Disabled Children: Accessible and Inclusive Education

Despite schools returning full time, the Disabled Children’s Partnership has found that 24% of children with disabilities have not yet returned to school full time. Many are being taught on part-time timetables due to health and safety concerns, making their needs all the more immediate. The return to school has been particularly challenging for pupils with tracheostomies and those with aerosol-generating procedures, as delayed Government advice, finally published on 13 November, left many families feeling in limbo for months. Furthermore, the Coronavirus Act 2020 suspended a number of key provisions in the Children and Families Act 2014, which has meant that 31% of children with disabilities are still waiting for key therapies to be restarted. Some 51% of those waiting for an assessment for an education, health and care plan have been waiting more than six months, which is entirely unacceptable for families who are struggling to provide the care that is so necessary for their children.

With that in mind, I implore the Minister on behalf of children with disabilities and the all-party parliamentary group for disability to do everything in her power to ensure that children with disabilities are able to return to specialist and mainstream education as soon as is safely possible. I also ask that she ensure that provisions in the Children and Families Act 2014, which are key to ensuring disability inclusion in the classroom, are resumed without delay.

There is increasing anxiety among many qualified health professionals and therapists who work in schools—and who are absolutely key to disability inclusion in the classroom—that they might be redeployed to hospitals and health services in the coming months. That could be incredibly detrimental to the learning of children with special educational needs. I therefore ask the Minister to ensure that medical support for children with disabilities is maintained out of this pandemic, and that continuity of care for children with special educational needs in the classroom is protected.

I have been contacted by the OHMI Trust, which undertakes truly innovative work adapting musical instruments for children with special educational needs, to highlight the importance of music as a key element in inclusive education. To this day, this is often denied to children with special educational needs due to lack of awareness among music teachers or tuition providers, or a lack of specialist equipment that has been tailored to a child’s particular disability or needs. Music can provide an opportunity for socialisation and creativity, and has also been linked to improved academic achievement. I would welcome a comment from the Minister about ensuring that music is not omitted from any efforts to include children with disabilities going forward, and to work collegiately with the OHMI Trust to develop specialist instruments for children across the United Kingdom who have special educational needs.

Before I finish, I will touch on further education for those with special educational needs, and particularly the case of Mr Gary Copland from my constituency. A student at the University of Glasgow, Gary is in his mid-20s, has been registered blind since birth and has autism. He is currently studying for a bachelor of law. Gary was forced to go part time due to poor levels of support, and is now in his fifth year. In his first year, he was given only one course text adapted for his disability, five days before the end of term. In his second year, he had only four textbooks, leaving him to write all essays and take exams from memory. He has had no working IT for over 43 weeks, leaving him unable to graduate with everyone else in his year. The whole family is suffering from trauma as a result of these issues, and Gary has lost 30 kg and is now medicated for depression. I ask the Minister to speak with universities to look at these issues, Gary’s in particular—perhaps the Equality and Human Rights Commission could review this particular case.

Finally, I would welcome a statement or response from the Minister on the Government’s funding plans for disability-inclusive education. In 2019, a review of special educational needs criteria and practice was promised, but this publication has been delayed. It would be remiss of me, therefore, not press the Government for a date or timeline for publication. Despite the current circumstances, it is an absolute priority. It would also be helpful to have an update on autism assessments and the progress the Government are making, because many families tell me that they cannot receive the support required for children who have autistic spectrum disorder in school, or at home, because they are still struggling to get assessments.

Throughout the pandemic, I have had the great pleasure of meeting—often virtually—mainstream and special school leaders up and down the country, and hearing from them about how they are have risen to the challenges of providing education during the outbreak. I really thank all of those staff, headteachers and children who have spoken to me. I am currently on a virtual tour of special schools in tier 3 areas, so I thank everybody who has spoken to me during that. I particularly thank the staff, children and young people from Thriftwood School and College, which is in my constituency, for talking to me as I sat in their playground—in a socially distanced way—about how much being back at school has made a difference to their lives. It has been an absolute privilege to talk to all of those children and teachers.

