Clause 1
Special Educational Needs (Information) Bill
9:30 am
Annette Brooke (Shadow Minister (Children, Young People and Families), Children, Schools and Families; Mid Dorset and North Poole, Liberal Democrat)
The purpose of the amendments is to touch on a core area of the debate on Second Reading. In fact, if we counted the number of words that dealt with teacher training that were uttered in that debate, they would probably outweigh many of the other issues. It is something that hon. Members feel strongly about. The UK has seen a move to inclusion. We have seen the development of excellent practice, in pockets, in respect of educational needs, but the training of teachers has not moved apace with the developments and needs in our schools today. It is well known that even teachers on a four-year training course, for example, might only spend a matter of hours on special educational needs, and that is just not adequate.
The purpose behind amendment No. 1 is not only to debate training within the four-year course, but also to cover all routes to teaching. I cannot claim that it actually will do what I want it to do, as I am not the world’s best at drafting amendments. I was thinking about school-centred initial teacher training and the “Teach First” programme, in which high-flying graduates go straight into teaching. Whatever route is taken into teaching—the four-year course, a one-year postgraduate course, such as the one I took which, at that time, included nothing whatever on special educational needs, or other courses that involve much more training on the job—the intention of the amendment is to highlight the fact that we need to monitor how much training is taking place for special educational needs.
It is difficult to know how the Bill will operate. I assume that accompanying regulations will probably spell out some of the things I am talking about—I should be happy for them to be picked up in regulations. However, our only clue as to what lies behind the two major clauses in the Bill is that information could assist in improving “well-being” and that the mechanisms could include
“allowing the Secretary of State, local authorities and schools to monitor and evaluate whether policies and programmes were effective and thus inform any policy changes...enabling local authorities to plan better for provision to meet the needs of children with special educational needs; and...enabling local authorities which are improving well-being or planning effectively to be identified and to spread good practice”.
I agree with all those examples, but there is no mention whatever of teacher training, which is why I wanted to flag it up. I feel that in some form or other it must be covered—probably not in the Bill, but in regulations. Guidelines would not be sufficient. That is the purpose of my amendment. I want my contribution to the Bill to achieve real outcomes for children. Every aspect is important—information gathering, spreading good practice within schools, better provision by local authorities, the Government knowing what is going on at each local authority level and individual records on the child and the teacher picking up on them. Underlying all that, however, teacher training is absolutely vital. My amendment No. 1 addresses that particular issue and I hope that we can come to a consensus that it must be picked up in one way or another.
Amendment No. 2 relates to existing teachers, and is intended to be as comprehensive as possible on continuing professional development. It is not enough just to be aware of what courses have been on offer. We need to know the rates of course completion. We need a pretty good breakdown, going right down to local authority and school level, to know exactly what courses teachers have undertaken.
We have all received a representation from the British Dyslexia Association, which has been calling for at least one specialist teacher for dyslexia in a school. That suggestion could be picked up within my proposals. We need knowledge about specific conditions. Things have moved on greatly with dyslexia, but I am sure that we could still go into schools and find poor practice; long-standing teachers may still deny that dyslexia exists. I have certainly found that in the last few years.
Similarly, many teachers do not seem to have an appreciation of some of the most common characteristics of autism. When I was in a school recently a teacher expressed surprise that a child with autism did not like going out to the playground. Although, obviously, every condition is different, most of us are aware that it is fairly common for children with autism not to like loud noises and things like that. Such basic training is needed throughout the whole school. I have mentioned teaching assistants, who are very important, because they will obviously be giving direct support to many children, but other school staff, such as the school secretary, need to understand as well. I could have included the drivers of school transport, because children have particular behaviour patterns; for example, they are not being awkward when they wish to alight from the school bus in a particular way. Understanding is needed.
I hope that we can present these provisions in a positive light. They cover areas that need to be addressed sooner rather than later because there has been a lack of training for far too long.