Liz Kendall MP: Fighting to ensure every child gets support to reach potential
More than 27,000 children in Leicester and Leicestershire have special educational needs, which can range from mild behavioural problems to severe disabilities.
Last week in Parliament, MPs debated the Children and Families Bill, which proposes significant changes to the system of support available to these children.
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Worry: Almost 10,000 in Leicester could be left without the help they need if the School Action programmes is axed, says the MP
Reform and improvement is urgently required.
All too often, families find themselves at breaking point, battling to get the help their children depend on and deserve. This can cause them great stress and anxiety.
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Under the current system, children with the most severe educational needs get a special assessment and a detailed plan of support, known as a "statement".
However, most children who need help have mild or moderate needs, such as dyslexia or minor disabilities, and do not require a statement.
At present, these children get extra support either at school or from a specialist, such as an educational psychologist, under the school action and School Action Plus programmes.
I am very concerned that these children – almost 10,000 in Leicester alone – could be left without the help they need because the Children and Families Bill scraps school action programmes.
This will leave many parents desperately worried that their child's needs will no longer be adequately met.
A constituent from Thurcaston Park came to see me about the problems she experienced getting help for her son, who is thought to have dyslexia.
Even though he does not qualify for a statement, we were able to get him access to a wide variety of additional support, including extra reading classes and a specialist spelling group.
This support was vital for Sean, as it is for many other children like him.
I want to see these services protected and enhanced in future so children with special educational needs can get on and do well at school, and in later life, too.
Unfortunately, the Government has failed to spell out what – if anything – will replace the school action programmes, leading to widespread concerns that these crucial services are under threat.
This comes at a time when local councils are already suffering from a shortage of resources and struggling to cope with the numbers of children who need help.
With council budgets cut by a third, specialist services such as children's centres or speech and language therapists will inevitably suffer further.
My Labour colleagues and I have called for a national framework of minimum standards which would guarantee all children the right to decent services from their local councils.
So far, the Government has refused to back our proposal, which will only serve to increase the postcode lottery experienced by families up and down the country.
The Children and Families Bill presents a great opportunity to deliver real and lasting improvement for children with special educational needs and their families.
As the Bill goes through Committee in the coming weeks, my Labour colleagues and I will continue to fight to ensure that every child gets the support they need to realise their full potential.
9 Comments
by DonHenson
Monday, March 11 2013, 6:38PM
“@NickDiPerna
I'm too polite to tell you what I really think. So provide evidence - hard and scientific - that people "grow out of" autism. Show me the links that give evidence of CAUSE being down to parenting.”
by DonHenson
Sunday, March 10 2013, 7:23PM
“I vaguely remember a cyber cafe on New Parks. Nobody used it.”
by disident3
Sunday, March 10 2013, 7:14PM
“To the likes of Liz talk is cheap. We pooled our money to really help deprived children on the estate What the Elite did to our cyber cafe did was criminal.”
by NickDiPerna1
Sunday, March 10 2013, 10:34AM
“@ DonHenson
I have some experience with autism and there is growing evidence that it could indeed be due to how a child is raised as well as triple chromosome syndrome or pre-birth trauma.
I know some very wealthy people who let the state provide shelter and care for their mildly autistic children while they cruise the world on gold-plated pensions. Ironically, I know a very poor lady with a severely autistic child who has never had financial or any other kind of support whatsoever.
Some children can grow out of their autism with the right help. Charities like to diagnose everyone with autism so their managers can drive around in sports cars.
There are many famous people who have a confirmed or rumoured autistic spectrum disorder. Any public funding has to be proportional to the problem. The open chequebook approach is not the answer when people are struggling just to survive.”
by disident3
Sunday, March 10 2013, 9:29AM
“So all children running round super markets screaming have something wrong. I am not on about children who are ill or have medical problems. I am on about children out of control. where mummy could not care less about what they do. One of our grandsons as aspergers syndrome, now 19 he was brought up to a near normal life, no special school he went to main stream his mum and dad taught him right from wrong. He is shy and dose not like crowds but he is learning a trade. No Don not heartless.”
by DonHenson
Saturday, March 09 2013, 5:53PM
“I have a son with autism. It is not caused by bad parenting. Many children on the spectrum are considered to be badly behaved by their ignorant distant relatives but that does not alter the fact that they need additional support that this government is sweeping away.
And hard-pressed parents who don't know what they are dealing with or have any support to do so will continue to be blamed by the idiotic, the ignorant, the self-serving and those who ought to be more supportive of their relatives.”
by disident3
Saturday, March 09 2013, 5:40PM
“Children in Africa have classes under trees and they learn. It is not the schools it is the standard of teachers. Then you can blame parents who do not enforce discipline. Not rose tinted glasses; as a kid I respected my parents. If I did wrong I got a good smack,never did me or my brother any harm. Today you only have to listen to parents talking to their children. MPs should lead by example and stop fiddling their expenses. What an example to set children.I would also care to remind Liz Kendall MP the computer shop in Braunstone set up with residents money and destroyed by the Labour Party, for giving free computers to children with learning problems and selling others on the cheap.
A shop that kept dozens of children off the streets and out of trouble. Then the Crescent Community centre controlled by labour party members two nights bingo others forced out. There is helping children; and talking about helping them Liz.”
by NickDiPerna1
Saturday, March 09 2013, 11:55AM
“State eduction has been a crippling failure. And monumental rises in public spending on schools hasn't improved standards one bit.
This system is grossly out of date, rethink needed - not more reforms. No good blaming parents, because they went to state schools too.
The content of this short US video applies to the UK:
http://tinyurl.com/bfjfpms”
by disident3
Saturday, March 09 2013, 9:15AM
“Two of my great grandchildren have behavioral problems. I blame their mothers.”