Education and Skills Bill

moved Amendment No. 176B: 176B: After Clause 55, insert the following new Clause— ““Assessment for specific learning difficulties (1) Each pupil in a maintained and voluntary aided school must receive an assessment for risk of specific learning difficulties— (a) before his sixth birthday; (b) in the second year after completion of Key Stage one; and (c) in the first year after Key Stage two. (2) The assessment shall be carried out by a prescribed person with prescribed qualifications. (3) The specific learning difficulties referred to in subsection (1) are— (a) dyslexia; (b) dyscalcula; (c) dyspraxia; (d) dysgraphia; (e) Asperger’s syndrome; (f) attention deficit disorder; (g) attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder; (h) Meares-Irelen syndrome; (i) a high level of co-morbidity of any two or more of the above conditions. (4) In this section ““prescribed”” means ““prescribed by order by the Secretary of State.”” (5) The Secretary of State may, by order, specify conditions to be added to those referred to in subsection (3) of this section.”” The noble Lord said: With diffidence and apprehension, I broach a subject that is even larger than I realised when I approached it. At Second Reading, I expressed my concern about the extent and consequences of dyslexia and related conditions in schoolchildren and young adults. I start by explaining why I am concerned at, and surprised by, this extent. Official SEN census figures show that only 78,000 children are either statemented or are on school action plans for dyslexia. A recent government-funded study, the No to Failure interim report, has shown that 55 per cent of pupils failing SATs at key stage 1 and 2 are at risk of dyslexia. That equates to around one in five pupils, or 2 million children. These children, on the whole, are not developing as they should. They are a reservoir of potential unrealised and talent unfulfilled. We have touched on the proportion of them who finish up in prison. They will also come under the umbrella of this legislation and as such point to a large hole in my amendment, which does not cover them at all. On Report, when we have the information that the Minister will give us about the situation as he sees it and the Government’s attitude to it, it will be possible to bring that in. I recognise that this approach is in a way tangential to the approach of the amendments that have just been debated. I cannot leave prisons there. If we go down the road towards them, there are pupil referral units. A recent study by Xtraordinary People—a well named organisation—found that 65 per cent of pupils at a particular London PRU were dyslexic. It is established, under the school census figures from the department, that it costs an average of £9,900 per year to look after one child in a PRU. Assuming that only half that number are there for that reason, it still amounts to a colossal amount of money. The KPMG Foundation, an independent body, reported in 2006 in its Every Child A Reader programme that literacy difficulties cost the nation £2.05 billion a year. I say that slowly and with emphasis, because I hope that it will remain in the Minister’s mind and in that of my noble friend on the Front Bench when the cry goes up that this is all very expensive. It would be amazingly cheap, and even cost-positive, if we got it right. To accelerate things a little, I shall pass over the prison question. I have a whole mass of briefing, which, if I am forced to, I shall deploy on Report. I shall just refer to the Bromley Briefings Prison Factfile. Almost 80 per cent of prison staff state that information accompanying people into prison is unlikely to show that the presence of learning difficulties or learning disabilities had been identified prior to their arrival in prison. Such people are more likely to be victimised than others; they are unable to access prison information routinely; they are likely to receive inadequate levels of support, although I hope that the Bill will put that right; and, because of their impairments, they are excluded from certain activities and opportunities. Some 20 per cent to 30 per cent of offenders have learning difficulties or learning disabilities that interfere with their ability to cope with the criminal justice system. There is a mismatch between literacy demands, offending behaviour programmes and the skill level of offenders. This is rather like the days before the Plain English Campaign had its effect on government publications, when literature was addressed to people with a reading age of 12 or 14 in the language of someone with an adult reading age. It is no good providing help to people in language that they cannot follow. Prisoners with learning difficulties and disabilities are excluded from elements of the prison regime, including opportunities to address their offending behaviour; the one possible approach to redemption and rehabilitation that they have. That may breach the Disability Discrimination Act. There are legions of these people and they should not be there. A great many of them are there because of failure earlier in their lives, which is why we need to put a system in place in primary and secondary schools that catches them. It is not good enough just to do it at the beginning, because these things can often only be caught later on. What I have in mind is not altogether clear from the amendment, but the amendment, or something like it, would be central to it. In every school, there should be someone sufficiently qualified to identify those who are at risk of dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, dysgraphia, Asperger’s syndrome, attention deficit disorder, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, Meares-Irlen syndrome, or a high level of co-morbidity of two or more of any of those conditions. There should be someone in every school who is able to say, ““That looks like a possible case””. That should discount at least 57 per cent of the school population. The remainder would be referred to a central resource—a visiting specialist, or whatever means the Secretary of State devises—who can go through the remainder and identify those at acute risk. Finally, the most highly paid person should be brought in, a specialist for the local authority, to provide the final diagnosis, resulting in a statement or whatever is appropriate. For that to happen, children have to be assessed at appropriate stages. The stages that I have chosen are before his sixth birthday, thereby giving the child time to be established in a school and for the teachers to get to know him or her; in the second year after completion of key stage 1, thereby allowing two years before the next stage, so that the whole programme is not reversed just before the key stage is reached; and in the first year after key stage 2, for the same reason. The way in which this should be done would be prescribed by the Secretary of State. He could say who was to do it and, more important, he would prescribe the qualifications necessary to do it. That brings me to training. The Government have training modules available for awareness of dyslexia and so on, but they are not mandatory. I suggest that there should be a mandatory element of awareness of dyslexia incorporated into initial teacher training programmes. I further suggest that every school inspector should be required to be thoroughly trained in this specialism, so that inspection in this area is properly carried out. I hope that I have made what I intend clear but, if I have not, this is Committee stage and I am very happy to return to my feet. I beg to move.