Asked by
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to
ensure that, when meeting the needs of those with special
educational needs in the school and college system, a legacy of
training and knowledge is retained within those institutions.
(LD)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name in
the Order Paper and remind the House of my declared
interests.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Education () (Con)
My Lords, the SEND and alternative provision improvement plan
aims to create enduring and inclusive cultures in our schools and
colleges, by delivering training and knowledge to improve SEND
support. We are delivering teacher training frameworks for
greater SEND content, a new qualification for school SENCOs, the
universal services programme, national standards, teacher
training bursaries for specialist SEND teachers in further
education and partnerships for inclusion of neurodiversity in
schools.
(LD)
I thank the Minister for that reply. However, why do we not have
a strategic plan to make sure that at least the most common
special educational needs—I once again remind the House of my
interest in dyslexia—are embedded within schools? We do not want
to go through the process of parents having to spot that their
child is struggling, but for the school to come to the parents
and say, “You have a special educational need”, not the other way
round. It is reckoned that over half of special educational needs
are not spotted at school.
Baroness Barran (Con)
I would say two things to the noble Lord. First, we do not need a
diagnosis for a child to be able to offer them support; it is
important that a child gets support as quickly as possible.
Secondly, our improvement plan is exactly the strategic plan that
the noble Lord refers to.
Lord Lexden (Con)
My Lords, is it not the case that provision for special
educational needs in our country would be greatly damaged by
Labour's proposed education tax? The party says it would exempt
from the VAT charge those in independent schools with education,
health and care plans, but there are some 100,000 in independent
schools with special educational needs who lack such plans. How
on earth would the state sector cope with the large number of
special needs students in independent schools who would be forced
to leave them, with grave damage to their education, by Labour's
education tax? I declare my interest as president of the
Independent Schools Association.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My noble friend makes a very good point. As the House knows, the
Government have invested very large amounts of money in
increasing capacity for special school places, rising by over
60,000 places since 2010, but the sector is still using
independent schools. It would put huge pressure particularly on
those children and their parents.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister accept that, notwithstanding the list
she gave in response to the first Question, the underfunding in
our mainstream schools system means that there are many children
in mainstream schools whose needs are not being met? Does she
further accept that, occasionally, those children who get plans
in primary school find it difficult to find a secondary school,
because secondary schools can choose not to take children with
plans, thus making them undesirable to schools because they know
they cannot meet their needs?
Baroness Barran (Con)
The national funding formula is structured, as the noble Baroness
is aware, to make sure that funding is targeted towards pupils
who need additional support. In 2024-25, over £4.5 billion, or
about 10% of the formula, is allocated according to deprivation
factors, and £7.8 billion, almost 18%, will be allocated for
additional needs factors. Both those elements correlate with the
prevalence of SEND.
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, the Minister will know that there are many thousands of
individual special needs teachers who go that extra mile in
meeting the very individual needs of young people with special
needs. What is the department doing to ensure that, where people
have come up with innovative ways to address needs, learning is
both retained within the institution, as in the original
Question, and shared with other schools across the sector?
Baroness Barran (Con)
That is precisely what we are aiming to do through our
practitioner standards. The noble Baroness will be aware that we
are starting with the biggest areas of additional needs: speech,
language and communication; autism; and mental health and
well-being. We have a twin approach; we partly have academic
researchers looking at the evidence base, but we are also working
very closely with practitioners to make sure we capture the best
practice, and then publish and share it.Baroness Thornhill
Thornhill (LD)
My Lords, at the heart of my noble friend's Question was surely
the issue of teacher retention. Workload pressure is cited as the
number one reason for teachers leaving the profession. The
Government currently have a Workload Reduction Taskforce, which
in January published its Initial Recommendations. One of those
really surprised me; it was to fully implement and strengthen the
recommendations of the two previous reviews, held in 2016 and
2018. Could the Minister assure us that the DfE and Ofsted will
at some point publish a joint response on their success in
fulfilling these recommendations, as they agreed at the time, or
what confidence can the profession have that the recommendations
of this current task force will be taken on board?
Baroness Barran (Con)
I can genuinely reassure the noble Baroness that teacher workload
and teacher retention are incredibly high up our list of
priorities within the department. It is a central focus of the
team. In addition to workload, it is critical that we equip our
teachers with the skills, experience and confidence they need to
deal with what they are facing in the classroom. That is why, for
example, the inclusion of much more content on special
educational needs and disabilities in initial training and the
early careers framework is so important.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
My Lords, pupils with special educational needs are more than
four times more likely to develop a mental health problem than
other people. This means that one in seven young people with a
mental health difficulty will also have another special
educational need. Given the huge and increasing backlog for
mental health support in schools, will the Minister tell us
whether the Government will support Labour's plan to place a
mental health professional in every school?
Baroness Barran (Con)
As the noble Baroness knows, the Government have an ambitious
plan in terms of the creation and development of mental health
support teams in schools. We estimate that, from April 2024,
those support teams will cover 4.2 million children and young
people, and we think that will rise to about half of all children
and young people by spring next year. The challenge, which the
noble Baroness will recognise, is to make sure that the demand
for mental health practitioners is balanced between the health
service, schools and other parts of the economy.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, children with special needs are expelled from popular
schools and transferred to less performing schools. What will the
Minister do to make sure that that situation is addressed so that
schools are not allowed to dump their children on another
school?
Baroness Barran (Con)
We have to be very careful about talking about dumping children.
I have not met a school yet that behaves like that. I want to
pick up on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bull. Some
of the best practice I have seen is where schools are
establishing small units within the school campus for children
with the most disruptive behaviour and only the best teachers in
the school are allowed to teach in that unit, thereby sending a
strong message about how they value those children.Baroness
Hughes of Stretford Stretford (Lab)
My Lords, according to the Government's recent statistics, in
only 49% of cases of children who have been assessed as needing
an education, health and care plan are those plans produced
within the 20-week statutory limit, leaving children, families
and schools in limbo because they cannot access the funding
required for the support the child needs. Can the Minister say
what she is doing about this?
Baroness Barran (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for her important question, which is
at the centre of parents' concerns as they worry about getting
the right support for their children. We are testing a number of
measures through the change programme to try to improve the
quality, consistency and timeliness of the education, health and
care plan process. I asked colleagues the question that the noble
Baroness is asking me, and it is too early to share the
learnings, but as soon as we can, I will be delighted to do so.
