Posted By Site Administrator at 25/01/2010 22:15:32
NAHTs’ SEN Committee met on Wed 13th Jan and is now the SEND Committee. Some members were still snowbound in N. Ireland, Wales and the worst hit parts of England. Since we last met in November at NAHT’s Education Conference, Brian Lamb’s final report has appeared: Lamb Inquiry – special educational needs and parental confidence (December 2009), which can be found at www.teachernet.gov.uk/publications. If you don’t have time to read the whole thing, the first 10 pages give you an overview and the 51 recommendations. When speaking at Croner’s 5th Annual SEND Conference on 22nd January, Brian said he didn’t think that the SEN framework needed changing, but that its implementation was too erratic.
By way of contrast, the Conservatives are pursuing the idea of replacing statements with Special Needs Profiles. I will say more about this in next month’s Blog, after I have attended a Seminar on Special Educational Needs at the House of Commons on 1st February. Michael Gove, Nick Gibb and Tim Loughton are all expected to be there. Let me know if there is anything you want me to say to them if I get the chance.
At the SEND committee meeting, Jan Myles showed us a publication that came out in October from the Communication Trust. It can be downloaded from the Trust’s website www.thecommunicationtrust.org.uk. It is called Every Child Understood: Transition to secondary school – supporting pupils with SLCN by Anne Ayre and Sue Rousltone. NAHT has endorsed this publication which carries our logo.
Toby Salt’s Independent Review into the Supply of Teachers Trained to Meet the Needs of Children with Severe Learning Difficulties (SLD) and Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties (PMLD) is working at speed and will complete its work before Easter. Toby is very pleased with the response he has had and thanks those of you who were interviewed or who responded to the questionnaire.
Barry Carpenter’s Complex Learning Difficulties Research Project: Developing meaningful pathways to personalised learning, is a two year project, which has schools and researchers wrestling, first of all with defining ‘complex needs’ and then piloting materials to help schools, both special and mainstream, to meet the needs of these pupils.
More next month, including NAHT’s ongoing meetings with Ofsted re proportionality, the National Strategies’ re the Inclusion Development Programme (IDP), plus everything else that will have happened by then.
Rona Tutt
