Advisory Committee: Report into the Education of Children with Severe Low Incidence Disabilities: Page 8

Advisory Committee: Report into the Education of Children with Severe Low Incidence Disabilities

Chapter 7: Other Issues

Staff Development and Training

1 Systematic staff development and training for both teaching and support staff is an essential factor in helping to ensure that staff are able to offer the optimum educational experience to all children with special educational needs. It is particularly important for staff working with children with severe low incidence disability. The Committee welcomed the additional £2.5 million per year being made available to local authorities from April 1999 for staff development and training in special educational needs.

Co-ordination

2 The Committee received evidence from the Scottish Executive funded National SEN Training Co-ordination Project. This evidence raised issues over the relative priority which should be accorded to skills based courses as opposed to post-graduate training in specific areas. It also suggested that there was no obvious pattern in Scotland for staff training related to severe low incidence disabilities, although some subject areas showed increased demand for training such as communication disorders, autism and social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. The attention of the Committee was drawn to concerns in a number of areas, for example, the difficulties facing local authorities in providing cover for staff undertaking training; problems in balancing the needs of staff with family and caring responsibilities with "twilight" training courses which are run in some authority areas; and questions over the quality of learning in evening courses compared with daytime courses.

3 Given its significantly increased investment in funding for staff development in special educational needs, the Scottish Executive should evaluate its impact in terms of numbers and qualifications of staff and its influence on school and service practice. The Committee considers that authorities should ensure a systematic approach to professional development linked to national and local priorities, while the National SEN Training Co-ordination Project should maintain and develop its function to assist with evaluations.

Recommendation 20

The Scottish Executive and local authorities should review the effectiveness of in-service training arrangements for the professional development of all staff working with children with severe low incidence disabilities.

Support Staff

4 The Committee recognises the valuable role which special needs auxiliaries play in supporting children with special educational needs. This role includes reinforcing the work of teaching staff in assisting pupils' learning and implementing terms of Records of Needs. The Committee believes that the one-to-one support which auxiliary support staff can give to pupils with special educational needs is an important contribution to the inclusion of such pupils in mainstream provision. Care has to be taken, however, to ensure that such support involves a genuinely inclusive approach. Pupils should remain within the educational responsibility of their teachers and engage with teachers and their peer pupils as much as possible, and should not be either wholly dependent on, or unintentionally isolated by the presence of, support staff. Good quality staff development and training is essential and the Committee welcomes the work being done by the National SEN Training Co-ordination Project to develop training modules for SEN auxiliaries.

5 The Committee is aware of worries expressed by the Association of Advisers in Learning Support/Special Educational Needs in Scotland (AALSSENS), about the possible impact on SEN auxiliaries arising from Government policy on classroom assistants. AALSSENS is concerned that contracts and conditions being offered by authorities to recruit classroom assistants provide better terms than those available to SEN auxiliaries and it fears that there may be a consequent move by staff away from special needs support services. Some authorities are considering a common set of terms and conditions for SEN auxiliaries and classroom assistants. The Committee believes that this is an issue which requires monitoring.

Recommendation 21

COSLA and local authorities should examine the respective roles and conditions of service of SEN auxiliaries and classroom assistants to ensure that there continues to be adequate provision of SEN support services in schools and that the educational needs of children with severe low incidence disabilities are met.

Post-School Provision

6 Although not part of its remit, the Committee considers it important that its report should reflect the considerable anxieties that parents of children with severe disabilities have about the future of their children post school and emphasise that the needs of this group of young people not be overlooked.

7 Parents and teachers of children with severe low incidence disabilities drew the attention of the Committee to the absence of suitable post-16 provision, which often does not cater for the special needs of young people in this group. For example, Skillseekers training programmes have additional funding for those regarded as having special training needs, but those who take up such placements tend to have social, emotional and behavioural problems rather than more significant learning difficulties. Extension courses run by further education colleges cater for those with moderate or severe learning difficulties. There is very little in-college provision for those with profound or complex difficulties, although some colleges undertake outreach work on an ad hoc basis. Young people with severe learning difficulties who attend Life Skills courses in college often move into adult resource centres at the end of their course, although parents and college staff believe that many of this group would benefit from a wider range of post-college options.

8 Voluntary organisations in Scotland, such as Enable and Action for Real Jobs, have led the way in developing supported employment programmes and the Scottish Union for Supported Employment is now established as an umbrella organisation to encourage further development of the field. Supported employment, however, is far less well established in Scotland than in other countries and many young people with severe low incidence disabilities might benefit from its expansion.

9 Young people with severe low incidence disabilities have considerable amounts of money spent on their education and yet post-school options are severely restricted and appear not to offer sufficient variety and opportunity for further development. This group has traditionally been regarded as incapable of participating in the labour market but some of these young people, for instance those with autistic type difficulties, might well be able to work for at least a proportion of their time if appropriate support were available. The Beattie Committee is currently reviewing the range of needs among young people who require additional support to make the transition to post school education and training, or employment, and the quality and effectiveness of current provision. The main focus of the Beattie Committee's work is on skills and employability. Given the wide scope of their consideration they may only be able to make limited recommendations on specific issues but they will be looking at ways to take forward and develop provision for young people with more severe and complex needs.

Recommendation 22

Scottish Ministers should give further attention to establishing and resourcing appropriate post-school provision for young people with severe low incidence disabilities, with a focus on further education, training and employment.

Summary of Recommendations

1 The Scottish Executive should establish a National Special Educational Needs Advisory Forum.

2 The Scottish Executive should review the legislative framework for special educational needs provision to ensure that it does not disadvantage particular children or groups of children, and that the principles above are fully respected in practice.

3 The Scottish Executive should examine what further support could be made available to assist local authorities to include children with severe low incidence disabilities in mainstream schools.

4 The Scottish Executive should examine and disseminate good practice which enables views of children and young people with severe low incidence disabilities to be taken into account by schools, local authorities and health boards in all decisions which affect them.

5 The Scottish Executive should examine and clarify the statutory framework for educational provision for children with significant health needs who are not attending school, to ensure that they receive adequate and efficient educational provision.

6 Local authorities should ensure that Children's Services Plans clearly identify the responsibility of all those concerned in delivery of services for children with severe low incidence disabilities, including education, social work, housing and health and the voluntary sector.

7 Local authorities, when planning to meet the needs of children with severe low incidence disabilities, should identify the scope for inter-authority provision with their neighbouring authorities (and health boards). Where appropriate, they should establish consortium/consultative arrangements with these authorities to consider issues such as placing policy, quality, staffing and charging within a structure for payment of inter-authority fees.

8 COSLA should review its guidance on inter-authority fees for special educational needs provision in the light of the first year's experience of applying the new charging system.

9. The Scottish Executive Health and Education Departments should examine the effectiveness of current funding mechanisms, provision and management of therapy services with a view to ensuring that the needs of children with severe low incidence disabilities are met effectively. In this examination they should consider means of facilitating more widespread joint training initiatives between authorities and health boards.

10 Local authorities should include in their Children's Services Plans a specific statement of what they are doing, in the case of provision for children with severe low incidence disabilities and their families, to develop joint funding arrangements, both within a local authority and between the local authority and other agencies.

11 The Scottish Executive should consider, as part of the New Community Schools Initiative, proposals which foster inter-agency co-operation and cross sectoral provision to meet the needs of children with severe low incidence disabilities and their families.