Children with SEND: Assessments and Support Debate
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Claire Young
Main Page: Claire Young (Liberal Democrat - Thornbury and Yate)Department Debates - View all Claire Young's debates with the Department for Education
Children with SEND: Assessments and Support
Claire Young Excerpts(2 days, 15 hours ago)
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Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)
I thank the 257 constituents in Thornbury and Yate who signed the petition. I want to focus on one symptom of the broken system: emotionally based school non-attendance. Children whose needs are not met can struggle to attend school and, too often, the response is to punish the parents rather than to provide extra support. As a sign at the rally earlier today said:
“EBSNA is not a crime, provision not punishment, stop prosecuting parents”.
Talking tough is not the answer. The relentless focus on exam results and strict zero tolerance behaviour policies create an environment that can be hostile for children with additional needs. I hear from parents in my surgeries that policies have been applied without reasonable adjustments for disabilities. It is only in a compassionate and supportive environment that a child can be helped to move beyond their current comfort zone. Making schools more inclusive has to be about more than physical changes to the buildings; it requires an overhaul of culture and practices.
Beyond stopping prosecutions, I believe that we need to switch the focus from attendance at school to engagement with education. A child in isolation is attending, but often is not engaging, and for some, engagement might require a period outside a traditional school environment.
I have spoken to senior educational psychologists who are frustrated that the Department for Education, under successive Governments, has failed to engage with them on this issue. I have also spoken to charities, including Contact, Square Peg and Not Fine in School, and I urge Ministers to meet them with me to discuss attendance in more depth.
Not supporting children with SEND is not just bad for children, but bad for society as a whole. Whatever the new system looks like, it must give legal backing to ensure that all children get an appropriate education, and it must see parents as partners, not adversaries, in that.