Ofsted SEN Review

A major review of special educational needs and disability arrangements was published on the 14th September 2010 by Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills, reveals a range of concerns about the current system and how well it is serving children and young people.

For the ‘Special educational needs and disability review – a statement is not enough’, inspectors carried out 345 detailed case studies of young people’s experience of the current system, held discussions with many other young people and their parents, and visited 22 local authorities and a total of 228 nurseries, schools and colleges. The review considers a wide range of evidence and covers the early years, compulsory education, 16 to 19 education, and the contribution of social care and health services.

	Read the Press Release in full.
	Download the Ofsted SEN Review document.

Schools 'over-diagnosing special needs' Listen to Christine Gilbert - HMCI Ofsted (BBC Today Programme - 14 September)

If you are a FLSE member, and you would like to comment on the Ofsted SEN review, then please visit our Feedback area on the FLSE website where you have the opportunity to do this.

FLSE Comments...

1. Approve of concern for the vulnerable and those with SEND and the high expectations of provision and outcomes

2. Think the ‘poor teaching’ angle detracts from main messages about the nature of SEND, provision and of the industry of bureaucracy around it i.e.

SEND are not an option or lifestyle choice and must not be used as an excuse for poor provision, poor application by children or as an opportunity to go for nurture before high quality teaching: high quality teaching and learning is nurturing in itself

There is little agreement about some aspects of SEND

Labelling is sometimes useful and sometimes not e.g. behaviour is not a condition

The 4 main labels in the code cloud as much as clarify – performance levels may be better guide as well as truthfulness e.g. brain damage is exactly what it says and disability is a permanent state

SEND can be a matter of preference in assessment as well as of the proverbial postcode

What matters are the arrangements we make, the expectations we hold and the impact we have daily and for life– diagnosis is only as useful as the platform it provides for action, enjoyment and fruitful outcomes

It is not surprising that Ofsted states the placement of children in itself in either mainstream or special is not the biggest determinant on impact, although this does not comment on the affective impact of placements

There could be a role for FLSE and special schools in advising/guaranteeing the suitability of arrangements, the attribution of SEND and the impact on learning: put simply, saying a child has cerebral palsy, has an electric wheelchair and receives physio and speech and language therapy twice a week tells you nothing about the efficacy of his/her education, merely that we know something about their condition and a bit about input. This quality assurance could assuage some of the need for bureaucracy.

Press Comments...

Ofsted says special needs used too widely (BBC News - 14 September)

More than 700,000 pupils wrongly classed as having 'special needs' (The Independent - 14 September)

Schools exaggerating special needs to hide poor teaching (Daily Telegraph - 14 September)

Up to 750,000 'special needs' pupils are just badly taught (Daily Mail - 14 September)

Half of special needs children misdiagnosed (The Guardian - 14 September)

Other Related Articles and Comments...

Over-identification of SEN 'not the major issue'
Almost one in five school children in England are classed as having special educational needs, according to the government inspectors.

Brian Lamb, chair of the Lamb Inquiry, analyses why UK has such a high number of children classed as having special educational needs.

Listen to Brian Lamb - (BBC Today Programme - 14 September)

Education 'more than just teaching' (BBC Today Programme - 14 September)

Statement from Children’s Minister Sarah Teather on SEN
In response to the Ofsted report on special educational needs, Children’s Minister Sarah Teather said:

"Ofsted’s report presents some challenging but familiar criticisms of the system supporting children with special educational needs (SEN) and disability. It is clear that we have a consensus on some of the issues with the SEN system¬ – now I want to work with parents, charities, teachers and other organisations to find a consensus on the solutions." Read more... (DfE - 14 September)

SEN - Is this really a growing problem in our schools? For and against
Kate Fallon and Julia Douetil discuss the claim that SEN classification has expanded unnecessarily

Kate Fallon: Yes
When Mary Warnock produced her seminal report in 1978, focusing on children with special educational needs, she had no idea how phenomenal the consequences would be for children, parents and local authorities.

Warnock posited that children should have their difficulties assessed and described by all those who knew them best (initially teachers and parents), translated into "needs", with recommendations of appropriate strategies to help them to make progress.

Even the term "special educational needs" has its derivation with Warnock; previously children with a range of difficulties had been labelled according to a range of medical diagnoses which included the term "Educationally subnormal-moderate (ESN-M)" and "Educationally subnormal-severe (ESN-S)".

