In 2006 a House of Commons Select Committee described the special educational needs system as ‘no longer fit for purpose’. By September 2014 a new system was in place. Two years on, it’s safe to say it hasn’t been an unmitigated success. To understand why the new system hasn’t worked – and indeed can’t work – it might help to take a look at the history of special educational needs and disability (SEND).
A short history of SEND
Education became compulsory in England in 1880. Some local school boards set up special schools or special classes within mainstream schools for physically ‘handicapped’* children, but provision was patchy. What took people by surprise was the number of mentally handicapped children who turned up to school.
At the time, teachers were expected to teach according to the official Code – essentially a core curriculum – and many schools in the fledgling national educational system were seriously under-resourced. Teachers were often untrained, paper was very expensive (hence the use of rote learning and slates) and many schools operated in conditions like the one below – with several classes in one room. They just weren’t equipped to cope with children with learning difficulties or disabilities.
Shepherd Street School in Preston in 1902§
Two Royal Commissions were set up to investigate the education of handicapped children, and reported in 1889 and 1896 respectively. Both recommended the integration of the children in mainstream schools where possible and that special provision (classes or schools) should be made by school boards. The emphasis was on children acquiring vocational skills so they could earn a living. Those with the most severe mental handicap were deemed ‘ineducable’.
The Royal Commissions’ recommendations, and many others made over the next few decades, were clearly well-intentioned. Everybody wanted the best outcomes for the children. The challenge was how to get there. After WW2, concerns about the special education system increased. Parents felt they had little control, the number of pupils in special schools was rising, and children were still being institutionalised or marginalised from society. In 1973 Margaret Thatcher, then Education Secretary, commissioned a review of the education of handicapped children, led by Mary Warnock, whose Committee of Enquiry reported in 1978. A year later Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister and some of the Warnock recommendations came into force in the Education Act 1981.
The Warnock report introduced a very different way of understanding ‘handicapped’ children. They were no longer seen as being different, but as having special educational needs – as did up to 20% of the school population. Special educational needs were defined in terms of the support children needed, rather than in terms of their physical or mental impairments. What was envisaged was that many children in special schools would gradually migrate to mainstream, supported by Statements of Special Educational Need. And mainstream schools would gradually become more inclusive, adapting their buildings, equipment and teaching methods to meet an ever wider range of educational needs. The new system might have worked well if the rest of the education system hadn’t changed around it.
Context is crucial; one size doesn’t fit all
The Warnock recommendations were made in the context of a very flexible education system. In 1981 Local Education Authorities (LEAs), schools and teachers had a great deal of autonomy in what was taught, how it was taught and when. That all changed with the 1988 Education Reform Act that heralded a compulsory National Curriculum, SATS and Ofsted. Central government essentially wrested control of education from local bodies, something that had been actively opposed for the previous 100 years – few people wanted education to become a political football.
The new education system was at heart a one-size-fits-all affair. Governments find one-size-fits-all systems very appealing. They look as if they are going to be cheaper to run because professional training, equipment and resources can be standardised and performance can be easily measured. Unfortunately for governments, human populations are not one-size, but are very varied. If a universal service is to meet the needs of a whole population, it won’t do that if it’s designed to meet only the needs of the average person. A stark choice faces those designing universal systems; either they can design a system that meets everybody’s needs and resource it properly, or they can design a system that doesn’t meet everybody’s needs and then spend years trying to sort out the ensuing muddle.
The 1880 education system was one-size-fits-all and the next century was spent sorting out the problems that resulted for handicapped children. There was a brief period after 1981 when the education system took a big step towards meeting the needs of all children, but seven years later it flipped back to one-size-fits-all. The last 30 years have been spent trying unsuccessfully to limit the damage for children with SEND.
So what’s the alternative? The answer isn’t further reform of the SEND system, because the causes of the problems don’t lie within the SEND system, but with the broader education system. Two key causes are teacher training and targets – the subjects of the next post.
*I’ve used the term ‘handicapped’ because it was in widespread use in the education system until the Warnock Committee changed the terminology.
§ © Harris Museum and Art Gallery http://www.mylearning.org/victorian-school-and-work-in-preston/images/1-3215/
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