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SEN Green Paper – ‘Support and Aspiration’

A few weeks ago the government launched the ‘Support and Aspiration: A New Approach to Special Educational Needs & Disability’ Green Paper and opened its consultation. In the paper it talks about removing the ‘bias in favour of inclusion’ but in ALLFIE’s experience there is no bias, in fact many parents and young people still have to fight to access mainstream education provision.

The Green Paper talks a lot about ‘parental choice’, but the new proposals to increase parental choice, already virtually nonexistent for those with disabled young people, will be undermined by proposals in the already published Education Bill which will weaken appeals procedures whilst giving schools greater control over admissions, exclusions, curriculum and teaching methods.

Parents may have choice to say where they would like their child to go but, under these suggestions, schools now have even more ways to say no to a disabled child and under the proposals parents will have fewer ways to challenge that decision.

On the plus side the Green Paper does put forward the idea of disabled children and those with SEN being given the opportunity to challenge decisions made by adults in relation to school, support, learning options but will this idea be reflected in reality?

What are your views on the paper?

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