Inclusion Now 67 | Autumn 2023

Autumn 2023 Issue 67 £2

A VOICE FOR THE INCLUSION MOVEMENT IN THE UK Advanced British Standard: Edmore

Masendeke p3

Miro Griffiths: Youth involvement in DPOs p5

Capacity Building Iyiola Olafimihan p 14

Parent voice Tom McDonough p 20

SEND Review Richard Rieser p 24

Our Voice: Eugenics in education and its effects on society p10

Legal Question EHCPs p 27

Editorial A voice for the UK inclusion movement

Contents 3

Policy news Edmore Masendeke

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Miro Griffiths on youth involvement in DPOs and disability activism Our Voice project interview

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The legacy of eugenics in education Michelle Daley & Yewande Akintelu-Omoniyi Building the capacity of the Disability Movement Iyiola Olafimihan, ALLFIE Outcasts: Parent voice Tom McDonough Hear my voice Blake Williamson Inclusive practice: PAs Maresa MacKeith Impact of 20% cut in new EHCPs Edmore Masendeke SEND Review Richard Rieser, World of Inclusion UK Disability History Month 2023

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Legal Question: EHCPS

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Cover image: ALLFIE's Our Voice attend an exhibition at University College London (UCL) on Education, Disability and Eugenics

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Welcome to Inclusion Now 67, with inclusive education news for autumn 2023. Opening this edition, ALLFIE’s Policy and Research Officer, Edmore Masendeke, brings important news on UK government policy. In the first of two articles (Page 3) he addresses Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s announcement of a new Advanced British Standard to replace A-levels, emerging from the Conservative Party Conference. On page 22, Edmore looks at proposed cuts of 20% in new Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) and addresses the potential impact on Disabled children and Young people.

In other policy news, on page 24, Richard Rieser asks “Is the SEND Change Programme is an opportunity to develop Inclusive Practice?”

On page 16, parent Tom McDonough’s hard-hitting account documents his family’s experience of navigating inclusive education. Tom offers many suggestions for improvement and concludes: “Stories like this shouldn’t be getting told in Britain in 2023. The fact that they are shows there needs to be a fundamental shift in attitudes in many quarters before disabled people can hope for meaningful improvements.”

Our Voice project is amplifying voices of Young Disabled people in the UK. On page 5, project participants interview Dr Miro Griffiths on disability academia, activism, and youth inclusion. On page 10, Our Voice project looks at the 1900s Eugenics movement, with ALLFIE’s Michelle Daley and Yewande Akintelu-Omoniyi’s commentary on the legacy of eugenics in education and its effects on society.

Young people are also the focus of ALLFIE’s Iyiola Olafimihan’s article (Page 14) on building the capacity of the Disability Movement to campaign on ending poverty for Disabled children, Young people and their families.

ALLFIE’s Youth Parliamentary Officer, Maresa MacKeith, discusses getting the best outcomes for Young Disabled people. Following her previous Inclusion Now writing on the importance of relationships, Maresa looks at inclusive practice and accessing effective Personal Assistant (PA) support for Young Disabled people (Page 21).

On page 20, Blake Williamson’s article on non-verbal communication asks us to ‘Hear My Voice’ and includes Blakes original poem, ‘Anything But Silent’.

Finally, we close this autumn 2023 magazine with the Legal Question, on moving to a preferred secondary school, including those named in an EHCP (Page 27).

By Catherine Bebbington, Editor

News

Will introducing the Advanced British Standard ensure that no child is left behind?

By Edmore Masendeke, ALLFIE’s Policy and Research Officer During this year’s Conservative Party conference, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that A levels and T levels will be replaced by a new qualification called the Advanced British Standard in England. This qualification will combine A levels and T levels into a new, single qualification, including compulsory study of English and maths to age 18. Students will also be required to study five subjects instead of the usual three and have more teaching hours in the classroom.

Mr Sunak ended the announcement with There are Disabled students who cannot the promise that, "… no child should be left access all the support and reasonable accommodations they require to effectively behind." participate in education and learning For Disabled children and Young people and activities due to the perennial underfunding their parents, this promise is ironic, because of the SEND (Special Education Needs and Disabled children and Young people have Disabilities) system. This includes hiring been left behind in the current education Teaching Assistants for additional support system, including at GCSE and A level. And where it is required. The proposed Advanced British Standard will require students to study the new Advanced British Standard will most more subject and have additional teaching likely leave more Disabled children and hours. This will exclude Disabled students Young people behind, especially those from if the government fails to reform the SEND under resourced families who are already system, including providing funding to ensure pushed to the margins within the education that schools are able to provide support and reasonable accommodation for all Disabled system. students.

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News Beyond the problem of no or inadequate access support and reasonable adjustments for education and learning activities, some students cannot access the support and reasonable adjustments that they need during exams, especially those without EHCPs. In addition, the current GCSE and A level exams are not designed to cater for Disabled students, including the compulsory GCSE maths and English exams. As a result, Disabled children and Young people usually have lower pass rates in GCSE exams than non-disabled children and Young people.

