Dr Garry Squires & Professor Neil Humphrey garry.squires@manchester.ac.uk

1. What do we mean by special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)? Issues, debates and tensions in identification, assessment and intervention in England Dr Garry Squires & Professor Neil Humphrey garry.squires@manchester.ac.uk neil.humphrey@manchester.ac.uk

2. Workshop overview • Historical context in the UK – the creation of tensions and debates • Achievement for All (AfA) – a brief summary of a pilot involving 450 schools • Findings from AfA that reflect the tensions and debates • Policy to practice – hearts and minds • Consideration of pedagogical models and alternatives to SEND

3. Agendas, Tensions and Historical influences in determining who has special educational needs • Children are different. They are not standard parts to be processed in the factories of education, turning raw materials into valued outputs. • How is it that we have come to view some children as so different that they need to be thought about as being ‘special’? • What are the agendas and factors that contribute to a tension between inclusion and segregation? Where have they come from and what parallels are there now with historical, social and political practices? In what ways does this lead to some children being defined as having SEN and other children with the same abilities in different schools not being so defined?

4. An idealised view? • Salamanca Agreement 1994 Inclusive education… enabling schools to serve all children, particularly those with special educational needs • Dakar Agreement 2000 Total inclusion of children with special educational needs in mainstream schools… by 2015 UNESCO. (1994). The Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education. Salamanca, Spain: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. UNESCO. (2000). The Dakar Framework for Action. Education for All: Meeting our Collective Commitments. Paris, France: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

5. Compulsory education for all • 1870 and 1880 Education Acts make education compulsory for children between the ages of 5 and 10. • 1891 Fees abolished • Special schools for blind and deaf children open in 1893 • 1899 education extended to age 12 • Special schools for ‘defective and epileptic children’ opened in 1899

6. Standards, standards, standards! 1862-1897 • Public money was funding education and concerns were expressed about accountability. Some teachers were seen as either incompetent or lazy. • Payment by results – children have to reach an expected standard for teachers and schools to receive payments.

7. Sorting children for education • 1905 concern that some children were choosing to not learn - ‘malicious children’ • Government wanted a way of identifying those who were slow learners to offer places at special schools to ‘mentally subnormal’ children – development of IQ tests • In some countries, ‘mental age’ rather than chronological age is offered as a way of grouping children

8. Development of specialists • 1902 Education Act devolved decision making about educational placement to local councils who had to decide who went to mainstream, who went to special and which children were ‘ineducable’ • Medical officers were employed to help with diagnoses of medical conditions • Setting up of Child Guidance Centres – multiprofessional teams with a psychiatrist, psychologist, physician and social worker

9. More sorting… tripartite secondary system Bottom 2% of children segregated education Ineducable - hospitals Special school

10. Even more sorting…. Categorising pupils by handicap

11. 1944 Act - SEN – a lasting definition Text taken from the Education Acts 1981 and 1996 “A child has a “learning difficulty” for the purposes of this Act if— (a)he has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of children of his age, (b)he has a disability which either prevents or hinders him from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for children of his age in schools within the area of the local education authority, or (c)he is under compulsory school age and is, or would be if special educational provision were not made for him, likely to fall within paragraph (a) or (b) when of that age. In this Act “special educational provision” means— (a)in relation to a child who has attained the age of two, educational provision which is additional to, or otherwise different from, the educational provision made generally for children of his age in schools maintained by the local education authority (other than special schools) and (b)in relation to a child under that age, educational provision of any kind.”

12. ‘Maladjustment’ – a catch all phrase • Underwood report (1955) “a child may be regarded as maladjusted who is developing in ways that have a bad effect on himself or his fellows, and cannot without help be remedied by his parents, teachers and other adults ordinarily in contact with him” • All types of emotional and behavioural difficulties fall into this (e.g. delinquency, mental illness, social deprivation, poor parenting) • NUT 1962 – included children who might be ‘mildly difficult’

13. Child centred and inclusive education • 1967 Plowden report • 1978 Warnock report • 1981 Education Act

14. No more children – we now teach a curriculum! • 1988 Education Reform Act: • Concerns about educational standards and girls underperforming compared to boys • National Curriculum • Keynsian Economics and quasi-market forces • SATs and School Performance (‘league’) tables

