Going back to old school thinking

Just ahead of the start of the new school year, Ruth Patrick focuses on some worryingly old-fashioned approaches to the education of disabled children being proposed by the Government

As 9.5 million schoolchildren traipse through the school gates this September, it seems timely to consider yet another of the Coalition’s reform agendas – their plans for “improving” the education of disabled children and those with additional needs.

Cameron has long been a passionate defender of special schools for disabled children. Indeed, back in 2005, he wrote on article on this subject in The Independent. Writing as shadow Education Secretary, Cameron said it was critical to “remove the bias against special schools” which he observed in the British education system. For Cameron, the education system has become biased in favour of “inclusivity” at all costs, such that disabled children are too often placed in mainstream education, even where this is not in their best interests. He spoke of his own experiences with his disabled son, Ivan, whose special school was a vital safe haven for the whole family.

This agenda has not been dropped by Cameron, and earlier this year saw the release of a Department for Education Green Paper to start the process of reform. The green paper includes a number of controversial proposals, and takes forward a commitment to reverse what it describes as the “bias towards inclusion”. To this end, the Government is planning to create more special school places as well as ensuring that parents have a real choice of either a mainstream or a special school for their children.

Ominously, the right to this choice includes the disabled child having their needs prioritised unless these needs are incompatible with the “efficient education of other children” or represent an “inefficient use of resources”. In the age of austerity, with cutbacks and cost-savings the order of the day, one can all too readily predict budget trumping need time and time again. At the same time, offsetting and contrasting the needs of a disabled child with the “efficient education of other children” subtly implies that these are often incompatible, while also reinforcing unhelpful divisions between “normal” and “special” children.

With the right resources and equipment, mainstream schools can provide safe educational environments where all can flourish. Some people do continue to argue that there is a place for special schools, but Cameron’s reforms seem to go too far in the opposite direction.

Unsurprisingly, the fight back against these reforms has already begun with a campaign established: “Reverse the Bias Towards Segregation”. Co-founder of the campaign, Richard Rieser, argues: “The Government’s insistence on choice and introducing free schools and academies is seen by them as a necessary precursor for privatisation. Disabled pupils are an uncomfortable truth that do not fit their marketing approach. Our human rights and right to be included are too important to be sacrificed on the altar of profit.” Let’s hope the campaign makes an impact and encourages Cameron to re-think his ill-judged reform approach.