Delays in building mean a severely disabled pupil is still waiting for her first day at secondary school. Lucy Hudson, 11, has congenital muscular dystrophy and must use a wheelchair. For the past five weeks she has been at home with her mother while her future classmates are at Barton Court Grammar School in Canterbury. Lucy’s condition means she has to lie down during lessons. And needs to be hoisted in her wheelchair using a sling when moving around the school. Education chiefs said this week that the cost of Lucy’s access to Barton Court School was in the region of £300,000 and work had been carried out for a year. The delay had been cause by structural problems which came to light in the summer holidays.
Kent Messenger (County), October 7, 2005

A child who was told nowhere in Cambridgeshire could teach him has started at a mainstream school. Eleven-year-old Laurence Clover has such severe Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism, that Cambridgeshire County Council told his mother there was no school in the county that would be able to teach him. When school started in September he still didn’t have a school place and his mother thought he would have to be taught by tutors at home. But now the county council has done a U-turn and Laurence has become a pupil at Cottenham Village College which has a specialist unit for children with special needs.
Cambridge Evening News, October 8, 2005

Medway Council will be seeking to place special needs children into mainstream schools to reduce waiting lists at the town’s four special schools. Bradfields, Danecourt, Abbey Court, and Rivermead provide 600 places for children who have mental health problems, severe learning difficulties, medical ailments and autism. But they are not big enough to cope with the growing number of youngsters needing one-to-one education. More than 100 children are placed in schools outside the borough or in independent schools because Medway cannot meet their needs. There are no places available at Danecourt until January 2007, where £1.2million is being spent to replace temporary classrooms. Bradfields has 29 vacancies available next September but 40 children are seeking a place.
Medway Messenger, October 10, 2005

A teenager who was expelled for allegedly taking a craft knife into school has won £5,000 for his hurt feelings. Mark Bygrave, 15, was awarded £11,000 in compensation and also given £6,000 towards his home tuition. The Local Government ombudsman, Jerry White, ruled that the local authority in Greenwich was guilty of maladministration for failing to provide the boy with a proper full-time education after he was expelled.
Express and Star (City Final -Wolverhampton), October 11, 2005

Most teachers have received less than a day’s training on how to teach pupils with special needs. A survey for the Times Educational Supplement reveals that 37 per cent had no instruction at all during their initial teacher training, while just over a fifth (23 per cent.) received only one or half a day’s instruction. Jonathan Rix, lecturer on inclusion, curriculum and learning at the Open University, believes that it is impossible to prepare a teacher in just one day for the challenges of working with special needs children. ‘One of the primary battles for teachers is overcoming fear of working with special needs pupils. If you have hands-on experience, you start to understand that tools which you use with other children can also apply to those with SEN. But one day is not enough to build up confidence. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you have self-confidence, you’ll believe it’s your job, rather than a role for specialists’.
Times Educational Supplement, October 14, 2005

All special schools in Brent , London, are to remain, says the local Council. Brent Council ruled no special school should close, after a review of its special educational provision. A council spokesman said: ‘The proposals set out a strong and continuing role for special schools in meeting complex needs and supporting the work of mainstream schools. Improvements in provision mean fewer children will need to travel to special schools outside Brent. The development came when it was reported that Brent LEA would have difficulties making all of its schools compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act.
Camden Times, October 19, 2005

Teachers believe up to 25,000 children in England and Wales are in mainstream education who would be better off in special schools, a TES survey suggests. The findings raise doubts about whether thousands of children with special needs, ranging from behaviour disorders to physical disabilities are being adequately provided for. And they call into question the Government’s policy on inclusion. The survey also reveals that thousands of teacher days are lost as a result of stress or injury caused by teaching children with special needs. But despite their reservations most teachers support inclusion where possible. And around a third of heads and teachers think children with special needs are most likely to achieve their potential in a mainstream school. Almost half of heads and more than a third of classroom teachers believe that the education of other children is enhanced by special needs pupils.
Times Educational Supplement – Scotland, October 21, 2005

A special needs teenager is being forced to live 120 miles away from his family because of lack of expert care in Norfolk. For the past year, Lisa Eastman’s son, Daniel, 14, has been boarding at a £45,000-a-year specialist school in Rutland where he is desperately homesick and talks of running away. But because of the high cost of ferrying him to and from the school, he can go home only once every fortnight. The youngster who was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder when he was six, is one of 150 special needs children educated outside the county. Norfolk County Council, which has responsibility for education, admitted the situation was less than ideal and said it was taking steps to reduce the reliance on far-away establishments.
Evening News (Norwich), October 25, 2005