My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. Turning to the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, I am a new kid in this school, but I intend to survive the next reshuffle, whenever that may be.
The amendments in this group all seek in different ways to amend Clause 62, which puts a duty on appropriate authorities to use their best endeavours to secure special educational provision. It is clearly a very important issue.
In answer to my noble friend Lord Addington, I have not heard too much from him, and I doubt I ever will. I suffered from mild dyslexia when I was young, as did my father. I struggled with maths and English, but in engineering workshop theory and practice, I got a grade 1 assessment and O-level, whereas in maths I got 9 double-minus.
On Amendment 192, the noble Lords, Lord Low and Lord Touhig, along with my noble friend Lady Sharp are absolutely correct to emphasise that schools should match the support that they provide to the child’s needs. This is known in practice as a graduated approach, and we are going to keep it. I agree with my noble friend Lord Storey and the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, that it is not so much the name that matters but the approach.
The new SEN code of practice replaces school action and school action plus with a simplified approach to SEN support. This focuses attention on the individual
needs of the child, requires schools to review how effective their support is and involves parents much more closely. This is exactly the sort of graduated approach that I believe the noble Lord, Lord Low, and other noble Lords are calling for.
The noble Lord, Lord Low, in effect asked for evidence of the need for change. We are making these changes because, as Ofsted’s 2010 review of SEN found,
“current systems focus too much on whether pupils receive additional services, and too little on the impact of their support”.
In the other place, my honourable friend the Minister for Children and Families made a commitment that, while developing the code, we would refine these proposals through work with a broad range of experts. Since then, officials within the Department for Education have met academics, school leaders, members of the Special Educational Consortium and more than 300 SENCOs. We are extremely grateful to all those who gave their time. As a result, I believe that the current code provides a much clearer framework for schools, informed by those working directly with pupils.
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That is reflected in the support for this approach from experts such as Brian Lamb, author of the Lamb inquiry report, who described the draft code as “a real step forward”, with a greater focus on outcomes and parental involvement. My noble friend Lord Storey was complimentary when he spoke to his Amendment 181 earlier. Lorraine Petersen, chief executive of NASEN, formerly the National Association for Special Educational Needs, says that the new approach to SEN support is,
“just as effective as the current School Action/School Action Plus system. In fact, it should be better because of the emphasis on quality teaching and on measuring the impact of the support that is used”.
The code makes absolutely explicit that schools are still required to apply the sort of graduated response that the noble Lord, Lord Low, is calling for. Section 6.5 requires them to: match support to needs, including by reviewing the impact of support; keep a record of the support provided and the progress made by pupils; involve specialists where initial support is not enough; and involve parents directly in shaping the support provided to their child and in regular meetings to review how their child is progressing.
The noble Lord, Lord Low, suggested that the code removes IEPs. We are clear, in the code, that children’s progress and the provision made for them should be recorded, but we do not want a bureaucratic system when the job can be done efficiently through the school records. The code also allows for the essential differences between early years education, school support and further education. This amendment would require a single approach across all those stages.
I hope that this provides the necessary reassurance that these proposals retain the most important elements of the current system, while also improving it. I hope the Committee agrees that the code of practice is the most appropriate place to set out such detail, rather than the Bill.
Amendment 191, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, would require that education providers secure special educational provision “as early as possible”.
It is extremely difficult to disagree with the intention behind this amendment. In fact, I believe it is already inherent in the current clause and in the detail of the draft SEN code of practice. I do not think you can use your best endeavours if you delay putting in place the support. Ensuring that needs are picked up and support is put in place as quickly as possible is one of the main aims of our reforms. I entirely support the aspiration behind the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, but do not believe that amending the Bill as proposed would help fulfil that aspiration. That is better achieved through the specific guidance set out in the code of practice and by ensuring that it identifies the key points at which there are opportunities to intervene early and tackle SEN as early as possible.
Amendment 192A, tabled by my noble friend Lord Addington, would require education providers to secure assistive technology and accessible publications in classrooms and assessments. I entirely agree that this support should be available. The Equality Act 2010 already places duties on education providers and exam boards to make reasonable adjustments for disabled children and young people. These adjustments include, where appropriate, access arrangements such as extra time and the use of computer readers or modified formats of publication. These legal duties are well understood and organisations can be challenged under the Equality Act where they do not fulfil them. My noble friend Lord Addington has made representations to Ministers about some of the practical and technological barriers to making examinations more accessible. I know that he is concerned that progress in this area needs to accelerate, and I have some sympathy with that argument.
Ofqual—the independent exam regulator in England—the exam boards and the British Dyslexia Association, which is championing these technologies, are already collaborating to remove these barriers. The Joint Council for Qualifications, the JCQ, represents the seven largest providers of qualifications in the UK. It provides a detailed guide to accessing such technologies and other access arrangements in GCSEs, A-levels and other commonly used qualifications. The most recent guide makes clear that a candidate can use a computer reader where they have,
“language and vocabulary difficulties which have a substantial and long term adverse effect on”,
their ability to access written text. The guide also, for the first time, makes clear how electronic PDF copies of papers can be ordered from exam boards for easier use with computer readers. Such papers can now, with the appropriate safeguards, simply be ordered online.
In addition, this year, 2013-14, reading pens—scanners which read text aloud to pupils and students via earphones—have been cleared for use in exams for the first time. The use of such technology may be appropriate for only a relatively small number of candidates, but Ofqual’s figures for the use of access arrangements show an almost fourfold increase in the number of candidates using computer readers, to 785 candidates in 2013 from 207 in 2012, when the BDA highlighted this issue. This is an encouraging start. Ofqual, the JCQ and the specialist bodies continue to work together to try to standardise the formats of exam papers to ensure that they are compatible with a wide range of
computer readers and so that they become more widely available for those candidates who need to use them. The door is clearly open for schools, colleges and others to get the support that pupils and students need. As such technologies become more common in the classroom and on courses, they will become more widely used in exams.