Education and Skills Bill

Other noble Lords will know that I have spoken on this issue on many occasions. I have a great deal of sympathy with this amendment. It is important that there is early diagnosis and early treatment. Not long ago, I participated as governor of a small primary school in the permanent exclusion of a nine year-old. It was quite clear from the papers that accompanied the child that he had had difficulties more or less from the moment that he went to school. He had been diagnosed but, frankly, the amount of support that came through from the local authority was totally inadequate. I can remember that, when we talked about the Every Child A Reader programme, I asked the Minister whether it should be rolled out more widely. He responded by saying, ““Ah, but it costs £2,000 a child””. I pointed out that spending £2,000 per child at the age of six was infinitely better than spending £60,000 at the age of 16. That remains the case. Early diagnosis and support are vital. The noble Earl, Lord Elton, talked about the need for every school to have someone capable of making that assessment. A great deal of work is going on in training a special educational needs co-ordinator in schools and there is a great deal of CPD training for teachers in this area. In the primary school that I talked about, we have a talented SENCO, who has done and continues to do a great deal. Clearly, the amount of support from local authorities varies enormously from one to another and, in particular, there is a great shortage of educational psychologists. It is extremely difficult in some areas to get any consistent support from educational psychologists. Frequently you get one person, then another and then another. To be classed as requiring school action or school action plus, an educational psychologist must be present. In the school that I am talking about, 25 per cent of pupils are classed with special educational needs. We get visits from educational psychologists two half days a term, which is just not enough. There are needs and a long waiting list of children to see the educational psychologist for assessment. It is vital that sufficient educational psychologists are trained to support the sorts of services that children need.