Tories urge special needs reform

[gess]

looks good to me

Damn - I only half heard this on the radio this morning - thought it was the government proposing it...

"Children's minister Beverley Hughes said special educational needs were one of the government's key priorities and that it was proud of its record".

god grief - if they're proud of their SEN policies...... I dread to think how shameful the record must be on their other policies....

well said gess

Looks good to me too.
Present system is madness,and I speak as an insider.
I'm ashamed to be part of it very often.

Will they guarantee to fund the support specified? How will it work if the LEA's budget is significantly exceeded?

Good point meand

I was stunned to read that 9000 special school places have been lost. No wonder half my friends are heading for tribunal to try and get places. OK we spent 4 ridiculous terms in mainstream bu has made me realise how lucky we were to get a place in an excellent SLD/PMLD school (although school is now threatened with merger grrr).

its about time someone took some notice.

Unbelievable that a good sense policy proposals comes from the tories rather than Labour.

Good point re: who will fund the proposals. But at least you'd get a decent picture of what help would be required rather than the idea that it's not all that bad, really and can perfectly well be accomodated with what's available at the moment.

I would wonder however how it would work, e.g. how long the process would take, how truly independent the assesors would be, how much would it depend on their own pereferences for one method or another etc.

I think it needs much more fleshing out. I think it could lead to more problems if specifed support and financial provision are wildly disparate, and I can't see how they wouldn't be unless there was a huge injection of cash. FOr me, this proposal identifies a problem, but fails to address it properly...