According to a recent report by the Department for Education, 37.1% of pupils identified with SEN (Special Education Needs) in year 11 achieved Level 2 (equivalent to 5+ A*-C/9-4 at GCSE) including English and mathematics (GCSEs) by age 19 in 2021/22, compared to 79.3% of pupils with no identified SEN. The same report shows that 22.5% of Disabled pupils with SEN support and 7.0% of those with an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) in 2021/22 achieved grades 5 or above in English and mathematics GCSEs, compared to 55.8% of pupils with no identified SEN. In maths exams, students are assessed on their ability to memorise formulas, while English assesses spelling, punctuation, and grammar skills which are barriers for some Disabled students, especially those with neurodiversity. Therefore, introducing the proposed British Advanced Standards, without reforming the principles of providing support and adjustments as well as curriculum design and exams, will continue the legacy of a discriminatory education system.

those who struggle most," Mr Sunak said. The prospects of such support being available are very slim, given the current shortage of teachers and teaching assistants in schools, including maths specialist teachers. These shortages need to be addressed regardless of whether the Advanced British Standard is implemented or not. In fact, these shortages may be barriers to the implementation of the Advanced British Standard.

The proposed Advanced British Standard is also inaccessible to the current GCSE system, according to Sir Chris Husbands, a leading education expert. This means that the transition from GCSE to the proposed Advanced British Standard is unlikely to be seamless. This is likely to be a challenge for all students, but more so for Disabled students, who may already have extra support needs which are not being addressed by the education system.

A-levels are currently being used for progression into university or higher education (HE). The current progression rate of Disabled Young people is much lower than that of non-disabled young people. In 2020/21, 8.7% of pupils with an EHC plan progressed to HE by age 19, compared to 22.5% of pupils with SEN support and 48.6% for pupils with no identified SEN. Disabled students are also less likely to continue their degrees, graduate with a good degree, and progress onto a highly skilled job or further study, according to the Office for Students.

The Prime Minister’s vision of creating the “best education system in the western world” in which “no child should be left behind” also needs to address the systemic and structural barriers and injustices that Under the proposed Advanced British impact the participation and progression of Standard, “All students will study some form Disabled children and Young people in the of English and maths to 18, with extra help for education system.

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Interview

Miro Griffiths: “Young people’s voices matter and should be recognised with authority and with influence” ALLFIE’s ‘Our Voice’ project members interviewed Dr Miro Griffiths on youth involvement in Disabled People’s Organisations, and the intersection of academia and disability activism.

Dr Miro Griffiths is a Disabled person and identifies as a Disabled activist. He is involved in disability activism through both academic research and policy advocacy, with a particular interest in empowering Disabled young people in their activism journeys. As a group of young Disabled people, we spoke to Miro about how disability academics and activists can help us amplify Our Voice.

Background: A journey into disability politics Miro's interest in disability politics began in his early teens when he came across ideas around personal assistance and self-directed support. These introduced him to the social model of disability, which sees Disabled people as being Disabled by inaccessible environments and not by their impairments or differences. Before then, Miro's experiences of loneliness and isolation led him to think of disabilities very differently: "I assumed that it was my fault and my responsibility that I couldn't do things in society."

This was despite his parents being "quite passionate about rights and justice" and acting in ways reflective of "aspects of the social model". For example, they insisted on sending him to mainstream education, against the "advice" of local authorities. Their progressive ideas would become one of the important sources of support Miro had going into disability activism as a Young person: "[My involvement in activism] came down to my parents a lot. They aren't Disabled people. They were never exposed to disability until I was born, and experiencing disablement as a family was quite new to them. As soon as I got my diagnosis, my family was trapped in journeys of doctors telling them it's 'tragedy,' 'suffering,' 'medical,' and all these things. They had very low expectations of me because medical professionals told them so. But credit to them, they always encouraged me to pursue [what I want]. It was my parents who suggested I apply for the things I did to be linked with other Disabled people and civil activists."

These external connections to Disabled people and activists turned out to be crucial in Miro's entrance into disability politics:

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Interview "When I was about 17, I replied to a call for Disabled people to be advisors to the UK government.

[Back then,] a lot of my experience was deeply personal, and I couldn't talk about disability broadly – as in what was happening to us as a community. Bizarrely, I was accepted onto this network. I can still remember talking to great activists, campaigners, and civil society organisers using the language I assumed we needed to use - referring to myself as the problem and talking about my life in medical ways."

"But people like Michelle Daley, Clinton Farquharson, and Tara Flood would help me start using language more rooted in our politics of justice and liberation. They started to talk to me in much more accessible ways and explained the social model in a way I could understand. That was the starting point of my evolution as a Disabled person, where I progressively recognised disability as a political and social justice issue requiring radical changes in how society is organised."

