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News- Page 9
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Education : Cameron: What my son has taught me about caring
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Posted by sylvia on Saturday, August 06, 2005 (10:22:14)
Conservatives.com 12/06/05
"A remarkable battle was won last week. The enemy didn't simply lay down their arms and leave the field.
Instead they issued a retraction of almost everything they'd been fighting for and joined the winning side.
The 'battle' was part of the war to save special schools and the 'enemy' was Mary Warnock, author of the policy of inclusion for all, who published a hard hitting critique of her former stance.
I feel no shame in using military metaphors. Anyone who is involved in a personal struggle to secure a special school place for their child and anyone who has waged political campaigns to save these schools knows that this sort of language is spot on.
Parents feel they are up against an uncaring bureaucracy that opposes special schools on grounds of political dogma and cost. Politicians arguing for special schools risk being branded outdated and in favour of segregation.
I've fought both types of battle and was delighted by the victory last week.
As parents of a severely disabled son Ivan my wife and I were desperately concerned that we would never find a school where he could get the care, attention, therapy and education he needs.
All children are precious and all parents worry, but when your boy can't walk or talk and when his health is so fragile, worry can turn to panic. So when we found the Cheyne Centre in London, which specialises in helping children such as Ivan, it was like a revelation.
Here was somewhere with devoted staff, the right equipment and therapies, such as music and swimming, that help give Ivan a real quality of life. Yet back to the war analogy getting into this school was like trying to get out of Colditz.
The local education authority wouldn't recognise it as a school and the health authority was trying to close it. I will never forget the parents' meeting when an official told us the 'model wasn't appropriate' and didn't fit the Government policy of inclusion.
Parents' anger bordered on rage. We know our children and their needs better than anyone and they simply wouldn't survive in a mainstream school.
As an MP taking up the cudgels for other parents, the stories I've heard are chilling.
One mother told me how a local specialist unit was closed, her son was forced into a mainstream school, developed clinical depression and now attends a special school 75 miles away.
One parent had to go through two tribunals just to get one of four children with autism into a special school.
Then there were special school teachers who knew they could help children who were sinking in mainstream schools but whose parents hadn't been told about what special schools could do, or even that a local one existed.
Special schools are not right for all children, but for many they provide the best chance to make real progress. One-to-one attention, patience with those struggling to learn, and special therapies give children who would otherwise be left behind the chance to thrive. As Shadow Secretary of State for Education, I am determined to go on waging this war. That is why I so welcome Baroness Warnock's recantation. She admits the concept of inclusion was the 'most disastrous legacy' of her 1978 report, accepts that some needs are 'more effectively met in separate institutions' and calls for a new generation of special schools.
But while 'the battle of Baroness Warnock' is well and truly won, the war to restore common sense is far from over.
And the Government is on the wrong side.
The Government, as Lady Warnock makes clear, has a 'patronising' approach to special schools, with Ministers apparently set on 'immovable tracks' and using every method by 'hook or by crook' to keep all children except those with the most severe and complex disabilities out of special schools.
The Labour manifesto weakly mentioned an 'audit' of special schools and when I set out last week the terms that it should follow, Ministers claimed incredibly that it was already under way. Yet no an nouncement has been made in the House of Commons and no details have been given. We haven't been told who will conduct the audit or what it will consist of.
Prominence must be given to the views of parents, bias in the law must be addressed and while it is conducted there should be a moratorium on the closure of special schools, 93 of which have been shut down since Labour came to power.
This issue has a wider significance. Helping the most vulnerable in our society is one of our most profound obligations, and how we carry this out is vital.
In education in general and with special schools in particular it means recognising that throwing every child into the same class in the same school does not represent equal rights or equal treatment, as Labour suggests. It is thoughtless, uncaring, and as we have seen from the results often cruel.
Conservative compassion is based on an understanding that we are all individuals with different needs. It is time for this aspect of Conservatism to come to the fore again. Our approach should be based on real understanding, common sense and practicality not blind dogma, fake idealism, and political correctness.
Our society is becoming increasingly fractured. Whether it is growing rates of teenage pregnancy and family breakdown, sink estates plagued with crime and drugs, alienation among the young or loneliness in old age, our politics needs to focus on building a stronger society.
In education this means that instead of the top-down Labour approach that ignores parents and implements damaging theories from out-of-touch experts, we need a Government that looks at society from the bottom up. That recognises that as parents, teachers and politicians we are all in it together, with a mutual responsibility to care for those who would otherwise get left behind.
The war to save special schools is just part of the wider conflict in which we must engage. But winning this war would be a pretty good start."
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Education : Group plans autism satellite classes
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Posted by sylvia on Saturday, August 06, 2005 (09:29:53)
ABC.net.au 09/06/05
Proposed satellite classes for children with autism could cater for up to 20 children in Wagga Wagga and Albury.
The autism association has been developing the classes in response to a demand from local parents for more support.
Dr Trevor Clark from Autism Spectrum Australia says the classes should be running by the start of school next year at the latest.
Dr Clark says the program has been proven elsewhere.
