Special Needs Children 'Wrongly Labelled'

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Special Needs Children 'Wrongly Labelled'

Damien Pearse, Sky News Online

Up to half a million children are wrongly classed with special needs to cover up

poor teaching, boost funding and improve league table positions, an Ofsted

report has found.

As many as half of all young people identified with special educational needs

have been classified incorrectly as an excuse for low achievement, the report

says.

Chief Inspector of Schools Gilbert said schools needed to improve

teaching, not label more children.

" Schools are identifying children as having special educational needs when they

need essentially better teaching, " she said.

The report says there are 8.5 million school children with 1.7 million of them

being identified with some form of learning difficulty.

Of those, 457,925 are wrongly categorised, according to the Ofsted report.

The report said extra funding was an " obvious motivation " to diagnose more

children, as was the belief that more special needs pupils would boost

inspection scores.

Teachers unions reacted angrily to the report warning that it was " unacceptable

to scapegoat teachers " . They spoke of the need for trained psychologists in

schools.

Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College

Leaders, said: " It is nonsense to say that 'simply' improving teaching and

pastoral support would address the issues around SEN in schools.

" The fact is that more young people today bring behavioural and emotional issues

into school and need intensive, often one-on-one, help inside and outside the

classroom. "

Ofsted inspectors examined provision to the age of 19 years old, carrying out

345 case studies and visiting 22 local authorities, 228 nurseries, schools and

colleges.

They said that parents' fears about inconsistencies in identifying special

educational needs across the country were " well-founded " .

The proportion of pupils with a statement of special educational needs has

slightly decreased from 3% to 2.7% since 2003.

The percentage identified as needing less intensive additional support, known as

School Action and School Action Plus, has increased from 14% in 2003 to 18.2% in

2010.

Ms Gilbert added: " Higher expectations of all children, and better teaching and

learning, would lead to fewer children being identified as having special

educational needs. "

:: The report comes as the Government considers reforming school admissions to

give poorer children preferential treatment when it comes to places.

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