Miro said these links to other Disabled activists are essential to all Young Disabled people seeking to begin advocacy, as they provide support, inspiration, and influence: "[Networks] were key for me because growing up as a Young Disabled person from a family that's not fully aware of disability politics, it's quite easy to be trapped within the traditional charities. They tend to have a tragedy-based or medical narrative, deeply toxic to our liberation.

It was imperative that I got the exposure [to networks of Disability activists] and started to be understood as a political individual. By talking about disabilities as a social justice issue, I could then begin to pull away from these traditional charities that had been talking about my life in terms of suffering and tragedy."

Disability in academia Whilst his activism career began with policy advocacy in the UK and across Europe, Miro realised that he "quite enjoyed working in academia" when he started doing a Masters degree in Disability Studies. He then continued to pursue a PhD in the field and is now a research fellow at the University of Leeds' Centre for Disability Studies. We asked Miro to define the discipline: "Disability Studies is a field of study focusing on the social position of Disabled people in society.

It was started by Disabled people who started to recognise the need to think differently about disability. It's a response to how much of the research and the public assume disability is a medical issue and a problem of the individual – which is why lots of research focuses on correcting Disabled bodies through cures and rehabilitation."

"As a disability scholar, I focus on what Disabled people are experiencing. I want to look at the political, economic, cultural, social, technological, and all the arrangements around us that form our world. Because the individual is not the problem. It's the way we've organised society that causes these experiences, which are often quite negative, hostile, and discriminatory for Disabled people."

The discipline is also quite diverse, as it must explore how disablement is experienced and created in all facets of society. Miro explains you can be a Disability Studies scholar whilst also being in another field of study: “You're trying to bring together [different disciplines] to make sense of your work and what you're doing around disability. That's why at the University of Leeds' Centre for Disability Studies, we have a collection of researchers based in the same university but not all in the School of Sociology and Social Policy like me. We have engineering scholars who focus on understanding and developing

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Interview assistive technology [and] colleagues who are inclusive educationalists. Ultimately, they're all committed to thinking about the barriers that Disabled people face through the environment that hasn't been adapted to meet their needs."

But an issue Miro sees in Disability Studies is that scholars are sometimes very disconnected from Disabled communities and believe in a separation between activism and academia: "I've been told by fellow activists and people I thought were friends that I 'sold out' and was leaving activism, as soon as I became an academic. [But] I still class myself as an activist because I think activism is a broad concept and needs to be recognised as such. We've all got different roles in this journey. Some of us are radical activists causing disobedience and disruption and demanding change immediately. That is needed, but at the same time, we need people who are creating the evidence to back up claims made by radical activists. We also need policymakers who make tweaks to prepare the ground for the broad divisions we'll have in the future. We're all connected in trying to push forward."

"An internal reflection for academics is asking yourself how your research is meaningful and useful for people in society. How do you evidence that what you're working on has led to some change in the lives of Disabled people - whether through organisation or legislation and policy that supports Disabled people? I made a decision very early on that any research project I work on must have relevance to DPOs (Disable People's Organisations) and Disabled activists. I've got many colleagues working on theories and concepts about disability that shape our way of thinking, but their work has to become accessible to activists and communities who'll use their research and ideas to make change."

Closer connection and collaboration between disability scholars and Disabled people is also mutually beneficial. Not only does the disability community benefit from research in their advocacy, as a Disability Studies academic Miro also sees the constant opportunity to meet new people and learn about their ideas and what matters to them in inclusion and accessibility as one of his favourite parts of his job: "I've spoken to individuals ranging from Young Disabled activists in Russia, who are resisting and getting out of institutions, to people in Ireland who are setting up independent living networks and campaigning to ensure Disabled peoples' rights to personal budgets. Activism is like an explosion - it's just sparking everywhere. It's repeatedly exploding and going off in different directions because you've got all these new voices coming through with new ideas and reactions to things happening in the world. I'm so keen on capturing our history and documenting the different ideas and voices coming through our activists' networks.”

Nurturing new Disabled voices through inclusive education and activism Another of Miro's favourite parts of his job is having the opportunity to teach, hearing what people want to do and where they go on to: "A lot of people who study disability tend to be Disabled themselves. They're trying to make sense of their experiences and use research to broaden their arguments and justify their claims. When talking to students, it's lovely to hear their passion for why they want to engage in this topic. They talk about what they want to do with their studies - working with or setting up DPOs, becoming a policymaker, campaigning to be in their countries' governments, and so on. It's also great to see the link and history of people's and activists' ideas and their studies. I've taught somebody who emailed me five years later to tell me they began working for access to self-directed support for Disabled people in the South Korean government after finishing the course."