"I've actually discovered we have integrated since 1992, 392 students with autism back into their local mainstream schools. So we believe that it's a highly successful program," he said.
The autism association is also planning a community education centre to service the region from Albury.
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Education : Learning how to teach kids with autism
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Posted by sylvia on Friday, June 17, 2005 (12:25:20)
Zwire 02/05/05
By Lauren Roth
Cathy Opshinsky attached the names of six students with Velcro to a laminated board. Good behavior means a trip to the park, she told her class of autistic kindergartners and first-graders at John J. Audubon School in Scranton.
Sitting with his classmates, blond-haired Timmy Loney, 7, suddenly put his fingers in his ears and screeched as if something had hurt him.
Mrs. Opshinsky gently put his hands on the table and looked him in the eyes. "Use your words, Timmy," she said quietly.
He looked up, mumbled a few words, and his face cleared.
A tantrum had been averted.
Autism is a neurological disorder that has grown so quickly doctors don't yet know how to prevent or treat it. The number of diagnosed cases of autism in Pennsylvanians ages 3 to 22 exploded from 595 to 4,836 between 1992 and 2002, and has risen each year since.
Without a defined body of research, teachers and others are left to do the best they can to modify autistic behavior. The disorder makes concentration, social interaction and speech difficult.
"We're chipping away at the outside of symptoms and not getting at the core," said Dr. Thomas Challman, a neurodevelopmental pediatrician at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville. "That's why educational and behavioral interventions are the main treatment."
So when the educational interventions go wrong, it can be especially devastating for parents.
A teacher of autistic students is set to go on trial today at the Lackawanna County Courthouse. She is accused of hitting and restraining students ages 6 to 12, some of whom cannot speak, as a form of discipline.
Susan Comerford Wzorek, 54, of Clarks Summit, faces two counts of child endangerment for alleged abuse in her class at Clarks Summit Elementary School from September 2001 to June 2003. She was employed by the Northeastern Educational Intermediate Unit, and has been suspended.
The NEIU educates some of the most severely disabled autistic children in the region, including about 50 over age 6 who are taught in separate classes.
But most area school districts educate at least some of their autistic students. Scranton, which includes many mildly autistic students in regular classrooms, has about 35. A regional total was unavailable.
Pennsylvania outlaws the use of restraints for disciplinary purposes unless specifically called for in the student's Individualized Education Program. That was not the case for any of Ms. Wzorek's students.
Her lawyer, James J. Walker, said after she was charged last year his client had not been adequately trained. "In my opinion, it would appear that there is a lack of training and instructional structure, which results in a lack of guidance (and) support," he said.
Efforts to reach him for additional comment were unsuccessful.
Training
Pennsylvania requires special education teachers to earn a certification for their chosen field. All teachers are also required to take continuing education courses, but particular topics are not required.
A recently completed report by the Pennsylvania Autism Task Force broadly criticized the state's requirements for adults entrusted to care for autistic children. The report found there are neither state standards outlining "best practices" for autism education and therapy, nor a certificate program. Certificates are available for communication disorders, learning disabilities and other disabilities.
It also found university training of special educators in autism lacks adequate depth and content.
At the University of Scranton, for example, special education students take one course that deals with autism and other "low incidence" disabilities. Regular education students take one course that touches upon autism, said Dona Bauman, Ph.D., an assistant professor of education.
"Teachers know what autism is. They just don't have enough training in positive behavioral techniques," said Tara McHale of Clarks Summit, who sat on the task force.
Her 12-year-old daughter, Samantha, is autistic and has improved her self-control with the help of well-trained teachers, Mrs. McHale said. "It's amazing how many autism behaviors can be drastically reduced."
What works
In Mrs. Opshinsky's classroom, light streamed in through big windows onto the multicolored rug decorated with numbers and letters. The children's' desks are spread around the edges of the room, and a large play area with beanbags and toys sits in the center. A semicircular table with small chairs is in the back of the room.
When many of the children started school, they weren't used to sitting as a group. So Mrs. Opshinsky rewards them with small treats - usually Skittles - for coming to the table. After nearly a full school year together, the students clap at each other's achievements and hold short conversations.
"These guys can't help themselves or know what's right and wrong," said Mrs. Opshinsky, who has taught autistic students for three years. "We try to be proactive, get to know kids through and through and know what would trigger behavior. We redirect when we see it in their face and body language."
Her classroom is usually filled with adults - a teacher, an aide, and several therapeutic support staffers. The ways they redirect children can include a touch to the cheek, a rub of the hair or a tap on the shoulder.
Maureen Archer said her son, Ryan, comes home happy from Mrs. Opshinsky's class. On Friday, his bright blue eyes lit up when he saw the speech lesson would involve dirt and water. The class was planting seeds and learning words like "garden" and "window."
"He likes anything messy," said his mother.
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Education : 'Special needs' education queried
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Posted by sylvia on Wednesday, June 08, 2005 (23:30:29)
BBC Online 08/06/05
Mary Warnock, architect of the special needs education system, is to publish a damning report on how it operates.
Baroness Warnock says pressure to include pupils with problems in mainstream schools causes "confusion of which children are the casualties".
