Tory Policy on Inclusion in Education

[LadyBlaBlah]

One of my friends has a girl with Retts Syndrome who attends mainstream school. She has been in touch with her local MP about their policies on inclusion ( she is totally FOR inclusion, 100%) and she is getting very wooly answers back.

Do you guys know any more about their policies?

Just cutting and pasting a recent email from her here:

"I am extremely worried about the Conservatives education manifesto, and thought I would circulate it to those of you in my address book that have a particular interest in education. The last section of the manifesto states that the Conservatives will end the bias towards the inclusion of children with special needs in mainstream school. I met with David Rutley a few weeks ago (the Macclesfield Conservative candidate). He was not sure what this meant, but spoke to a colleague who said that the Conservatives want to give parents the choice of where to send their child to school. Many parents currently do not feel that they have a choice other than to send their disabled child to special school, as they feel that mainstream schools cannot meet their child's needs. Increasing segregated provision will only take away more resources from mainstream schools, so this really does not improve parental choice at all. I have asked David how the Conservatives plan to fund more special schools and also support inclusion at the same time, but as of yet I have not had a reply. It simply is not possible! The only way to create a truly inclusive education system is to put all the resources into mainstream schools, and give every child in this country an excellent education.

I won't go on a rant about inclusion, but most people now see that it is harmful to segregate people because of race, religion, gender, sexuality etc, but segregating people because of disability does not cause the outrage that it should!"

Anyone have anything to add /advice?

[cornsilk]

It isn't clear what the Tories plan to do either though. I'm not tory bashing - I'm just worried that there is no clear expression of direction. My parent partnership officer suggested a PRU for my ds 'cos he's a school refuser (verbal dx of ASD. Er...no thanks. Luckily we found a brilliant secondary school with an excellent SENCO but we have had truly horrific experience of mainstream in the past.What's best for the children is ultimately what's best for teachers and schools -not the other way round. I'm not sure exactly what the Tory manifesto is saying.

[pagwatch]

That is it exactly.
NO ONE seems to be offering best choice for each child. That is not to suggest that a bespoke education is affordable. But I get cross when the policy seems to be 'let us decide what is best and make this disparate group of children bend to fit x policy' rather than 'lets us provide as much support as possible in mainstream for those children able to access it and give specialised support and care to those who can't or shouldn't'

It is beyond political parties. No one is meeting that need. It's tragic

Vote for me - the poked off with every other fucker party

[cornsilk]

oi - Riven and Pagwatch - get on hereand tell 'em!

[LisaT06]

Well basically, the CONservative parties non-policies reach pitch fever at times when the subject gets around to Education. Here we have a party claiming it believes in Education for all. Well. I find this amusing, though i admit, not as ammusing as the fact that the Tory party FABRICATED the claim that Labour Labour plans to introduce a £20'000 "death tax". But anyhow back to education. SCAMeron accused Labour of treating the education question like a class war.The only class war is David Cameron's divisive scam to bankroll a wave of private schools.
Millions of kids in the state sector would pay a high price if the Tories succeeded in donating taxpayers' cash to a few pushy parents who'd save on fees.
Heads with desks left empty by pupils siphoned off to the new institutions would be forced to merge classes, risking over-crowding.
And some thriving local schools would shut, undermined by the hype about the new joint down the road.The plan to hand public cash to well-heeled parents with the time and expertise to open a school of their own is a failed Conservative policy given a lick of paint.
Cameron wrote the 2005 Tory manifesto offering a £5,500 "pupils passport" into the private sector.Now he's dressed up that old faff and wheeze as a Swedish-style academy programme.Laughably, the Tory education spokesman Michael Gove insisted that the new schools would remain in the state sector.
Oh yeah?
They'd be filled with the kids of the connected people who created the colleges with our money. A private Swedish education firm sniffs profits and hopes to open 30 of the schools under the Cons.Taking upwards of £1.8bn over roughly,five years out of the current schools budget and this would penalise the overwhelming MAJORITY. I hope Gove isn't scared and agrees to a TV debate with Children's Secretary Ed Balls.Please god let him agree to it so we can see him used to wipe the floor.
Tory plans to condemn troubled schools to fail in an education free market are reprehensible.Balls can point to solid Labour achievements because society isn't broken - it's on the mend.
I can honestly Admit that..YES, it's disappointing that at 49.7% a tad under half of kids leave school with five good GCSEs, including English and maths, for all of us. HOWEVER, Until you remember the proportion was just 35.7% under the Cons.

