Kingston upon Hull’s Education Committee has agreed the controversial closure of Derringham Special School. Councillors have assured parents who oppose the closure that they will have a say in where pupils now go. Pupils will not have to go to mainstream schools if they don’t wish and can attend other special schools. The decision comes after a damning OFSTED inspection last year gave the school an ultimatum to improve.
Hull Daily Mail, March 3, 1998.

Several hundred parents and children are due to take part in a Rights at Risk Campaign in London to protest over Government proposals which it’s feared could threaten special needs provision. Petitions and letters will be handed in to Government ministers and 250 balloons will be released. Each balloon represents 1,000 children who currently have statements of special educational need but whose provision could be threatened if proposals in the Government’s special needs Green Paper are made law. One of the speakers at the rally, Ryan Gross, 15, from Plymouth, said: ‘I have been successful at school because I have guaranteed help. I want to be sure that young people don’t lose those guarantees’.
Plymouth Evening Herald, March 11, 1998.

Sheffield Council is to pay for the private education of a partially deaf eight-year-old girl who was unable to hear her teachers because of the size of classes in her state school. An independent Special Needs Tribunal ruled that the council could not give Alice Ford the education she needed at St Wilfrid’s Primary School, Sheffield. Sheffield education authority agreed to pay her £2,500-a-year fees at Mylnhurst School in Ecclesall where classes are smaller.
The Daily Telegraph, March 19, 1998.

The mother who has been educating her son at home rather than send him to special school has been convicted of refusing to send him to school. Gail McKibben from Belfast was given a conditional discharge for a year at Belfast Magistrates’ Court. She was warned that if she continues to keep her son David, 13, out of school she could face substantial fines. However, Ms McKibben, who heads the charity group Disability Action, remained adamant that her son would not go to Torbank Special School, as recommended by the Education Authority. ‘If I am fined I will not pay and if that means going to jail then so be it.’
The Irish Times (Dublin), March 24,1998.

The head teacher of Welburn Hall School, Kirkbymoorside, Vic Hall, says that North Yorkshire County Council have decided not to close the school after all. He says he imagines the Council is examining its provision in the light of the Government’s Green Paper on special needs provision. Although the Green Paper promotes inclusion that does not mean that a segregated school like Welburn does not have a future. He hopes that Welburn can be promoted as a regional facility to fulfil the Green Paper’s call for greater regional co-operation between local education authorities.
Yorkshire Gazette and Herald, March 26, 1998