She also says the way the most severe needs are assessed is "wasteful and bureaucratic" and "must be abolished".
Baroness Warnock wants a "radical review" to be produced by an independent committee of inquiry.
In a pamphlet to be published later this month by the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, Baroness Warnock calls for a fundamental re-thinking of the concept of inclusion, in which children with physical or emotional difficulties are encouraged to be taught in mainstream schools.
'Disastrous legacy'
This ideal of inclusiveness "springs from hearts in the right place" but she describes its implementation and the consequent moving of pupils out of special schools as a "disastrous legacy".
"Governments must come to recognise that, even if inclusion is an ideal for society in general, it may not always be an ideal for school."
Instead of putting special needs pupils into mainstream schools, she calls for a change in the status and purpose of special schools.
At present, she says these suffer from a "patronising" attitude, which limits their use to children with the most severe and complex disabilities.
"They are regarded as little more than places of containment, hospitals or day centres, but with better educational facilities," she writes.
'Cards stacked against them'
Instead she proposes a system of special schools which could serve a wider variety of needs, including autistic children, but which would be small enough to provide a reassuring and personal environment for emotionally vulnerable pupils.
These would also have to recognise that special needs might emerge from social deprivation as well as physical disability, she writes.
She says children can feel excluded even if they are in a mainstream school.
"Inclusion should mean being involved in a common enterprise of learning, rather than being necessarily under the same roof."
The system of "statementing", in which the educational needs of pupils with more severe difficulties are established, is also robustly criticised by Baroness Warnock - who acknowledges her own responsibility in designing a process which has "turned out to be not a very bright idea".
Baroness Warnock, aged 81, a former head teacher, academic and leader of several high-profile inquiries, produced the report which laid the foundations for the introduction of statements of special educational need in England and Wales in the early 1980s.
When the idea was first proposed, Baroness Warnock says that it was expected that 2% of pupils with special needs would receive statements.
That statements were actually given to 20%, she says, reflects the lack of clarity over their application.
The statementing process has become too bureaucratic and unresponsive to parents, she writes.
'More realistic'
The Advisory Centre for Education, which helps parents, said: "The statementing process is necessarily 'bureaucratic' as it's the gateway to scarce resources for which good records are needed of the nature of the child's difficulties and the appropriate special help required."
The leader of the NASUWT teachers' union, Chris Keates, said the principle of inclusion was "absolutely correct" but was undermined and discredited if it was pursued in a "dogmatic, ideological and unqualified manner".
It had often masked an agenda in some local authorities which had more to do with financial considerations than pupils' needs.
She added: "There is now some evidence that due to pressure from schools and parents a more realistic and considered approach is emerging."
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Education : Call for special schools review
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Posted by sylvia on Wednesday, June 08, 2005 (23:26:57)
BBC Online 07/06/05
The Tories have challenged the government to bring a halt to special school closures.
Education spokesman and possible Tory leadership hopeful David Cameron urged an audit of special needs provision - a Labour manifesto pledge.
He said the pendulum had "swung too far" in favour of inclusion which he argued was not always appropriate.
The government rejected that there had been any "systematic reduction in places" in special schools.
Under threat
Mr Cameron was speaking at a special school in Gloucestershire which had been under threat of closure until the county council went Tory on 5 May.
He said the government must find out why special schools have closed since 1997 and discover what sort of provision parents want, whether in mainstream or special schools.
There are 1,148 special schools in the UK, but 91 have closed since 1997. And he argued that ministers should prevent any more closures. In response, the Schools Minister Lord Adonis said "the number of places has declined only very slightly since 1997" with school closures mostly "due to reorganisations, including bringing schools together".
"We don't accept that there has been a systematic reduction in the number of places or in provision."
A spokesperson for the Education Secretary Ruth Kelly added that more special schools had been closed when the Conservatives had been in power, than under the current Labour administration.
Lord Adonis also confirmed that an audit of special school provision is under way - and Mr Cameron said that "this is good news and we will now look for evidence of it. But we will be harrying them day by day to do something about their systematic cuts to special school places".
Election issue
Speaking at the Alderman Knight school in Tewkesbury, Mr Cameron said: "Here we see small class sizes and unbelievable attention to individuals.
"We can see children who are struggling to read or have problems with social skills getting that attention and it is great."
On his possible leadership ambitions Mr Cameron said: "I haven't ruled myself out.
"I'm thinking about it and will be making my decision when the time comes."
Prior to the general election, the government said Tory plans to cut £35bn from public services would affect education.
Ruth Kelly said parents of children with special educational needs would be among those hardest hit by the proposed cuts.
The Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 states that a child must be educated in a mainstream school unless this is "incompatible" with parents' wishes or interferes with other pupils' education.
The Department for Education and Skills recently announced that a dozen special schools, state and private, would have specialist status with extra money and a remit to spread good practice.
A DfES spokesperson added: "We are fully committed to the right of parents to express a preference for a special school place where their child has need.
"Equally, where parents want a mainstream place for their child, everything possible should be done to achieve this, so long as it meets the needs of the child and does not damage the education of other children."
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