A ten-year-old boy has been expelled from Knuzden St Oswald’s C of E Primary School, Blackburn, after carrying out a ‘violent assault’ on a teacher. But the mother of Thomas Briggs, who is also alleged to have attacked a fellow pupil, said education bosses had failed her son who suffers from an autistic-like disorder. She said that if he had been given the specialist care and supervision he needed his disciplinary problems would not have surfaced. Teachers and education chiefs said the school had ‘no alternative’ to excluding him after witnessing a ‘gradual deterioration’ in his behaviour.
Lancashire Evening Post, September 21, 2005

A headteacher has made a passionate plea to education bosses not to axe specialist deaf teaching at her school. Nab Wood School is set to lose its specialist provision as part of a review of deaf teaching in the district. Secondary school deaf teaching is set to be transferred from Nab Wood School to Hanson School in Bradford in plans which see two new centres of excellence created In Bradford, costing up to £3.6 million. As well as Nab Wood school losing its specialist provision for deaf teaching Thorn Park School for the Deaf will close for good. Nab Wood’s headteacher, Helen Lynch said that the provision and expertise at the school had been praised by Ofsted and since 1999 all students had achieved six or more A to G grades.
Telegraph and Argus Bradford, September 23, 2005

Plans to save two special schools in Gloucestershire from closure may be shelved, it emerged last night. Labour and Lib Dem councillors have issued a call-in notice which will delay plans to save Alderman Knight School in Tewkesbury and Belmont School in Cheltenham. They claim the Conservatives have not presented enough arguments to overturn their initial closure plans, among other technical grounds. It comes a week after the Conservative-controlled council backed proposals to stop the axe falling on the two schools by re-writing the council’s special education needs policy.
Western Daily Press, Bristol, September 29, 2005

Students who have difficulties reading text or handling books have benefited from the development of ‘smart’ electronic textbooks at the Open University. The OU has developed a computer system that allows ‘print-impaired’ students – who may be partially sighted, have fatigue or dyslexia or difficulty manipulating books – to listen to an audio recording of a text while simultaneously searching, bookmarking and annotating it. They system – called Readout – is being used by more than 300 students on 30 courses. It allows them to complete self-assessment questions in texts and make marginal notes in their electronic books. The recording of texts is done by volunteers.
Times Higher Education Supplement, September 30, 2005