- Target:
- Norfolk County Council Childrens Services
- Region:
- United Kingdom
As parents of children with special educational needs our aims are, and have always been, to highlight areas of concern in the Norfolk County Council Childrens Services SEN Review proposals that we personally feel do not offer sufficient provision to meet the needs of our future expanding generations.
We welcome the opportunity the restructure offers and acknowledge the need to redistribute provision throughout the county. However, without adequate plans for growth in special school places we feel that one areas gain is the central areas loss.
From the outset of the consultation we voiced our concerns firstly to the SEN Review members, both verbally and in writing, and then to the Children’s Review Panel on 16 January 2008, the Cabinet Meeting on 28 January 2008, and finally to the Cabinet Scrutiny meeting 12 February 2008. Continually our concerns have not been allayed. We, unfortunately, feel the need to present the same areas of concern, along with some additional areas.
We, the undersigned, are asking that Councillors involved in making decisions on the Consultation on the location of Complex Needs Schools and Specialist Resource Bases consider the following points:
• None of the options have provision for growth in population. They are all around provision for the current number of places without looking to the future. The population of Norwich is growing rapidly and, also, more babies born with disabilities are surviving which means more places will be needed every year to ensure that every child can access the best education for them.
• A secondary style model Special School helps many pupils to gain confidence for the future. It helps Special School pupils access mainstream and mainstream pupils with special needs access Special Schools. It, also, helps pupils slip more easily into college systems when they move on, as it is a similar style. It would be a lot harder for pupils to access either mainstream or college if they had had all their lessons in one class every day. However, for others with more complex needs it would not work – there must be provision to support all pupils.
• Many pupils with Special Needs do not get the support they need as their needs are not as severe as others are. A lot struggle in mainstream – not reaching their full potential and losing self-confidence. Many mainstream teachers will confirm this. This consultation is an opportunity to look at how to help these pupils too, and give them the opportunity to access an education that is suitable for them instead of struggling and failing as they do currently.
This consultation is a perfect opportunity to improve facilities and provision of Special Schools. We would ask that you look carefully at what already works really well and what does not work well in current provision, both mainstream and special, and that you make your decisions wisely to benefit and maximise the potential of as many students as possible.
We thank you for reading this.
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The Parents' concerns regarding the Norfolk County Council SEN Review petition to Norfolk County Council Childrens Services was written by Vince Wolverson and is in the category Education at GoPetition.