Specialist Educational Provision

[education]

hi
There are currently a range of educational options for children with varying categories and severity of need. Does anyone out there feel that David Cameron's concept of "free school" could be useful in setting up specialist educational provision that would support whole heartedly the principles of inclusive education by offering provsion of an educational service that

• prepares children to go into mainstream, phasing and supporting the transition gradually
• offers a period of respite for children for whom the mainstream provision has temporarily broken down

Thoughts......?

Well I think free schools for kids with SEN are a fantastic idea and would love to be involved in one.
Not necessarily for the reasons you state but I know SEN provision could be soooooo much better than it currently is.

Nope I think privatising schools will be an excuse in the long term for our children getting LESS support than they currently do! I can't see the budget for free schools being good once the initial political fanfare has died down. Access to EP's and all the other support professionals would become more complex and expensive for a start. The academies don't have a good track record for SEN, as they aren't accountable in the same way LEA schools are.

I want my son educated by people qualified to do so, and those people to be given the appropriate training and support. I don't want a Church Hall with a few have a go Mums (though right no that would be better than conventional school for us!). We need long term sustainable, support from the state, not for the state to abdicate all responsibility.

It's expensive to educate our children properly. We pay tax to support the vulnerable, not so they can be swept away to the fringes and forgotten about!!!!

What would be good is a voucher system so that parents could choose the correct school for their child, free of the usual LEA argy bargy - a voucher would contain increased budget to allow for the severity of SEN. This would make services and costs transparent.

There are some schools similar to this in my area, although the SEN focus is on behavioural issues rather than developmental problems like ASD or ADHD. Unfortunately this has led to a 'one size fits all' approach where LAs have pushed children with ASD into classes full of students with BESD issues.

I would be concerned about how much one school could meet the needs of all pupils who have experienced a breakdown in their mainstream placement; it could be because of unmet ASD needs, BESD caused by abuse, attachment difficulties, trauma, ADHD, dyspraxia. All of these need a different approach and I know of cases where children with ASD in particular have been failed because they were wrongly sent to BESD schools.

I am also concerned that the school you describe would be a short-term placement, designed for the child to return to mainstream. For many children, their needs will never be best served in mainstream and it would be distressing for them to be sent somewhere, where they know they will only stay for a short time and then have to re-integrate to yet another placement.

Many children with ASD experience multiple exclusions from different schools and they need to settle into a new placement with the security that they can build relationships with their peers. If the peers are a transient group which changes constantly due to them moving on to their new mainstream schools, it could inhibit any development of social skills. I think the best aim for children with ASD would be a new school where they can feel settled and secure with a stable staff body and peer group.

I htink the whole free school thing could be a good idea.

dd1 is at an absolutely fabulous private SN school, and the hoops they ahve had to jump thorugh have been just staggering.

anything that wold make that easier has to be a good thing.

but I would worry about how good/effective a school may be (not that that is any different form the current system, of course) - but sometimes and interest and "caring" about education and SEN is just not enough.

Not in a million years. As soon as the fanfare has died down, public funding will be reduced. Free schools will only work if people are in it for the right reasons. How many devoted parents will still have the same enthusiam for 'running' (or being invloved in running) a free school after their kids have left? Potentially this is a really bad move for sen kids as is the push to move to academies. Private sen schools work as they are run by educators who have a vested interest in providing a good edcuation to pupils with sen. The problems free schools will have is that pupils will not pay to go so where will the money come from? There is no way the government will be funding free schools to provide more resources that they currently do to state special schools, are realistically how many companies are there out there that will put in the sort of funding required?