[LisaT06]

I think more people should stop reading the Sun/Star and Daily Mail as these really are the gutter press rags of the UK. They are biased in their nature and in the case of the Sun we have a guy, Rupert Murdoch who thinks he has a right to decide on the UK vote, he's Australian for gods sake.

Alot of Tory policies, or should i say non-Policies are worrying me. My fiance is a currently serving Royal Marine, he's been in for 16 years now and he's worried about the Conservatives getting power as he doesnt want togo back to using the archaic kit they had when he first joined up and the Tories were still in. They are axing the two new CVF Aircraft carriers as a satrter. He told me of how the Sun etc overdo the military side and said they seem to forget that in 1995 and before only the para's and marines had body armour. The vast majority of the Infantry and other corps from the army had no body armour whatsoever and the stuff they did have was paper thin and the standard joke was that it was only good to "keep your guts in one place till your buried". He thinks that the Sun should get out on the frontline and ASK the soldiers doing the fighting on the frontline as up until now they are basing everything on the word of , well known Tory, Sir General Dannat, a man who hasnt seen a frontline in over 22 years. Regards to medical facilities in Afghan it says a lot when top US and British surgeons said they were "Envious" of the technology in the British Field hospitals. The defence budgets gone from 20 billion under the CON's to 40 Billion under labour and dont forget Yes 250+ have died in Afghan over 8 YEARS......just under that figure died in as many weeks in the Falklands due to poor kit.

I still dont get how the Tories have side-stepped the Ashcroft/CAshcroft debate. Yes Labour and the Lib Dems have non-dom donors as well however they never lied about theirs. Ashcroft lied in 2000 to get a peerage and was backed by Hague and no doubt a younger David Cameron. Why shouldnt he give us answers? I think Ashcroft should b**y pay back every penny of that £127+ million in tax he owes. How many schools would that fund and for how long?

His big idea for "Married Persons Tax Breaks has been shown to be totally ill thought out and had large chunks not accounted for. So far there has been a £34 billion credibility gap in the Tories spending plans. Most single people are infuriated that they would have to start subsidising married people. Why should single people pay higher tax so that married people can pay lower tax - all because Cameron's moral view of the world thinks that single people are "wrong". Im getting married in August myself but for the right reasons. Lets see how many people would hastily get married to avoid remaining single so they did not have to subsidise those already married and recieving this Married persons tax break. I guess the result would be that, there would be couples filing for divorce in record numbers up and down the country as they had hastily married for all the wrong reasons. Do the Conservatives really think that single people are a "wrongness" and should be penalised by paying higher taxes. This is Cameron imposing his narrow view of the world on everybody.
In fact, many highly respectable people are single. Some Conservative MPs are single (oh my God !!).
The Conservatives need to justify the principle of single people paying higher taxes to subsidise those who are married. Because at the moment they are enraged many many single people and it is a big vote loser. It transpires that, only 6% of the UK public (married) would benefit from the scheme anyways and i'd bet anyone a years salary they wont be working class or middle class families that benefit where it should be ALL that benefit.

[scaryteacher]

'Balls can point to solid Labour achievements'
Rubbish. Under Labour there has been a huge inequality in funding between schools - those in rural areas like the South West receiving much less per head than those in urban Labour strongholds. If education is such a success, why are kids in some primaries coming out illiterate? Why are teachers threatening to strike? Why are SATS ridiculed?

