Comments on: Birmingham counts £18m cost of helping special needs pupils

By: The Chamberlain Files

The Chamberlain Files — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 16:42:20 +0000

[...] Birmingham counts £18m cost of helping special needs pupils [...]

By: Sam

Sam — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 19:14:14 +0000

i’m surprised that you are looking for credibility from an organisation that is content in failing the disabled SEN.

By: MattBennett29

MattBennett29 — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 12:42:12 +0000

.@ChamberlainFile it seems to show the NUMBER of statemented children (not the proportion) staying the same to 2021. How is that credible?

By: Jim Chee

Jim Chee — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 20:42:12 +0000

The policy of this Council has been for the past few years to impose a distorted ‘inclusion’ agenda on SEN pupils. the Strategy referred to in this article is now the third attempt to make some plans. the first one was scrapped because it slashed special school places, the second one failed because Eleanor Brazil belatedly realised it was effectively the same recycled approach. the current one was to be led by Special School Head Teachers who admittedly held some meetings and wrote a report – however, this has now been overshadowed by a redraft by another overpaid consultant and is now 30 pages of waffle disguising the same Strategy of ‘inclusion’ and money saving.
the data that was relied upon to ‘inform’ this Strategy is partial and biased. the numbers of disabled pupils from consanguineous marriages is insignificant in a city this size, but allows some Council Officers to blur the real issues.
in relation to autism, its not that there are now more children with autism, just better diagnosing. In fact there are a significant number of children labelled as having behavioural problems who are in fact autistic pupils who have not had their needs met in mainstream schools.

By: Cllr Jon Hunt

Cllr Jon Hunt — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 17:11:10 +0000

As I recall, the increased rates of autism are probably explained by improved diagnosis. The last projections suggested there would be big increases in children with behaviour and emotional needs. Did you find out anything about this? Some of these may have been identified as autistic. The condition covers a range of needs and these children benefit massively from specialised provision – which is what Birmingham was moving towards.

By: Sam

Sam — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 10:32:48 +0000

… Cllr Anita Ward, chair of the education and vulnerable children scrutiny committee, said the Council was clearly “failing” SEN pupils and called for a new strategy and goes on to say that cultural differences are partly to blame for disabilities … this is an interesting approach for a New Strategy to mask ongoing failures and incompetence within the Council! Inter-family marriages do not account for a 30% increase in spending or a decline in the statutory duty of writing Statements of SEN on time!!

By: amanda

amanda — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 20:47:39 +0000

of what possible relevance is origin of a SEN kid’s family? And how dare Cllr Ward allude to autism being caused by “inter-family marriages” what a piece of a-journalistic, sensationalistic rubbish trying to fuel the flames of hatred even further against the two most targeted groups scapegoated for austerity measures: racialised migrant communities and disabled people. I wonder what it would be like if someone other than Michael Gove were in charge of the education system and allowed it to actually work for children. If, rather than privatizing SEN statements, the council hired and trained enough people to do this, set reasonable time-frames, etc. Or if our LA, one of the worst in the country for parent’s getting their children into specialised schools, supported parents rather than fighting them at every step of the way.

I somehow recalled that the Chamberlain Files used to do actual investigative journalism. This is just an embarrassing piece of rubbish not worth the time it took me to read it

By: Fearless Jones

Fearless Jones — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 17:54:53 +0000

This is a cleverly written article whose real intent seems to be to frame a racialised group who through their ‘irresponsible’ cultural behaviour is causing unreasonable cost to the state. This is a well-worn right-wing discourse assisted by the Cllr Ward
The issue of inter family marriage has been set into the context of an article about the ‘soaring costs’ to the Cities education budget
Where is the evidence of the causality between inter-family marriage and the increase in number of children requiring a school action plan or statement?
This is a seeming attempt to reframe the issue of the cuts locally and to blame particularly communities for their own needs.