Further written evidence to be reported to the House

Part of Education and Skills Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 10:30 am on 29 January 2008.

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Ioan Morgan: Further education is the sink for a lot of this activity at the moment. The students whom we get in at 14 at Warwickshire college range from the gifted and talented right through to those with very extreme problems. It is a matter of training staff and having the resources to cope. For example, at Warwickshire college, we have a deaf centre and a centre for the visually impaired. We specialise in trying to bring those students into the mainstream and allowing them to benefit from as much mainstream activity as possible. It is an integration model, but there are some people for whom you cannot take that model forward. For example, we run a course for acquired brain injury students, where success is measured not so much by traditional success rates but by the ability to lift a paintbrush—that is quite a success over 12 months if you have suffered a brain injury. These are the types of extreme students with whom further education is already dealing on a day-to-day basis. So we do not have any fears about taking in further challenging cohorts because we are equipped to respond—we have the experience to respond with partnerships.