Labour DOES treat education like a class war. Several Labour MPs enjoyed the benefits of a private education, but wish to take that choice away from the electorate. Did they (whilst they excoriate David Cameron for going to Eton) ask their parents to take them away from Fettes and St Paul's Girls in the case of two well known Labour figures? Pot, this is kettle methinks.

Perhaps you would also like to define a good GCSE? You could also explain why over 50% of kids are leaving without 5 A*-Cs. That is not success; neither are the dumbing down of GCSEs; and the fact one now has to PAY to go to Uni. I hope within that 49% who do leave with good GCSEs you are not including those who are at private schools and grammars.

[LisaT06]

Sorry, long rant there.

Also more worrying about the Tories is this, cut and pasted from Bloomberg/ Business week and Education Today.

"Tory proposals to make it possible for any school to be an Academy. A reporter told us that under Tory plans schools wishing to become academies would no longer have to consult local authorities, who tend to get in the way. The inference was clear: local authorities were just a nuisance, ideologically driven sociopaths standing in the way of reason and liberation.

No doubt some are. But one principal objection to academies is that they can set their own admissions rules. This takes us back to grant-maintained schools, introduced by Thatcher is her assault on the concept of society in favour of individualism. With each school setting its own admissions rules, there is precious little room for cohesive planning of school places or for ensuring all children have an equal chance. Even without formal selection, rules based on geography can ensure that children from certain areas are at a permanent disadvantage.

It also means that parents have to apply for several schools simultaneously (sometimes all the schools in a town if moving into an area) rather than simply asking the local authority to find a place.

This problem of course already exists in places but the Tories plan to make it universal. And there are those in the free school movement who feel that the right of parents (or religious nutters or multinationals) to set up schools where they wish regardless of the interests of other parents or the needs of a community should not even be subject to a local authority?s planning powers.

So if finding a secondary school place for a child gives you a sleepless night anytime soon, look ahead to the nightmares under Michael Gove and the Tories."

[LisaT06]

ScaryTeacher so your all for the CONservative party bnakrolling private schools out all over hte place, the closure of many public schools (because it will happen) and seeing to it that, in typical CONservative Elitist biased fashion, that only the well heeled will benefit.???? Only 35.7% of kids under the Tories left with good GCSE passes...are you going to challenge that?

[LisaT06]

Also ScaryTeacher i only wish i could get my father to give examples of everything that is WRONG with the Conservative paty, only he wont be able to anymore, as he was killed in the Falklands due to having no body armour and the 1960s balistic helmets. Thanks Thatcher.

[LisaT06]

Also my apologies, made some grammatical errors in my last posts. Should not get so cocky with my touch type technique.

[LisaT06]

Explain the CONservatives plans for education ScaryTeacher please. Im no expert but looks bloody awful to me. As it Does to Dr Dunford.

[scaryteacher]

I'd be very careful what you say about defence policy and spending under Labour. My husband is a serving Naval Officer who has been in for 30 years, as is my brother who has been in for 22 years, and is currently in Afghanistan.

Gordon Brown has systematically starved the Forces of cash as Chancellor and as PM. By his own admission he doesn't 'get' defence, and this has been amply demonstrated by the people he has appointed as Sec of State for Defence, at one point making it a part time post. His refusal to fund the MoD has lead to shortages of helicopters in Afghanistan; to troops having to buy their own kit out there; to £90 million being taken from the core defence budget this year to fund Afghanistan when it should all come from the reserve; this will mean redundancies in the Forces, the closure of an RAF base, and the withdrawal from service of some ships before their due date.

There has been no indication that the Tories will cancel the new carriers, perhaps your fiance knows something that the Admirals don't. If he has been in only 16 years, then how can he possibly know from first hand experience what went on before 1994? As I was told in an email from Liam Fox there will be a strategic defence review and everything will be considered from Trident to reinstating the BFPO to the NATO HQs in Western Europe.