I am proud of the SEND system in England. There are plenty of things about it that can and must be improved, but fundamentally it is a good system based on the well-supported principles of co-production with children and young people themselves and with their carers, and a focus on the whole child and their education, health and care, as well as a focus on life outcomes, backed up by strong protections of the rights of parents.

We should all acknowledge that life for many families raising children with SEND was already hard before the pandemic came, but then they faced the extra challenges of lockdown and coronavirus. It has been a high priority for me and the Government to put children and young people with SEND and vulnerable children at the heart of our response. That is why I have spoken to many parent carers directly on many occasions and regularly written open letters to them and those working closely with SEND children to let them know what we have done to support them and what they should be expecting from the services on the ground.

Throughout the pandemic, we asked schools to stay open to pupils with EHC plans, where it was safe to do so. I am really proud that, even at the peak of the pandemic in the spring, we were one of very few countries in the world to keep schools and colleges and early years open for vulnerable children. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, keeping those schools and colleges open is critical for children’s wellbeing, as well as for their education. Since September, our priority has been ensuring that those children and young people have returned to college. It has been challenging for certain groups, such as the small number of children who need aerosol-generating procedures, but I am very glad to hear the vast majority of them are now back in school.

We have published detailed guidance throughout this time to schools and colleges, specialist settings, residential special schools and many others to support the return and to support their safety, but we do not underestimate the challenge that this represents. We know that special education settings may face even greater challenges, which is why we work so closely with them.

Our £1 billion covid catch-up package includes £650 million to support schools for lost teaching time, and there is an additional weighting for special schools, which get three times as much as a mainstream school. Headteachers can decide how to use that. They could be spending it on educational psychologists, speech and language therapy or other activities to support children.

We recognise the importance of respite for families with disabled children and young people themselves. We reaffirmed that message and legislated to allow a wide range of respite services to continue, including in the family home. We encourage local authorities to prioritise that support.

There may be circumstances where a child is not able to attend school due to coronavirus—for example, if they are self-isolating—and that is why we have made it clear that schools have a duty, in line with the guidance and the law, to provide remote education for state-funded school-aged children who are unable to attend a school due to coronavirus. We have also reviewed the remote education guidance. Schools should always work collaboratively with families to put in place adjustments to enable pupils with SEND to successfully access remote education alongside their peers.

The debate comes at a timely point, because the Government are working both on the new cross-Government disability strategy for publication in the spring and on the autism strategy. As the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) said, autism is extremely important. The Department for Education is working closely with the Department of Health and Social Care on the comprehensive review of the autism strategy. In developing the strategy, we are listening closely to autistic people, including over 2,700 people who contributed to the call for evidence.

Early identification of autism is really important. Under the Government’s opportunity areas programme, there is a fantastic project in Bradford using the outcomes for each individual child at the early years foundation stage tests and teacher observations to find out whether there are markers of early autism. The results are so impressive that we have rolled it out from the 10 first pilot schools to the next 100 schools. I am hopeful that in the future that could lead to much earlier diagnosis.

The SEND review, which the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow asked about, has always aimed to enable the education system to have that transformative effect on those with SEND and to focus on the person as a whole, with a joined-up offer of transparent services co-produced with them and their family to suit the child’s individual needs. That was the driving force behind the legislative changes we made in 2014 and it is the driving force behind the SEND review. It will require significant change from everyone involved in the system to deliver those changes. It is a fundamental and cross-cutting review in which we are working hard to find ways to make best practice in the SEND system become common practice. During the outbreak of the pandemic, it was necessary to reduce the pace of the review, but I and the whole of Government remain completely committed to it, and our ambition is to report in the spring. The areas we aim to improve are of long standing, but we are determined to deliver that real and lasting change.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for drawing our attention to this important agenda. We are as committed as ever to getting the right support in place for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities so that they can thrive and achieve their potential. Both she and the hon. Member for York Central raised important concerns, which I hope she is happy to hear the Government take seriously.