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Exploring learning disabilities: supporting belonging
Exploring learning disabilities: supporting belonging

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1 From ‘ineducable’ to ‘included’

You have followed the story of Bernadette ‘Bernie’ Lee in previous sessions. Watch the video below (which you first watched in Session 2), where Phil Lee talks about his sister’s education.

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Transcript: Video 2

PHILL
So Bernadette got to school age, and there was nothing. And I-- I remember my father fighting long and hard to get something for her to the extent-- and constantly getting rebuffed to the extent that when it came round to rates time, he went up to the town hall. And he put the money on the desk and said, there's my rates. And I've deducted the education bit because you won't educate my daughter. Eventually, Bernadette got into a training centre. And that was-- that was what was accepted then, and Bernadette loved that, and it was-- but it wasn't really preparing her for later life. It was, you know, keeping her occupied.
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Phil’s highly charged interview reflects the historical injustice that people with learning disabilities have faced in terms of getting an education. In the UK, for much of the 20th century, children assessed as having an IQ under 50 were deemed to be ‘ineducable’. Their families received a certificate confirming this, which meant that they could legally be denied an education.

Click through the slides in Slideshow 1 to see how this gradually changed in the UK from 1970 following the passing of the Education (Handicapped Children) Act.

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(Slide 1): The exclusion of children from education, because of their learning disability, ended with the passing of the Education (Handicapped Children) Act 1970. This removed the category of ‘ineducable’ and made it the absolute right of all children in England and Wales to a full education. The change largely came about through the lobbying of parents, who demanded an education for their sons and daughters. Before 1970, some disabled children did receive an education, but this was usually through segregated provision, or what became known as ‘special schools’.

(Slide 2) Since then, the key debate has been whether children with learning disabilities can and should be taught within mainstream schools, often referred to as ‘inclusive education’. Legislation passed after 1970 made it more difficult for local authorities to deny children with learning disabilities a place at mainstream schools. For example, the special Educational Needs and Disability Act (SENDA) 2001 extended disability discrimination legislation to schools, colleges and universities and gave disabled children many more rights in mainstream education.

(Slide 3) This was strengthened further by international developments. For example, in June 1994 representatives of 92 governments and 25 international organisations formed the World Conference on Special Needs Education, held in Salamanca, Spain. They signed up to the Salamanca Statement on the education of all disabled children, which called for inclusion to be the norm. Then, in 2009, the UK ratified the UN Convention of the Rights of Disabled Persons. Article 24 of the UNCRPD states that all children have a right to access mainstream education.

Slideshow 1
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Activity 2 Where children are schooled

Timing: Allow about 5 minutes

a. 

a) 75-100%


b. 

b) 50-75%


c. 

c) 25-50%


The correct answer is c.

Answer

The data for England collected in 2017 showed that 48% of students with SEND were being educated in state-funded mainstream schools. 44% were educated in maintained special schools. The other 8% were being educated in a mix of independent schools, non-maintained special schools or Pupil Referral Units. Interestingly, this is quite a different picture to Scotland, which has a stronger policy commitment to inclusion. In Scotland, over 90% of children with Additional Support Needs (ASN) are educated in mainstream schools (Scottish Government, 2018), although a proportion of these are schooled in special units on the main site. However, due to differences in how ‘SEND’ and ‘ASN’ are defined, it can be difficult to compare figures.

(Source: Department for Education, 2017)

You may have been surprised to learn that despite the national and international policy commitments to inclusive education, less than half of children with SEND actually attend a mainstream school.