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Interview But Miro knows education isn't accessible to many Disabled people, and has been committed to inclusive education since he identified as a Disabled activist: "I've been very fortunate to have opportunities to talk about the importance of inclusive education through my teaching. At the moment, we're just launching a new Masters in Disability Rights in Inclusive Education, which will have dedicated modules to look at concepts and strategies people have used to improve inclusivity in education."

"I've also had the opportunity to be a board member of the Alliance for Inclusive Education (ALLFIE).

In fact, one of my favourite projects was with ALLFIE, where I visited different schools in different countries – such as France, Italy, and Iceland – to explore different ways inclusive education was articulated. When discussing inclusive education, my starting point is not to justify the inclusion of Disabled people in the world as it currently is. Because that's not inclusion - it's integration at best."

"As activists, we must continuously push the fact that you can't justify segregated education – just like how you can't justify segregated housing, living, etc. The tolerance to segregation has to be questioned until we have enough people there to move us towards a different approach. The endpoint should not be just about making schools accessible. We must rethink how education is understood, practised, and purposed. Our role as activists is to change how society is organised to accommodate all forms of participation. That's what we're doing with inclusive education – or at least that's what I'm doing."

Just like he cares deeply about connecting and supporting his students and making education inclusive, Miro is also invested in empowering Disabled Young people as activists and making disability politics more accessible. He recognised three main issues hindering youth participation in disability activism. The first is the inadequate support Young people have in accessing political platforms and activities: "It's really hard to be an activist if you don't have the necessary support. [We need to] ensure that Young Disabled people have the support required to participate and have access needs met, whether that means personal assistance or various forms of attending and engaging in organisations. For example, many Young people would tell me their local DPOs only meet during office opening hours when they have to study. So, it's about flexibility and having alternative forms of participation that reflect the different ways we all live our lives, communicate, and participate."

"Opportunities for Young people to have a visible presence within organisations are also key here.

I see lots of opportunities with exclusionary parameters, like requiring 15 years of experience. Many people do not have that experience but have great ideas and need opportunities to share them."

Even with Young people already involved in DPOs and other activism channels, Miro said their views are often discounted in various ways: "An issue Young people mentioned during my research was that when they bring up an idea, older and more established activists would say, 'No, you can't have that view. This is my vision, and you need to align with it.' That's upsetting and harmful for Young activists trying to find themselves in their activism and say what's important to them. They may be new to disability activism, but they aren't necessarily new to the ideas they've been working on or their existence as Disabled people."

In addition to having their views disregarded altogether, Miro also noticed that Young people often cannot express opinions on issues other than those strictly about Disabled youths.

"When I was doing my PhD research across Europe, a similar issue always came up [where] Young people are telling me they were fed up with only being invited when it's to give a Young person's perspective.

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Interview For example, they can have views about inclusion and accessibility that aren't necessarily just from a Young person's perspective. Their views are relevant to different conversations going on in different spaces.

"This is why you need to have a twin track. Whilst you have opportunities for young people to self-organise and be visible as a Young people's network, you need mechanisms where Young people can inform and influence broader organisations. The ALLFIE model is quite important here, [as it's a system of] having a dedicated voice on youth that informs and influences other activity and work of the broader organisation. There can be people dedicated to youth projects or have a youth focus, but no one should be trapped in a youth-related role if they don't want to be. Young people should be allowed to be involved in all aspects of the organisation - management, strategy, campaigns, mobilisation, etc. They're not there because they're young. They're there because they have great ideas. Young people's voices matter and should be recognised with authority and influence – as much as everyone else's voice."

Young people and the future of disability activism When asked how DPOs and the disability activism community can do better in empowering Young people, Miro made two recommendations: "It starts with organisations recognising that they can't be tokenistic with their engagement with young people. We need to hold them accountable and ask, 'Are you doing enough to give young people opportunities to take part in the organisation?'

"Another important point is that our projects must become more intersectional. The key thing for me regarding intersectionality is that you can't compartmentalise or separate a 'youth issue' from a 'Disabled person's issue.' You're looking at the entanglement between the two and the unique experiences born from that. It's the messiness that creates the experiences we want to focus on and talk about. Intersectionality is extremely important in social justice and inclusion. We have to recognise that within the already marginalised Disabled people's community, we have further marginalised communities whose voices are ignored and silenced. But also, many Young activists are talking about intersectionality within their activism. A lot of the Young Disabled people I've spoken to across Europe say that whilst they focus on disability, it isn't their only focus in terms of creating social change. They may also be interested in climate issues or issues of sexuality and gender, and they're combining the two."

"I think we're now at a point where we need to talk about an accessible and inclusive society for everyone. ALLFIE is a prime example of that. It's talking about inclusive education and using disability as an example to show injustices in the system, but it's also articulating that the alternative isn't just for Disabled people. It's to say, 'We can rethink education so everybody is welcomed.'

That's where we need to move the rest of disability activism towards – thinking about our work as producing a world accessible to everybody."

