Campaigning successes on exclusions

The National Autistic Society (NAS), along with other members of the Special Educational Consortium (SEC), has been campaigning on the proposed reforms set out in the Education Bill.

We had particular concerns about proposals in the Bill in relation to exclusions. The Bill proposes replacing Independent Appeals Panels (IAPs) who currently review decisions on exclusions with new Review Panels.

Unlike IAPs, the Review Panels will not have the power to reinstate students who have been excluded if they feel that they were wrongfully so. We were also concerned about the knowledge and understanding of autism and other Special Educational Needs (SEN) among members of the Review Panels.

These reforms apply to England only.

Following campaigning from the NAS and the SEC, the Government has made the following commitments on exclusion:

• The SEN Tribunal will hear disability discrimination cases where a child has been permanently excluded and re-instatement will be a possible remedy in these cases;
• Revised statutory guidance on exclusions will explicitly state the need for Governors to take special educational needs into account when reviewing the decision to exclude;
• Parents will be able to request that an SEN expert attend the review panel; and
• Using risk of exclusion as a trigger for a multi-agency assessment of need will be included in guidance

The NAS has continuing concerns on the specifics of these commitments. For instance, who will be the SEN expert that sits on a Review Panel? We also remain concerned about who the statutory guidance will apply to and how it will be monitored and enforced.

Let us know what you think of the changes in the box below.

New Education Bill

The new Education Bill is expected to be published on 20th January.

The Government has said that the Bill will:

• provide schools with the freedoms to deliver an excellent education in the way they see fit.
• reform Ofsted and other accountability frameworks to ensure that head teachers are held properly accountable for the core educational goals of attainment and closing the gap between rich and poor.
• introduce a slimmer curriculum giving more space for teachers to decide how to teach.
• introduce a reading test for 6 year olds to make sure that young children are learning and to identify problems early.
• give teachers and head teachers the powers to improve behaviour and tackle bullying.
• expect standards across the education sector to rise through the creation of more Academies and giving more freedom to head teachers and teachers. We will also ensure that money follows pupils, and introduce a ‘pupil premium’ so that more money follows the poorest pupils.

The National Autistic Society will be particularly looking at any sections of the Bill on behaviour and will be arguing that any changes to legislation or policy on behaviour needs to take into account the specific needs of children with autism.

We also believe that the reading test at age 6 needs to be reconsidered and a different test introduced so that special educational needs including autism can be identified at an earlier stage.

We will report on more details of the Bill when it is published.

Let us know in the box below what you think of the expected reforms.

Too many children labelled as having a special educational need?

This week Ofsted published a report on education in England for children with special educational needs and disabilities.

Much of the media coverage of the report focused on its claim that too many children were being identified as having a special educational need, when in fact what was needed in schools was better teaching.

However, the report also highlighted that children with complex needs, such as autism were not being identified or given access to the support they needed.

The report also recognised that all too often parents were having to fight to get the right support for their children. At the NAS, we regularly hear from parents who have experienced these battles.

Ofsted also noted that even when additional support was in place, not enough was being done to make sure that it was effective and actually helping the child to achieve their potential.

Click here to read our response to the report

Click here to read the full report.

Please comment below on your thoughts about the report and the press coverage.