Comment in Guardian today
here
With this comment on SEN:
Julie Maynard, mother: "This is very bad news for my son"
As a mother of a disabled child and a campaigner, I appreciate the government believes academies will provide choice for parents facing the prospect of their child attending a failing school; no reasonable parent wants that. Yet many parents of "statemented" children with special educational needs (Sen) have no choice. Special schools have closed. There is no requirement for the local education authorities to ensure they exist. Even if they do exist, parents can only express a preference; the LEA determines the child's placement, often based on ideology or bean counting.
Academies do not improve matters for us, but, strangely, weaken our child's legal position. A maintained school must take my child, if it is named in his statement, while an academy can refuse. I may appeal to the secretary of state or the special educational needs and disability tribunal (SENDiST), but an academy can bypass this fair process.
I have no right to ask for my son Joshua's placement to be changed from a maintained school to an academy, thus forcing him to stay in an underachieving school, while peers abandon ship. Academies have no legal duty to ensure my child receives the help set out in his statement; worse still, the funding LEA has no powers to ensure it does. Instead, I am obliged to seek the secretary of state's intervention.
Academies leave disabled children in a worse position. Existing legal loopholes treat our children less favourably. In the government's haste to improve the outcome of children, it appears it has unintentionally overlooked the injustice academies can cause to pupils with special educational needs.
When I first met the prime minister, as a father of a disabled child, Ivan, who sadly passed away, he shared my frustrations regarding the Sen system, described by the education select committee, as "not fit for purpose". Academies will not change that, especially as the admission process is frequently unfair.
If Mr Cameron is to achieve a fair society, he must fulfil promises to parents like me, regarding government educational proposals.
Surely my disabled son should have equal access to a good school, whether mainstream or special, based on meaningful parental choice?
Julie Maynard is a voluntary lay representative in SENDiST and campaigner.