When were Special Schools closed?

[IdaBWells]

I have lived outside the UK for 25 years. My mother was at a teacher at an inner-city primary in the 1970s/80s. Lots of her friends were teachers and her best friend’s DH was an art teacher at a special school in the borough. I am clearly very out of touch but when were all the special schools closed and by who? What were the reasons? Did anything replace them? What happened to the staff and students at the schools?

They still exist. Some children do better in an alternative setting, but more children remain in mainstream schools now with additional support.

They weren't all closed my DS attends one!

The ones in my area are all closing down but no extra funding has been made available for support staff in the schools round here. Not great.

A lot of them were closed and people with “mild” learning disabilities were schooled in a mainstream school in the name of inclusion (although the cynic in me would argue that it was more about saving money). Inclusion is an admirable goal, but sadly it’s not worked for a lot of families I know. Their child goes to a mainstream school but isn’t given enough support and isn’t included socially. Special schools served a purpose.

They still exist but at a much more specialist level, it's harder now to get children into them even where there is provision.

They started closing about fifteen years ago I think, maybe more now. Like a previous poster said, it was supposed to make a wonderful show of everyone getting the same education, when wjat it did was fuck up education for a lot of vulnerable children.

My son is lucky to have a place at a special school. There were more than ten applications for every place that was available at the beginning of this academic year. There were seven places up for grabs. Seven.

Disgusted doesn’t even cover it. So many children are being denied an appropriate education, and even more suffering through the knock on effects.

I would say that the inclusion policy was a good idea in theory, but has never worked in practice due to lack of funding.
Having had personal experience of children with learning difficulties in my own family, I was appalled at the outright lies and duplicity of the appeals process when trying to get statements and funding.
Forcing children with special needs into mainstream schools with no funding or support is severely detrimental to all the children in the school as well as the poor teachers.
Basically it is a con.

Ds2 has aspergers and can't cope with a mainstream school so he stays at home and we have to pay for online schooling.

Help for children has dried up and it was just as bad under the Labour government as well.

They aren't closed I work in one. We only have 7 children to a class though so spaces are incredibly limited.

I was at secondary in the early half of the 2000s and remember a young man with SEN and the teachers being hopelessly ill equipped to teach him. In hindsight I think he was completely overwhelmed with the noise and bustle of the place.

The sad thing was at the time most of us were scared of him as he attacked several of us and at the time we just saw him as a nasty boy. The teachers weren't punishing him which just added to our resentment.

Inclusion when properly supported can work well but this was a shitshow. I now have sympathy for him but it probably led to some negative attitudes towards people with disabilities in some other people who were attacked.

My DS has been at our local special school since he started in reception 6 years ago. In that time, the school has literally doubled in size, as the need in the area is so great. There is also now a special school being built up the road from us. So in my area they are thriving and growing, and whilst a parent has the right to request that their child is educated in a MS environment, many parents, perticularly when it comes to KS2 and beyond, are finding that it's not the most conducive or nurturing environment for their child.

The Warnock Report from 1978 led to a change from special schools being the norm (with rather an “out of sight out of mind view”) to inclusion being the norm.

However I think in many ways it’s gone from one extreme to the other with provision not being available for a large chunk of children who need it

I know 3 special schools in my area alone.

They still exist but they only serve children who are unable to cope with a mainstream setting - more simple disabilities such as just using a wheelchair are catered for by mainstream schools, many have been rebuilt over the last 20 years and incorporated lifts etc.

That said there are far more children with additional needs today, partly due to an increase in multiple births (principally due to fertility treatment) and a trend for older parents though there's only anecdotal evidence for the most part and it's not obvious why exactly (Down syndrome is the well known example).

Behavioural problems are the biggest reason for separate education whether it's linked to disability or not.

There are 2 new schools nearby. Both with amazing facilities and thriving! They don’t close them.

It was done in the name of inclusion but really like everything it’s a cost saving initiative. I teach where I can, when I’m not dealing with children who cannot cope with the sensory overload of school, or the child who wants to assault his peers and whack an adult on the back of the head with a chair or some other weapon. Not to mention coping with the effects of grinding deprivation and further budget cuts. No one seems to be winning here. I get my crying done in the car on the way home to my own kids.

My son attends one, along with 69 other children.

When he started just over 4 years ago they had 2 spaces and 9 children who wanted a space. I bet its got much worse now with funding cuts and the introduction if the £6000 notional SEN funding which is used by LA's as a get our route for support but is a bug fat lie. If more parents were reliant on the system and it was understood more widely what was going on there would be uproar.

My son attends one!

They’ve just built a new one in our area and are at the planning stage for another one.

I think the government shut many down in an attempt to merge everyone into mainstream but its apparent that’s not working for many children so where we are they’re having to open new special schools.

There one across the road from me.

We do our swimming lessons at one in Bradford.

And don’t get me wrong, I believe in inclusion but only when backed up with training and funding. We seem to be relying on a brigade of poorly paid support staff, usually women who spend most of their day getting bitten, kicked, sworn at and assaulted with makeshift weapons. There is no long term plan

A new one (primary) has just been built in my town but we have an increasing population and I think there will still be fewer spaces than ideally needed.

Another problem is that children who need extra support are often awarded a one-to-one TA but there are no rules saying that TA needs an appropriate qualification.

Where did you get that idea ?
My son goes to sen school .

The Warnock Report from 1978 led to a change from special schools being the norm (with rather an “out of sight out of mind view”) to inclusion being the norm

However I think in many ways it’s gone from one extreme to the other with provision not being available for a large chunk of children who need it

^
This, with bells on. Was trying to think of the name Warnock @Sirzy, thank you!

DS goes to one out of area because our area has in inclusion policy (which doesn't work) so unless you have very profound and multiple disabilities you are put in the nurture group of a mainstream school. It's all determined by where you live sadly.

Obviously they haven’t all closed, but lots were closed 20 ish years ago.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1459507/Closure-of-special-schools-harms-all-pupils.html