As to those killed in the Falklands, the majority didn't die due to poor kit, but to the fact they were on Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram which were bombed near Fitzroy; and many died when the Type 21s were sunk, and Coventry and Sheffield were hit. Body armour will not save you when you are closed up at action stations with the watertight doors shut, and you cannot get out in time, or a missile breaches the compartment you are in and then explodes. I am sorry if your Dad died there, mine didn't luckily, but I think you should rather be blaming the Argentinians than Mrs Thatcher. Also, presumably, like my Dad, father in law, brother and husband, your father accepted that part of being in HM Services is that you run the risk of dying.

I would imagine that the Tories won't just listen to General Sir Richard Dannatt, but also to General Sir David Richards, the current Chief of the General Staff, who knows what he is talking about with knobs on. It struck me that during his tenure as CGS, Gen Dannatt fought the corner for his guys and lost his chance of being CDS from so doing. He wasn't afraid to put his money where his mouth was and good on him.

Have to go to physio now, will comment more later.

[scaryteacher]

I think any education policy other than Labours has to be a good thing. I am glad that the Tories are moving away from inclusion at all costs, as this does not suit all children with SN.

Labour have presided over a dumbing down of the curriculum and the exams. I am happy to see that the Tories will allow schools to offer IGCSEs, which are akin to the old O levels (how many children left school with 5 O level passes and more Lisa? You need also to take that into account, as until 1987, O levels and CSEs were the exams taken, not GCSEs). I have seen the content of my subject changed to include lessons on 'Government Action to Promote Community Cohesion in the UK.' I want to teach RE, not bloody Labour party propaganda. The new RE exam syllabus has been dumbed down, taking out the sections the students found difficult. If they can't cope with hard bits in their exams, how will they cope with the hard bits in real life? One year, the students only had to get 6% to get a G grade - not hard.

I agree with the idea of more good small schools. Some of the current secondaries are too big and the staff do not know the students as well as they should. I taught in excess of 600 students a week, and so could not give them the individual attention they needed. I also taught mixed ability, which I would like to see disappear, and to teach in sets, so that one does have time to give to students and can target the lesson objectives more cloely to the needs of the students. Ideally, a GCSE class should not be over 15, 12 would be better.

I don't have a problem with entry criteria for schools. We have these to a certain extent at the moment, with geographical criteria, sibling rules and having to do a technology subject at a specialist technology college for example. I think that removing schools from LEA control can be a good thing in many cases, as the LEA in many cases can hold a school back.

As to your point about moving into a new area and applying for schools simultaneously, that would happen anyway. If I were looking for a school I would apply to the grammar and then the best comp, and a private school to ensure ds's name was down and to cover my bases. I would NOT ask the LEA to find me a place, because I would get what they had, not what I wanted, or what would suit ds, and I would be happy to go to appeal to get what I thought was the best school. Failing that, I'd pay and go private.

Having read the Tory draft school manifesto, I cannot see where it says that they will be bankrolling private schools all over the place as you claim; private = fee paying, there is no mention of that. I suspect they'll leave private schools well alone, as they function very well. I also hope they remove the class envy public benefit test that the charity commission slapped on. You also need to sort your terminology out. Public school in the UK = private fee paying. Government funded schools are referred to as state schools, or public sector.

I don't think state schools will close, but may have reduced numbers. I don't think that is a bad thing as more attention can be given to the students who stay, especially if the staffing levels stay the same. The Schools manifesto says they will weight school funding towards children from disadvantaged backgrounds which is great, as long as that includes all children with those backgrounds, say in rural areas, and not just the cities. I think some of the larger schools, in excess of 1800 secondary students are too big and need to be smaller.

I was also delighted to see that the Tories recognise that the most able need to be stretched, hopefully there will money for that.

As far as I can see the Tory education policy is to improve standards from the bottom up, allow specialist SN provision, have smaller class sizes by having more schools and presumably teachers, which will stretch those at the top of the academic scale and support those at the bottom. They will also hopefully let teachers teach, and make the curriculum more rigorous than it is at present.

[scaryteacher]

bump for LisaT06