15. Stronger SEN legislation • 1993 Education Act (revised in the 1996 Act) • Code of Practice for SEN • Staged approach to assessment • Tribunal system to allow parental appeals to be heard more easily • Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 • Revised Code of Practice 2001

16. Incompatible systems • Code of Practice for SEN defines SEN in educational terms • Communication and interaction • Cognition and learning • Behaviour, emotional and social development • Sensory and/or physical • Central government reinforces the medical model in the Pupil Level Census data • Quasi-medical model remains for young people over the age of 16 introduced in the Disability Discrimination Act (1995)

17. Funding arrangements • Audit Commission 2002 • 61% of children with Statements were in mainstream schools • 34% of children with SEN had moderate learning difficulties • Most exclusions in mainstream schools occurred for children with SEN suggesting their needs were not being met • Money was wasted on the process of producing a Statement

18. So… why is a child considered to have SEN? • Substantial difficulties or disability? • Medical versus social or educational models? • Funding arrangements? • Gender? • Curriculum offered? • SATs and League tables? • Marketisation of education? • Categorisation of data for census? • Inspection regimes? • Availability of segregated provision? • TA provision?

19. What forces affect how well can a child be included in mainstream? Special Educational Needs Full Inclusion and Participation Compulsory education for all children Medicalisation of SEN Development of special provision for particular groups of children e.g. special schools, PRUs, Alternative Provision Child centred learning, removing labels and seeing education as a social interaction Government statistics rely on categories Development of an alternative curriculum Development of National Curriculum

20. What forces affect how well can a child be included in mainstream? Special Educational Needs Full Inclusion and Participation Staged approach to assessment and school based intervention, waves of support Assessment by outside professionals Provision of teaching assistants Central government training packages for teachers e.g. IDP Deskilling of teachers Delegated SEN funding to schools Funding linked to statements of SEN

21. What forces affect how well can a child be included in mainstream? Special Educational Needs Full Inclusion and Participation School performance measures and league tables CVA – adjustments to take account of SEN More children identified as SEN Call for children with SEN to ‘close the gap’. Waves of support introduced Lamb inquiry & Achievement for All pilot Green Paper on SEN – ‘remove the bias towards inclusion’ Findings published and National roll out of AfA CVA Abolished

22. Achievement for All (AfA) • Pilot funded by the UK Government (£31 million). • Involved 10 LAs, • 454 Schools and • all pupils with SEN in Y1, Y5, Y7 and Y10 for two academic years.

23. The 3 strands of AfA

24. Quantitative Methods • Use of National Pupil Data base • On line surveys – Spring Term 2010, Autumn term 2010 and Summer Term 2011. • Key Teachers – positive relationships; behaviour; bullying • Parents – as teachers plus wider participation; parental engagement and confidence • On line surveys – June/July 2010 and April/May 2011 • Lead teachers in each school – School Level Survey • School level surveys will examine how AfA is being implemented. This data can then be linked to pupil-level outcome measures.

25. Quantitative Methods • Attainment data collected in Dec 2009, Dec 2010, Jun 2011 • Problem – metric to use – FS Profile; P-Levels; NC Levels and sub-levels; GCSE predicted grades; other examination formats • Process problem around data collection

26. Qualitative Methods • Interviews with • The four NS regional advisors • The ten LA project leads • Interviews with 2 or 3 advisory teachers in each LA • Case study schools – 5 site visits (next slide) • 20 schools in a purposive sample chosen to give maximum variation (i.e. mainstream-special-PRU, primary-secondary, BECTA-non-BECTA, urban-rural, 2 in each LA) • 5 families in each school to be followed over the project • Interviews with the lead teacher in each school • Documentary analysis in each school • Observations and discussions with other key personnel (senior managers, SENCOs, classroom teachers, support staff) • Interviews with pupils • Focus groups with parents

27. Focus for each case study visit Spring 2010 - background and context (inc identifying families) Summer 2010 - implementation and setting up (inc parental interviews) Autumn 2010- Strand 1 Assessment, monitoring and tracking Spring 2011 – review of first year of AfA and implementation with a second cohort Summer 2011 – sustainability beyond the AfA pilot

28. Fluidity of SEN • Population of children with SEN is fluid and open to change • SEN is contextual and comparative rather than objective and absolute. This is particularly acute at transition from primary to secondary school. One LA lead cited this as a reason for a sudden rise in Statutory Assessments in Year 5 and Year 6.

