Liberal Democrats back better support for children with special educational needs

The Liberal Democrat Spring Conference today backed measures to improve support for children with special educational needs (SEN).

The plans include proposals to:

· Ensure the inclusion in teacher training courses of training in all types of special educational needs

· Work towards achieving and then reducing the six month target for assessment of SEN

· Ensure the needs of SEN students are included within plans to raise the education leaving age

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Children, Schools and Families Spokesperson, Baroness (Joan) Walmsley said:

"The current system for children with special needs is simply unfair and lets down thousands of young people.Parents often have to face the frustration of waiting over six months before an assessment is made of their child's needs, yet early identification is very important. It is essential that children with particular needs are supported by teachers who have been trained to give them the specialist support they need."

The policy motion as passed:

Support for Children with Special Educational Needs

Conference notes with concern that:

i) The new Children's Services initiative has yet to respond fully to the children and young people with the most complex needs.

ii) The six-month target for completion of assessments for Special Educational Needs (SEN) statements is often too long to meet the needs of young people and is frequently not being met.

iii) There is no statutory funding for children and young people on 'Action' and 'Action Plus' on the SEN Code of Practice.

iv) Too many children and young people with SEN placed in mainstream schools do not necessarily have an appropriate support package provided for them and could better achieve access to the curriculum in a special school or a school with more specialist facilities.

v) 87% of primary school children and 60% of secondary school children who are excluded from school have autism, behavioural, emotional or other special educational needs.

vi) There is insufficient teacher training covering special educational needs for both new and existing teachers.

Conference therefore calls on the Government to:

a) Separate funding from assessment and develop a multi-agency professional assessment framework which is statutorily funded and operates independently of the commissioning process; this assessment will specify the services that will then be costed and provided for that individual pupil's education.

b) Ensure that every child's special educational needs are identified at the earliest possible time.

c) Specify that the assessment framework be used to determine provision in as short as time as possible, working towards achieving and then reducing the present six-month target.

d) Ensure the needs of SEN students are included within its plans to raise the school leaving age.

e) Ensure the inclusion in initial teacher training courses, other routes to ITT, and through continuous professional development of existing teachers and support staff, of comprehensive training in all types of special educational, social and health needs, difficulties and disabilities of children and young people.

Conference further calls on local government to:

1. Make the target of full inter-agency working in schools a reality by bringing together school-based social workers, mental health nurse practitioners, community police officers and youth offending teams (YOTs) in addition to existing provision.

2. Ensure that the development of children's services takes into account the inclusion needs of the children and young people most in need and with the most complex difficulties and disabilities.

3. Develop local alternatives to Pupil Referral Units under schools regulations to enable those children and young people with misdiagnosed and/or undiagnosed needs, difficulties and disabilities to be supported in environments free from the stigma of failure caused by permanent exclusion from schools.