Special Education Crisis in the British Isles
By Anne Dachel
As anyone looking at LossOfBrainTrust can see, the majority of my stories are from Britain and Ireland currently. Things are in crisis all over the British Isles. Everywhere there’s more funding for special education. Counties are building their own special schools, specifically ones for kids with autism.
Official evaluations show schools are failing miserably when it comes to addressing the needs of those in special education. Story after story features special needs kids without a school place for this fall. Children wait years just for an evaluation to be classified as needing special help in school.
The phrase “increasing demand” is a regular feature in news coverage on special education in both Ireland and Britain.
What do these stories tell us? Simple, there are more and more disabled children in these countries. It’s not a secret. They keep telling us about it.
Bedfordshire:
“That’s more than 6,000 children in our mainstream schools on stage two of the SEND code of practice and around 3,000 with EHCPs….
CBC’s director of children services Sarah-Jane Smedmor said: “We’ve seen that demand for EHCPs double in the last few years. So it’s inevitable we need to ensure we meet the needs of our children individually.
Also from Bedfordshire:
Parents to protest lack of special ed services.
They lined up 52 pairs of shoes outside the building in September, one for each child without a place for the start of the academic year….
The Central Bedfordshire SEND action group is planning the protest and inviting families and their friends to attend.
Suffolk:
Council chiefs say there has been an "unprecedented rise" in demand for specialist education - and there will be a need for hundreds more school places in the years ahead. Suffolk County Council has carried out an analysis of the first part of its multi-million-pound plan to improve SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) education across the county but admits there are still not enough places to keep up with the current needs with demand up more than 32%.
…the need is increasing every week.
They said: "Suffolk has seen an unprecedented rise in requests for placements within Specialist Settings with the Special Education Panel seeing between 60-120 new referrals on a weekly basis. When comparing autumn and spring terms over the past two academic years, the number of requests has gone up by over 32%....
If the current trend continues, another 230 places will be needed by 2023-24 over what is currently being created….
The council has already agreed - and is implementing - a £45million [$55M] project to expand SEND education and create 874 new specialist education placements.
Gloucester:
A new 60-place primary special school could be given the financial sign-off when civic chiefs meet today. Funding for the new school is one of several initiatives that could benefit from an extra £1.5m [$1.8M] in funding.
Stroud:
The new special school in Stroud will support 60 children aged four to 11 with moderate and additional learning difficulties in the school building formerly occupied by Severn View Primary Academy. …
Council leaders say there is an increasing demand in Gloucestershire for special school places,…
Kirklees:
Families are waiting more than three years to get help for children with special education needs and disabilities in Kirklees, an inspection has found. …
A joint Ofsted/CQC inspection over five days in February this year found lengthy waiting times for key health services ranging from 90 weeks for autistic spectrum disorder to 194 weeks - more than three years - for a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Oxfordshire:
Charlie, 19, from Launton, has been out of school for eight years. He was diagnosed with autism, aged eight, and found mainstream school overwhelming.
His mother Sharon said: 'We were left in limbo. It was like we just dropped off the face of the Earth. …
"Ours isn't an isolated case, unfortunately. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of families being failed." …
"There aren't enough places in special schools, but also the provision in mainstream is not really supporting the children adequately….
Bury:
A new school for 80 secondary age children is to be built in Bury in the next year.
Planning approval has been granted in the past week for the two-storey SEND school …
“The proposal will provide much needed SEND facilities catering more specifically to children with autism and mild behavioural needs aged 11-16 years.” …
Earlier this month, Bury Council said it was seeking proposals from education trusts to open another new special school in Bury.
Northern Ireland:
MLA Pat Sheehan made the call after a report revealed that 300 children with special educational needs are without a school place for September. He described the report as "deeply concerning".
He said: "Given the yearly increase in the number of children with special educational needs, the education minister should have prepared and planned for this eventuality.
Over 300 children with a statement of Special Educational Needs (SEN) are without a school place for this September, including 91 who are waiting for a place in a special school and 202 that are seeking places in a mainstream school. …
More than 22,000 pupils in Northern Ireland currently have a statement of SEN, according to statistics from the Department of Education.
The Education Authority (EA) has said there has been a "significant rise" in demand for special school places
Ireland:
Every day 15,500 children have to travel outside their local school-catchment area;
Nearly 1,500 students who cannot get a school place are receiving home tuition, which “should only be used as it was intended – as a last-resort measure and temporarily”;
Around 4,000 children are waiting for a diagnostic assessment in order to qualify for a school place….
With around 25pc of pupils estimated to have SEN – including 1.6pc, or one in every 65 students, who have autism – the OCO predicts the situation will worsen unless proactive steps are taken.
Responding, the Tánaiste said there are more children with special needs in school than ever before. ...
He said 1,800 extra places in 312 special education classes are needed this year and that has exceeded the Department of Education's projections. …
"25% of the entire budget of the Department of Education, €2.5 billion is now expended on special education and rightly so," she said.
"The special education teachers now number more than 14,000, 19,000 Special Needs Assistants and 315 special classes will open this year, the 2022-23 school year, providing for 1,800 students. …
She told the Dáil that it is estimated there are "nearly 270 children in Ireland without a school place for this coming September", with "many more" waiting for a diagnostic assessment to allow them qualify for a school place.
Despite these dismal stories about the pathetic state of special education currently, many are oblivious to what it all means.
Two stories from Ireland stood out to me.
One was about a school where the principal is determined to create “a neurodiversity friendly school.”
(Of course with 25 percent of students in Ireland having special needs, according to official statistics, every school will have to be “neurodiversity friendly.”)
