the closure. The decision is part of the local education authority’s new policy of integrating children with special needs into mainstream schools.
Northern Echo, June 10, 1999.

Harrow last year had the worst record in London and the third worst in England for excluding pupils from special schools. Out of 203 children in Harrow’s three special schools, five were excluded last year, although the year before none were excluded. A spokesman for Harrow Education Authority said: ‘Of the five children we excluded last year from special schools three were from other boroughs so we may not have been given a complete picture of their needs. It does cause us concern if any pupils is excluded from a special school and we are committed to including children in mainstream schools.’
Stanmore and Edgware Observer, June 24, 1999.

Extra teaching staff for the deaf are set to be employed in Walsall to cope with the increasing number of pupils with hearing difficulties entering mainstream schools in the borough. Walsall Council is set to appoint an additional part-time teacher of the deaf and a full-time nursery nurse sign communicator to join the authority’s hearing impaired service. The service currently has eight staff members — the same level as ten years ago.
Wolverhampton Express and Star, June 29, 1999.