In terms of the future of disability activism in general, Miro thinks it all comes down to continued resistance from the Disabled people's community: "The future has to be open to resistance. As a Disability Studies scholar, I follow the approach of philosopher Michel Foucault. One of the arguments in the Foucauldian approach is that you don't start with power - you start with resistance. Because resistance is the first thing you'll experience before you get to power, it is always possible. What that means for us is that there's always an opportunity to fight for things to be done differently, present an alternative plan, and come up with an alternative justification because we can't tolerate exclusion and exploitation of Disabled people."

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University visit

Eugenics in education and its effects on society The legacy of eugenics in education

By Michelle Daley, Director, and Yewande Akintelu-Omoniyi, Our Voice Project Youth Officer In September 2023, a group of ALLFIE staff and ‘Our Voice’ youth project members attended an exhibition at University College London (UCL) on Education, Disability and Eugenics, led by Disabled consultant, Jessica Starns. The workshop is part of a wider project called Prejudice in Power: Contesting the pseudoscience of superiority, “a programme of cultural activism for change against structural discrimination. It explores how eugenics has marginalised voices and shaped society” and how “eugenic thinking is present in the racism, ableism, homophobia and reproductive controls we see today.” The workshop consisted of a lecture and an exhibition on the legacy of eugenics in education, and its relation to people perceived as ‘deviant’ and ‘feeble-minded’ in society. ALLFIE’s Michelle Daley and Yewande Akintelu-Omoniyi report back on what we learned.

Engineering human thinking Eugenics is the scientifically inaccurate theory that humans can be improved through selective breeding of populations. The work of Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) remains significant in our campaigns on the legacy of eugenics in education and other areas impacting on Disabled people's lives, including independent living to end segregation in all its forms. A collective of over 200 representatives from DPOs came together in a hybrid conference on 21st September 2023 at Manchester’s People’s History Museum. The conference called to increase the funding, resourcing and sustainability of DPOs, as well as cross-movement working on capacity building campaigns to dismantle deep rooted systemic injustices and inequalities. It focused on challenges in four strategic areas of The Disabled People’s Organisation Manifesto: 1. Representation and Voice 2. Rights 3. Independence 4. Inclusion The outcome of the conference saw the adoption of the Disabled People’s Organisation Manifesto (DPO Forum, 2023) which included different asks such as “all resources going to segregated settings and programmes diverted to inclusive programmes and support”. It made clear the need to bring “a right for every Disabled learner to get appropriate support in a mainstream education setting”. The 1900’s eugenics movement engineered a set of beliefs and practices, providing rationales to shape global thinking about the quality of the human population.

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University visit Eugenicists in education were fundamental in encouraging disconnection and segregation between groups and communities. Historian, Nazlin Bhimani, from the University College London, said that eugenicist’s work was engineered in a “scientific way”, which gave acclaim to their thinking as extraordinary and had significant influence in policy and the treatment of Disabled children, and other communities considered ‘deviant’ or ‘misfits of society’.

The eugenics' movement introduced categorisation, and streaming of individuals based on ability and age to determine a child’s future potential. Eugenicists created reasonings that would result in the design of separate nurseries, schools, colleges, and university buildings to cater for children and young people, categorised by their impairments. Such reasoning led to the segregation of other groups based on characteristics such as race and socioeconomic background.

Law, policy and practice In less than 100 years, there is enough evidence to track the tools of the Eugenics Movement in educational law, policy and practice. For example: • 1944 Education Act introduced labelling and categorising Disabled children by their impairments.

The act also placed a duty on Local Education Authorities to create separate educational places based on impairments' groups.

• 1978 Warnock Report carried out an inquiry into the education of Disabled children. While it resulted in the ending of the 1944 educational categories of impairments and introduced the term SEN, the recommendations retained the notion of who is deserving and undeserving of mainstream education.

• 1981 Education Act and further amendments retain Local Authority power to remove Disabled children from mainstream educational settings.

• In 1992, Ofsted introduced a grading scale to inspect nurseries, schools and colleges to determine their performance and other information used from the Ofsted reporting. A setting is judged based on their grade.

• In 2009, the UK government signed and ratified the international treaty UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD) and adopted Article 24 (on Inclusive Education) as a human right. However, the government placed two reservations: on parental choice and to retain special educational settings, showing the legacy of eugenics in education.

• 2014 Children and Families Act introduced a presumption to mainstream education, and extended EHC plans between the ages of 16 and 25. The government has failed to effectively resolve these provisions of the Act. • 2020 and 2021 Safety Valve and Delivery Better Value programmes introduced to reduce Local Authorities spending in SEND services and on EHCP’s.

• 2023 SEND and AP Improvement Plan published recommendations, which included an investment of “£2.6 billion between 2022 and 2025 to fund new places and improve existing provision for children and Young people with SEND or who require alternative provision.” (DfE, 2023).