29. Better understanding of SEN • As teachers debated the nature of SEN in discussions with LA leads, each other, other schools in their network and made better use of data through monitoring and assessment, they gained better understanding of what was meant by SEN. • This may have led to better targeting of scarce SEN resources or more inclusive pedagogy for class teachers. • This meant that 5.6% of children who were on SA at the start of the project were no longer considered to have SEN at the end of the project.

30. "What we were seeing last year was a pattern, children who were socially excluded or getting to trouble frequently at lunchtime were on and off the special needs register and it was often that they just didn’t have the right skills to be in the playground…so we are trying to make sure that they are having a fun time, not excluded." (AfA Lead)

31. One problem – multiple labels • A child who is not making adequate progress in literacy may be classified as having moderate learning difficulties (MLD), severe learning difficulties (SLD), specific learning difficulties (SpLD, dyslexia), a language difficulty (Speech, Language and Communication Needs) or difficulties may be due to social or emotional reasons (BESD) • A multi-professional assessment will try to sort this out

32. Do teachers know who which children have SEN? • Our lists of which children have SEN were derived from data that schools routinely send to their LA, who in turn send to central government to form the National Pupil Data base. • We used this list to tell schools on which pupils we would want data and to pre-populate on-line questionnaires • We got some interesting feedback!

33. Levels of support • Quality First teaching – teachers adjust what they do to match the needs of children (differentiation) • School Action – more support is given to groups of children by teachers in the school (class teacher and SENCo) • School Action plus – outside specialists assess and provide advice and some individual interventions • Statement – a multi-professional assessment is undertaken that clearly identifies needs and says what schools must do to meet these needs. This might involve allocating additional resources or sending the child to a different type of school.

34. Do teachers know what level of support a child receives? N= 26459 pupils across 10 LAs and 450 schools

35. Do parents know their child has SEN? • At the start of the national evaluation, we wanted to inform parents that there children were going to be part of the study and provide them with information so that they could opt in or opt out. Some schools did not want the information leaflet to go out

36. Do parents know their child has SEN? N= 3057 pupils across 10 LAs and 450 schools at the beginning of the project N=1460 at the end of the project

37. How does child development relate to identification of SEN? • Schools are judged by how well a child performs at the end of the school year (July in the UK). • Primary schools are successful if they enable more children to achieve a set standard (L4 SATs at the end of Key Stage 2) • Children not reaching this level are seen as failing and schools with more children not reaching this level are seen to be failing schools.

38. Expected progress • Children’s Plan 2007 set out the expectation that in English, children would make 2 Levels progress over a Key Stage. • Children with SEND may make less.

39. National Curriculum outcomes for UK • Does this mean that all children who do not reach the nationally expected level, have special educational needs?

42. How does child development relate to identification of SEN? • If all children develop at the same rate then does mean that those who are older when they start school get a head start and are more likely to reach the expected standard? • Does month of birth affect teacher judgements about whether a child has SEN? Does the type of SEN matter? Does the involvement of outside professionals affect the judgement?

43. The month in which you are born makes you more likely to be identified as having SEND N= 26, 459 pupils across 10 LAs and 450 schools

44. Month effect and type of SEND

45. MLD and SLCN double for children born later in the school year

46. Difference between teacher assessments and multi-professional assessment.

47. Achievement versus Attainment • Instead of measuring attainment (the final level of performance at the end of KS2), should schools measure achievement (the amount of progress made)? • We devised a single scale to cover all abilities across the whole age range. On this scale, we would expect an average childto make 4 points progress over a year.

48. Mean progress by type of SEND in one year Source: National Evaluation of Achievement for All Interim Report Feb 2011

49. Overall progress • By the end of Year 2 in the programme, the average progress for children with SEND in English was 5.74 points (compared to 8 points nationally) • However, 36.9% of children with SEND were exceeding those children without SEND Please come to our other papers to hear more about the fine detail of this

50. Improved monitoring linked to teaching • As the AfA lead of School 3 (LA B) put it, teachers were using APP "to think about what they’re actually teaching and adapt what they’re teaching to what is needed by the pupils". • "if things are going wrong… if a child isn’t progressing you can find out why, rather than wait ‘til the end of the year" (AfA Lead, School 15, LA H). • This was reinforced by frequent teaching and learning meetings where best practices to support pupils with SEND were discussed (School 12, LA F)