28 Mar 2011

Special educational needs system shake-up

The Government wants to revamp the system supporting the one in five children with special educational needs in England. But how will it work? Channel 4 News Reporter Jane Deith investigates.

This month the Government launched a proposal to revamp the system for supporting the one in five children with special educational needs in England. The Government is promising to make things simpler for parents whose children need specialist help.

But at the same time it believes at least half a million children have been wrongly diagnosed as having special educational needs (SEN) – as an excuse for poor teaching.

So what happens if you do take children off the SEN register? Channel 4 News’s Jane Deith has been given exclusive access to a school in Coventry, where new teachers have been recruited to work with families, to solve the issues at home which are holding their children back in class.

Attendance

Katie Taylor hated being on the special educational needs register. She says it made her feel like she was different to her friends – when she was in school, that is. Half the time she wasn’t.

What we’ve done is separate everything out – and ask: ‘What does this child need to make progress?’ – without the need for any sort of labels at all. Headteacher Paul Green

Her headteacher, Paul Green, had tried everything to get pupils’ attendance up. But nothing had worked. He started to wonder if there was a link between the attendance problem, and the fact that half his pupils were registered as having special educational needs.

And so he started to unravel what he suggests is the chicken-and-egg conundrum that is SEN.

“Where we had a child who had reading age two years below the average, we used to put them on SEN register as a way of identifying them. The danger with that is that 12 months later you say, ‘Ah they’re behind in class; that’s because they have special needs.’

“The whole thing becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. What we’ve done is separate everything out – and ask: ‘What does this child need to make progress?’ – without the need for any sort of labels at all.”

Paul Green believes that in many children’s cases, they don’t have a special need, other than a need to actually be in school. So he took half the children off the SEN register, and gave them each an Associate Teacher instead.

New kind of teacher

That’s a job title you won’t have heard of before. Paul Green has invented a new type of teacher. They’re not qualified teachers. They don’t teach in class. But Paul Green insists they are teachers: “They’re teaching students to have better sense of self worth, better self esteem. They’re teaching children life skills – they’re teaching parents how to be better parents.”

Pat Grainger is one of these Associate Teachers. She used to be a book-keeper. Now she organises Katie Taylor’s family, so that Katie makes it into school every day.

First she had to pin down what the family’s problems were.

Katie’s mother, Pat Boslem, was keeping Katie off school because she has anxiety and was afraid to be left alone during the day. Mrs Boslem has eight children. She was badly in debt and suffered panic attacks, and she admits now she used her daughter as a crutch.

Special educational needs system - does it work? (Getty)

Associate Teacher Pat Grainger got the whole family to agree to family group conferences, where they drew up a plan to each step in to be with Mrs Boslem in the day, to take the responsibility off Katie. Pat Grainger also fixed issues like dealing with debt collectors and helping Mrs Boslem apply for benefits. She even drives Katie to school if that’s what it takes.

Katie says she’s much happier now. She’s not on the special needs register and is catching up in class.

“Pat Grainger plays a big part in my life. If I’m not in school she’s on the phone, saying ‘Where are you, why aren’t you here?’

I go into school now and I am a lot happier. Katie Taylor, pupil

“And she tells me if I don’t go to school I won’t get the grades and I will be like my brothers and sisters who don’t have any qualifications or jobs. I know I won’t be able to improve my life for when I have a family. So I go into school now and I am lot happier.”

Mrs Boslem says Katie’s a different kid now. She admits Lyng Hall School‘s intervention in her family gave her the wake up call she needed.

“Katie’s confidence is sky high now. Everything about her has changed. Before, she was always crying. She was depressed – from worrying about me, worrying about the family. We were all so wrapped up in our problems we didn’t focus on Katie. I didn’t allow her to be a child, to be normal like other teenagers. Her whole life was looking after me.

“At first I saw Pat Grainger as someone in authority, someone who just wanted to tick a box. But then I began to trust her and she pointed me in the right direction.”

Cuts

Pat admits she struggles to explain her job – she’s not a qualified teacher, an educational psychologist or social worker -and she costs a lot less. When everyone’s looking to make cuts, that worries some teaching unions. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers has expressed fears the use of Associate Teachers could mask the lack of skilled professionals, who’ve trained for years.

But it is hard to argue with the results at Lyng Hall. The Associate Teachers have got attendance up to 94 per cent. GSCE results have leapt 10 percent in one year.

Some headteachers complain schools shouldn’t have to take responsibility for fixing families’ problems. But Lyng Hall has found that in many cases, supporting parents has been far more effective than putting their children on the special needs register.

And the headteacher Paul Green is now helping the Government as an ambassador for this family-focused approach to teaching.