Images: ALLFIE's Our Voice attend an exhibition at University College London (UCL) on Education, Disability and Eugenics

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University visit Other examples can be found in the number of Disabled children labelled with ‘complex needs’ placed in segregated residential settings that operate as both care homes and schools. There is a current campaign led by a collective of Disabled People’s Organisations, including ALLFIE, against the Hesley Group which was found to be inflicting torture and violence on Disabled children and young people.

Influences of superiority The above examples show how the legacy of eugenics inform current laws, policy and practice within the education system that reinforce societal divides and inequalities. The eugenics movement ideology in education continues in practices of measuring and grouping children and young people based on characteristics and socioeconomic backgrounds, by placing them into categories that influence superiority over the types of education students receive. A lot of these practices are based on assumptions about communities and groups of people in society that continues to render human difference and uniqueness as awful. The harm retained by this legacy is evident in the Timpson Review of School Exclusion but also shines a spotlight on the structural and systemic oppression in education. This particularly impacts communities and individuals who are pushed to the margins of society because of a person's characteristics and socioeconomic background. An exploratory research conducted by Dr Ashlee Cristoffersen (2021) titled “Intersectionality in practice: Research Findings for Practitioners and Policymakers” found that “...intersectionality is widely thought to be a challenging theory to apply, and it represents a puzzle to policy makers and practitioners who work in both issue area and ‘equality strand’ silos (of e.g. race, gender, and disability)” (p.6).

It is necessary to recognise the intersectional barriers and injustices that impacts different communities and groups of people living at the margins of society. There is no doubt that the following factors are consistent with eugenicist's ideology: • Retaining of elite grammar schools • Continued measuring and testing of primary school children which consists of Standard Assessment Tasks (SATs) • Ofsted ratings on nurseries, school and college performances • Assumptions made based on student's personal characteristics and socioeconomic background All are consistent with the legacies of the eugenicist’s works that we looked at during the workshop.

This includes: • Cyril Burt: An influential British psychologist who developed factor analysis in psychological testing. He believed that intelligence was hereditary, but he also believed that the environment and social background played a role in intelligence. He developed a “Backward Map of London Boroughs”, which showed the difference in intelligence across London. He was the first educational psychologist to be appointed by government, and he had a radio show on the BBC which had a lot of influence on the general population. He was also a professor of psychology at UCL from 1931- 1950. His book “Factors of the Mind” was published in 1940. After his death it emerged that his research and data had been falsified and fabricated.

• Alfred Binet: A French psychologist who introduced the first practical IQ test. The IQ test included processes such as reasoning, with techniques using, pencil, paper and different objects.

He opened a laboratory in Paris for child study and experimental teaching.

• Henry H Goddard: An American eugenicist, segregationist and psychologist. His research was on intelligence and mental deficiency at the “Vineland School for Feeble Minded” in New Jersey.

He brought Alfred Binet’s intelligence tests to the US. He advocated for sterilisation of people with Learning Difficulties. He manipulated the photographs of the Disabled people he photographed.

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University visit • Karl Pearson: An English mathematician and biostatistician. He was the first chair of eugenics at UCL. He promoted the idea of an “immigration IQ”. He thought that immigrants had a low IQ and he held racist views against Jewish and Black people.

• George Shuttleworth: A British psychiatrist and asylum superintendent at the Royal Albert Asylum. He introduced vocabulary and words for mental health conditions that are now part of our everyday vocabulary. Words include: ‘idiot’, ‘imbecile’, and ‘lunacy’.

• Mary Dendy: Promoted segregated education for individuals labelled as ‘mentally handicapped’ people. She established a colony for people deemed ‘feeble minded’. The aim of this colony was to keep Disabled people separated from the rest of society.

• Former Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, also believed in eugenics and judged inferior and promoted superior of human population as a way to retain a divided society. He was vice president of the first eugenics conference in 1912, which took place in London.

Arguments made by historian Nazlin Bhimani in a website article for the Wellcome Collection (2022) titled “Intelligence testing, race and eugenics” shine a light on how the history of eugenics informs contemporary society. Attention was drawn to her reference: “The legacies of eugenics in education are most obvious in the way we continually assess our children.

These methods are often based on standardised measures that result in the labelling, ranking and grouping of children”.

Nazlin Bhimani’s argument is necessary in providing an understanding of how reasons and tools were used for identifying ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ students, which would determine the child’s educational destiny and future opportunities. Across the UK today the legacy of eugenics in education remains, with nurseries, schools, colleges, and universities competing against each other, affecting the distribution of resources and opportunities for students. As already mentioned, Timpson Review of School Exclusion (2019) highlighted the educational inequalities and intersectional injustices. Also, a recent Guardian (2023) article titled “School suspensions rise sharply among disadvantaged children in England” reported that Disabled children “were four times more likely to lose learning through being suspended”. Other literature such as 2023 SEND and AP Improvement Plan and ALLFIE’s research on School Accessibility Plans reveals the nuances of the legacy of eugenics and demonstrates its use in practice predominantly used to shut Disabled children labelled with ‘complex needs’ out of mainstream educational settings.