Another story announced the opening of an autism unit in a school in Galway. What got my attention was the photo of four ladies celebrating by opening a bottle of champagne.
I’m sure their intentions are laudable and this is a much needed addition to the school, but the fact is that Ireland is drowning in autism. A story from June 8th revealed that kids in Ireland wait 4 to 5 years just for an autism diagnosis.
Stories from Ireland/Britain are only going to get more depressing. Eventually the money will run out, but the statistics will only increase.
Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.
Bill
Good if you could take the time to supply us all with links from where you get your mis information from.
"vaccines for easy to treat infections and for 'depression" and "anxiety" I have no links proving any of that sorry.
"effective for schizophrenia" gluten free diet helps with this
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6247287/
"These same pharmaceutical companies rarely make vaccines for infectious diseases with high mortality rates like Ebola or Rabies."
Well they do and test them in Oxford UK and not the Sudan or Zaire where they are to be used being used.
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-11-11-ebola-vaccine-begin-human-trials
The rest of your post as is all of your posts written as intended to make no sense.
Pharma For Prison
MMR RIP
Posted by: Angus Files | July 02, 2022 at 04:00 PM
Angus Files,
I partially agree with you. Pharmaceuticals companies do not care about the mentally ill. They make medicines in the forms of vaccines for easy to treat infections and for 'depression" and "anxiety" yet these same pharmaceutical companies do not offer medicines that are effective for schizophrenia
especially not medicines that are for free to those that really need them. These same pharmaceutical companies rarely make vaccines for infectious diseases with high mortality rates like Ebola or Rabies. When was the last vaccine created for these fatal infections? Decades ago, maybe only after the government forced them to create the vaccines in questions but these vaccines are old and losing their positive impact on public health due to new of the viruses mutations.
Posted by: Bill | June 30, 2022 at 07:47 PM
Joseph sadly I think most will end up locked up whether via the criminal system or mental health but who apart from most of the readers one here,cares? pharma dont care for sure the more like this the better for the pharma shop till.Very very sad indeed.
Pharma For Prison
MMR RIP
Posted by: Angus Files | June 29, 2022 at 03:09 PM
Truly mind boggling, have politicians become totally desensitised to this ?
De-Sensitisation of people in a position of power and authority ? is the most pathological pathology going! most serious situation you will ever face in your life, if you meet it head on, in a hospital corridor !
Looking Backwards to move forwards ?
https/www.open.edu>mod>oucontent.view. Lennox Castle Hospital : View as single page .
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism By Robert Jay Lifton MD
People need to understand when an assessment has not been completed , then there is no obligation to provide support services for an un-assessed need ! due diligence still covered from ass-to-elbow?
for Health and Social Care Politicians ? Dae ya think so ?
Runrig The Stamping Ground -Lyrics YouTube
Posted by: Morag Lyons | June 29, 2022 at 02:46 PM
Liberal diagnostic criteria of autism means more liberal voters and conservative businessman to profit from their for-profit health care system thanks to liberal diagnosis criteria. Conservatives gain votes from conspiracy theories about what causes autism and the share holders voter for the who are from the for-profit companies that profit from dubious ABA therapy. Stop the liberal diagnostic criteria and keep developmental disability services open for the moderately disabled like me and the seriously disabled like the children of some of Age of Autism voters. Uganda and Uzbekistan do not have the over diagnosed autism statistics like the United States,United Australian States and the United Kingdom. I am wondering about the United Brazilian States and Uruguay and how liberal their diagnostic criteria is.
Posted by: Bill | June 29, 2022 at 09:47 AM
In order (there’s a metaphor) to have access to bars, restaurants, theaters, play houses, schools, government, in many places in America, one needs to show proof of being injected with a product that does not prevent infection, does not prevent transmission. No acknowledgement, what so ever if people who have been injured by said product.
The now the civilized Pharma wants us to be the less civilized we become.
Thank you Ms Dachel, thank you Dr Gaunt! The world is forever in your debt.
Posted by: annie | June 28, 2022 at 11:26 PM
What is going to happen in the future ? What is going to happen when these kids reach adulthood and cannot support themselves?
Posted by: Joseph | June 28, 2022 at 06:51 PM
I happened to be at my brothers house at the back of 6 the other week and right there spewing out of the TV box were kids at a special school for agressive children.The school was a last chance saloon school where if the kids didnt respond poitively they were labeled unteachable and were not to be given an education.The average age of the kids at the school were aged 8 and the oldest aged 11.In everyones day we never had kids that were full on agressive and unteachable.One thing we do know its nothing to do vaccines as were constantly reminded.The exscuse the school gave for the agresiveness of the kids was turmoil at home (the parents) .Some things never change.
Pharma For Prison
MMR RIP
Posted by: Angus Files | June 28, 2022 at 06:02 PM
"Nearly 1,500 students who cannot get a school place are receiving home tuition, which “should only be used as it was intended – as a last-resort measure and temporarily”
How does this work? Is home schooling legal in the UK?
In the U.S, home schoolers can now access special needs services without having to go to public school. This law was passed in our state years after I had done the heavy lifting myself for my kids. Home schoolers receive nothing from the government for academic education. We like it that way. Otherwise, they would be telling us what to teach our children.
Posted by: Emmaphiladelphia | June 28, 2022 at 01:20 PM
This is part of the world-wide tragedy caused by vaccines. It is amazing to us that they can't/won't see it. The dollar signs block their view.
Posted by: Dr William Gaunt | June 28, 2022 at 09:00 AM