Clause 7 - Applications for orders under section 6(2)
Education Bill
2:45 pm
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest, Conservative)
The amendment relates to children with special needs. We have submitted it mostly as a probing amendment. As I said in our debate on an earlier clause, the Bill has not yet dealt with the matter of special needs and does not mention it up front at the beginning. My main reason for moving the amendment is to give the Minister an opportunity to assure the Committee that he is giving special needs the priority that it deserves. We have considered before the fact that special needs children who are integrated into mainstream schools must be treated differently and with extra care and consideration. The amendment relates to clause 7(2)(a), which details how the governing body can apply to make changes to curriculum provision. The clause states, rightly, that any application should be made only after consulting the parents of registered pupils at the school. We thoroughly support that, but suggest that schools should consult particularly the parents of special needs children.
Dealing with those children within the general school system can be problematic because of the huge variety of special needs. It is not possible to categorise everyone who has a statement as being statistically a special needs pupil. The details must be broken down so that the school is aware, in drawing up the budget and curriculum, of the particular needs of particular children. As I said earlier, those with mild special needs, such as the need for extra tuition for mild dyslexia, can be taught in the mainstream system with few amendments to the curriculum. However, children with, for example, Asperger syndrome and other such extreme autistic conditions must have special tuition, which should be considered when changes to the curriculum are being debated.
When making such consideration, schools should always consult the parents, although this is not just a question of consulting parents. It is also a question of bringing in experts on the problems that special needs children have so that those who are responsible for designing the curriculum, or changes to it, can be properly advised. I shall not delay the Committee any further on the issue, because this is a probing amendment. We want to ensure that the Minister and his colleagues have considered special needs in relation to this particular aspect of potential school autonomy.