Inclusive education without discrimination There are real issues with the legacy of eugenics in education and school segregation. The Council for Europe states that: “School segregation is one of the worst forms of discrimination and a serious violation of the rights of the children concerned, as their learning opportunities are seriously harmed by isolation and lack of inclusion in mainstream schools” (2017, p.5)."

Despite the UK Government being a signatory to the UNCRPD, Article 24 on Inclusive Education (House of Commons) as a human right for all Disabled people without discrimination. Yet, the education system remains committed to school segregation, further fuelled by investment to build 141 of new special schools over the next 3 years (DfE, 2023). What we are experiencing is the education system not making the efforts to ensure inclusive education for all Disabled people in nurseries, schools, colleges, and universities. The legacy of eugenics in education remains; it influences policy, parents, students, and teachers to buy into thinking that fuels marginalisation and injustices in society.

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Campaigns

Building the capacity of the Disability Movement to campaign on ending poverty for Disabled children, Young people and their families

By Iyiola Olafimihan, ALLFIE’s Capacity Building Development Officer Our dearly beloved departed trustee and former chair, Joe Whittaker, often said, the debate about inclusive education as a right is already won. We believe this, despite the system and opponents of inclusive education doing all they can to keep the special provision industry thriving, thereby leading to continual institutionalisation and segregation of Disabled children and Young people.

What is also not in dispute is the causal link between segregation in education and the outcome of poverty for Disabled children and Young people, which was confirmed by a Joseph Rowntree research report in 2016. But we also know that poverty intersects with a range of other issues and affects the most marginalised people with different identities and experiences.

This is the reality in the country, compounded by the cost-of-living crisis that many people have been experiencing for over a year now. However, if you are a Disabled person, child or Young person or a family with Disabled members, the cost-of-living and rates of poverty increase considerably.

Accessing free meals for children of families in schools have often helped many throughout the cost-of-living crisis. Although the free meals scheme is one of the indicators of poverty, it can also allow families to put aside retain some income that can be spent in other areas..

Unfortunately, the free meal scheme does marginalise some Disabled children and their families because of systemic barriers embedded in its delivery model.

Research conducted by the national family support charity, ‘Contact’, shows that a third of eligible Disabled children are missing out on their free school meal, losing almost £600 a year of financial help.

Of this 33% of eligible families: • 60% can’t eat school meals due to dietary requirements or sensory processing difficulties.

• 22% are off school due to a long-term illness or medical condition.

• 18% have EOTAS (Education Otherwise than at School), similar to home education, or are off school waiting for a suitable school place.

They surveyed 1,500 families with Disabled children eligible for free school meals. Almost half (49%) are paying £20 a week providing meals or packed lunches to replace the meals their child is entitled to. 85% of families said that missing out on school meals have increased pressure on their weekly budgets.

This data demonstrates that Disabled children and their families, even when accessing free school meals, experience greater discrimination than their non-disabled peers.

At our Stronger Voices Steering Group meeting in September, DPOs at the meeting discussed similar issues, highlighting in a report that Disabled people they engage with are experiencing disadvantage in schools.

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Campaigns For example, some after school clubs and activities are not inclusive and provisions by external partners are often not affordable. Discussions also touched on school uniforms that are not adapted and the extra cost that families pay to make them adaptable. There was acknowledgement that some high street brands now offer adapted school uniforms, Kingston Centre for Independent living (Steering group member) is currently working with a group on school uniform vouchers so that parents of Disabled children have access to school uniform vouchers.

Often, parents receiving benefits cannot afford summer activities and DPOs have had to fundraise to organise these activities.

The Stronger Voices Steering Group (SG) members, however, recognised that these issues are better tackled collectively. ALLFIE and DPOs on the Stronger Voices Steering group must mobilise the movement with one voice to represent families of Disabled children and Young people.

Campaigns must be developed, and the fight must be taken to Parliament.

SG members also agreed to explore tools that will help to reach the most marginalised Disabled people address and challenge poverty, understand what we are doing that is working well and design strategies that we can incorporate into our intersectional practice.

ALLFIE, as part of our capacity building, will collate all the information, and ALLFIE’s Policy and Research Officer will put it into a document to become a research tool. People will then be able to add to the resource.

To reduce poverty amongst Disabled people, the Disability Movement needs to campaign and influence Local Authorities to acknowledge that educational segregation is a major contributor to poverty for Disabled people, and they should design local strategies to promote inclusive education, to ultimately ensure Disabled children’s right to inclusive education is unequivocally incorporated into UK education law, as per article 24 of the UNCRPD.

