Mr Patsy McGlone (Mid Ulster): To ask the Minister of Education to outline how he intends to assure parents, in the absence of inspections by the Education and Training Inspectorate, that specialist units in mainstream schools meet the needs of children with Special Educational Needs.
Minister of Education: The Education Authority (EA) has overall responsibility for special education provision in Northern Ireland and its Special Education Strategic Area Plan (2022-2027) (SESAP) aims to ensure that pupils with a statement of Special Educational Needs (SEN) have access to a placement that best meets their needs, through a continuum of education provision which includes mainstream schools, specialist provision in mainstream schools and special schools.
My department’s policy has a presumption of mainstream and just over 84% of children with SEND are educated in mainstream classes, 5% are educated in specialist provision in mainstream and just over 10% are education in special schools.
Specialist provision classes in mainstream schools form an important part of this continuum of provision, providing smaller classes that offer targeted support within an inclusive mainstream school environment.
The number of specialist provisions in mainstream schools has increased significantly in recent years to meet the increasing demand for specialist education placements.
Children’s needs are assessed and recommended for specialist education provision by the EA’s Educational Psychology Service. Evaluation of that placement takes place through an annual review process, or on an ad hoc basis if required, to ensure it continues to meet the child’s needs.
The EA’s ‘Framework for Specialist Provision in Mainstream Schools’ sets out a range of criteria and indicators which schools must meet in establishing a Specialist Provision in Mainstream Schools (SPiMS) class, to ensure children’s needs will be met and they have a quality educational experience in an inclusive environment.
Schools also have designated EA SEN Link Officers and specialist provision classes are supported by its Specialist Setting Support Team, which offers a wide range of training, advice, consultation and strategies to schools. This service engages with parents to seek their views on their child’s progress, consistency of approach between home and school and understanding of how to support their child’s needs.
In terms of inspection, for some time now, the ongoing industrial action short of strike has made it difficult for the Education and Training Inspectorate (ETI) to provide necessary assurances of the quality of education in all of our schools, not just specialist provisions.
Adapting to challenges, the ETI has moved to monitoring visits by district inspectors (DIs) and thematic evaluations which provided a sample of evidence from schools, allowing compilation of evidence-based first-hand practice.
Specialist provisions have been an important feature of our mainstream schools for decades and, in 2019, the ETI published a report on SPiMS containing 30 case studies of effective practice and a report in 2020 on the curricular challenges and approaches adopted by specialist provisions following the pandemic. The ETI will also publish its findings of a specific evaluation into specialist provisions before the end of this academic year.
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