Unfortunately, descriptions of need have become hijacked as routes to additional resources, a far cry from what Warnock originally intended. The recent Ofsted report applauds the fact that the most vulnerable children are now identified at a very early age and receive appropriate provision relatively quickly. However, it expresses concern that the present system focuses too much upon how to access additional resources for children with statements and possibly over identifies children, maintaining that schools should be focusing more upon improving teaching and learning for all. Read more... (The Independent - 14 September)

Ofsted report on special needs comes under fire
Expert says more special needs children are being identified because diagnosis has improved

A study indicating that teachers may have wrongly labelled thousands of children as having special needs was challenged today.

Brian Lamb, who carried out a review for the previous government of parents' views of the special needs system, said more children were being identified because of better diagnosis.

About 1.7 million schoolchildren in England are regarded as having some form of special needs, ranging from physical disability to emotional problems.

While the number with the most severe challenges has gone down since 2003, the number identified as having milder problems has risen from 14% to 18% of all pupils in England in the past seven years.

An Ofsted review of special needs provision, published today, recommends that schools should stop identifying children as having special educational needs (SEN) when they simply need better teaching and pastoral support.

However, Lamb told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "There are some very good reasons why the numbers have increased over recent years. We have identified children better. We are finding children with autism, with hearing loss, that we wouldn't have identified before, for example. They are now being identified and getting provision.

"Also, as Ofsted shows itself, there is both over-identification in some areas and under-identification, so there's swings and roundabouts on that." Read more... (The Guardian - 14 September)

Listen to Brian Lamb - (BBC Today Programme - 14 September)

'Special' education comes in many different guises (The Guardian - 14 September)

Ofsted on SEN and Disability - (National Union of Teachers)
Commenting on the Ofsted publication Special Educational Needs and Disability Review, Christine Blower, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, the largest teachers' union, said;

"Teachers do a great job in often very difficult circumstances to meet the needs of all their pupils, and for Ofsted to suggest otherwise is both insulting and wrong.

"It is of course important for parents to have every confidence in the SEN provision their children receive and to know that their child is being taught by fully qualified teachers.

"It is also vitally important for teachers to feel that they have received the sufficient and training and support they need in the classroom. All too often schools are left without the necessary back up and support that is required.

"Teachers must also have the freedom to respond adequately to the needs of children and young people at whatever level they are learning. Currently the National Curriculum can act as a barrier against such freedoms." Read more... (NUT - 15 September)

Leading article: Children in need
The latest Ofsted report paints an alarming picture of what is happening in our schools. The education watchdog claims to have uncovered a widespread over-diagnosis of children with special educational needs, with up to 700,000 pupils wrongly placed in this category. Ofsted says this fixation is distorting teaching priorities and contributing to a culture of low expectations in the classroom.

Still worse, the report suggests that some schools have been wrongly classifying children as a means of boosting their league-table performance and unlocking additional resources from local government.

Ofsted's conclusions have not gone down well with the teaching profession and parts of the educational establishment. The National Union of Teachers has vehemently rejected the report, calling it "insulting and wrong". Brian Lamb, who examined the special-needs system for the previous government, also questions Ofsted's conclusions, suggesting that schools have simply become better at identifying children with problems, from autism to mild deafness.

In fairness to schools, there is a considerable grey area when it comes to children with particular educational requirements. It is often hard to distinguish between a child who has a genuine learning difficulty and a regular pupil who is badly affected by an unstable home life.

And there is no evidence that the increase in special needs designations is being driven entirely by schools attempting to manipulate the system. Many schools bear the costs of funding the additional help required by special-needs children themselves. That said, there does seem to have been over-diagnosis in recent years. And there is certainly a wide variation in the definition of special needs in different schools across the country. Read more...
(The Independent - 15 September)

A special need for Ofsted's millions
Ofsted's own track record scarcely puts it in a position to judge others.

It's the start of another school year and – rat-a-tat-tat! It's the sound of the first middle-class parent knocking on the staffroom door, triumphantly brandishing an educational psychologist's report stating for a fact, an empirical fact, that little Louis has Special Educational Needs.

Far from being downcast, she is thrilled that she has finally found a way to lay claim to extra resources for her son, in the shape of preferential academic treatment and possibly even one-to-one teaching. The school, in return, is thrilled that it will be allocated extra funding. Ta-da! Everyone's a winner.

In the Kafkaesque world of state education, where the average head teacher is required to wade through an almost impenetrable bog of bureaucracy in order to keep the funding flowing, it would be understandable if the odd case or two were to slip under the wire on the QT. But now it transpires that a staggering 750,000 children – that's one in five pupils – have been misdiagnosed as having special needs, when in fact they just have bad teachers. Read more... (Daily Telegraph - 15 September)