Your Editorial ("Duties to pupils with special needs", June 23) highlights the increasing impact and at times confusion of legislation.
It has never been my experience that education staffs, with the exception of effective headteachers, express any enthusiasm for embracing education law. Their response is most often similar to a drunken uncle turning up at their door - get him a coffee, get him a taxi and get him out of here.
Staffs feel much safer restricting themselves to the education narrative that accompanies education policy, best reflected in the much used phrase "the needs of the child" and so on. These needs are often conveniently linked to what an organisation can afford or the level of political pressure exerted.
In fairness to local authorities, the 2004 Act didn't help when applied to 32 local authorities of varying size and resources. Your editorial omitted to outline, however, that a school such as Jordanhill is, along with private schools and parents who home educate, acknowledged within the 2004 Act. The managers of such schools and the individual parent are entitled to request that the local authority in which the child is resident, assess the child's needs as if they had responsibility for his education and to provide requisite additional supports. The obligation on the local authority to respond to either request is discretionary.
The Doran Review which reported in 2012 was established to focus on children with complex additional support needs. It was set up, among other reasons, to ascertain what role the Scottish Government could play in ensuring that every child and young person in Scotland has their additional support needs identified, prioritised and met, across all provision including local authorities, the independent sector, and the grant-aided special schools. Importantly, that included the use of national funding.
The Education (Scotland) Bill introduced in the Scottish Parliament in March this year, despite its proposals to further amend the 2004 Act, has avoided taking steps to apply in legislation the principle of Doran in a wider context of responsibility for the provision of additional support. It is to be hoped that MSPs will see the passage of the Bill as an opportunity to correct this omission.
James Munro,
75 Marlborough Avenue,
Glasgow.
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