Iyiola Olafimihan is ALLFIE’s Capacity Building Development Officer

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Parent voice

Outcasts

By Tom McDonough Before I had my daughter, who is autistic, I thought I’d already experienced or witnessed the worst disability discrimination that British society had to offer. I’d grown up listening to people using the term ‘spastic’ as an insult and doing unkind impressions of Joey Deacon, a man with cerebral palsy who appeared on the children’s programme Blue Peter in the early 1980s. Many years later, I worked alongside people with a learning disability who’d experienced hate crimes, bullying and horrendous oppression in long-stay institutions.

And as someone who had lived with anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), as well as chronic pain, I’d also personally felt the sting of unempathetic and inflexible attitudes towards me at work; an experience that is probably not uncommon among people with invisible impairments.

By mid-life, I considered myself a battle-scarred veteran of disability discrimination. I’d seen or experienced the worst of it and, in any case I thought, society had evolved and become kinder and more progressive.

Sadly, when my daughter Suki reached two years of age, I embarked on an unpleasant voyage of discovery that showed me how wrong I’d been.

When Suki was about 15 months old my partner and I began to suspect that she was developing differently. She wasn’t talking and nor was she responding to her name, even if we yelled it at her.

We monitored Suki and had her assessed and tested by different professionals and by the time she was two years old we were certain she was autistic and had a preliminary diagnosis that said as much.

We drafted in as much support as we could and had her assessed by a local authority educational psychologist (EP) at her private nursery in Wimbledon. The EP agreed that Suki needed tailored support at her nursery and Merton council released the funds to pay for it.”

This ushered in the beginning of a series of disappointments.

No matter what we said to the nursery they never implemented the programme laid out for Suki.

They claimed they just didn’t have enough staff available to put it into practice even despite the extra funding they’d received. I would add to that that their staff also didn’t have enough training to be able to support a child with different needs, despite the enormous profits earned by its bosses.

For one and a half years the private nursery failed to deliver Suki’s tailored programme, causing Suki to lose precious developmental opportunities. While this was frustrating and painful for me and costly for Suki, I didn’t find it shocking.

We live, after all, in a capitalist, winner-takes-all society that lauds celebrities and those endowed with advantages – it simply isn’t set up to cater for those born with impairments and nor does it care about them. Those who appear unlikely to succeed in the competition for wealth are irrelevant to the game – human wreckage to be cast aside in special schools and day centres.

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Parent voice What did shock me, however, was the nursery staffs’ decision to provide Suki with a range of dog toys obtained from a Wimbledon pet shop. The symbolism of this was devastating – my daughter was being treated, quite literally, like an animal. I raced down to the nursery to complain and received an apology from a subdued manager. I was nonetheless left with the sneaking suspicion that they didn’t really see what the problem was.

None of this was as bad as what was about to happen though.

When Suki was three years old, we moved her into the nursery at St Anne’s Catholic primary school in Vauxhall, Lambeth. By the time it came to applying to St Anne’s we had collected a raft of paperwork about Suki’s needs and had in place an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) along with a funding package for a one-to-one teaching assistant.

The school’s Headteacher who had autistic children of her own, knew all about Suki’s impairment and warmly accepted her, both in person and in writing, saying she was welcome to the ‘St Anne’s family.’

But just five weeks after Suki started there, St Anne’s new Headteacher wrote a letter to Lambeth council saying she wanted Suki to be removed from the school by the following year because of her needs, which, we all knew, were directly linked to her autism. She claimed her presence at St Anne’s was ‘incompatible with the efficient education of the other children’.

It took me some time to absorb the meaning of what had happened. Suki was just three years old – my God, to me it felt like she’d only just been born - and yet she was already being shunned, not by a fellow three year old, but by a school, an institution considered by most to be a pillar of society.

Not just any school either, but a religious one with the strapline: ‘the light of Christ shines through every child’. It also claimed in its blurbs to have an excellent track record of supporting children with EHCPs. What made matters even worse was that during the first term, St Anne’s had also failed completely to implement Suki’s EHCP, had not responded to most of our emails or requests for meetings and had not taken up our offer of private training support until close to the Christmas break.

When we finally did manage to arrange a meeting, on the last day of term, we asked the new Headteacher why Suki’s presence in the school was ‘incompatible with the efficient education of other children’ (this is one of three stock phrases, outlined in the Children and Families Act, that schools can use when rejecting Disabled children).

Suki always had a one-to-one teaching assistant with her, and she is a sweet natured and loving child, so how, we asked, was she disrupting the play of the other nursery children?

The Headteacher said the problem was that Suki mouthed objects due to her sensory needs, meaning staff had had to ‘put their health and safety on the line’ by plucking the items out of her mouth. It had also compelled them on occasions to put some toys away, which had meant other children hadn’t been able to access those particular toys for brief periods.

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Parent voice So, she was being expelled, in effect, because of a sensory need arising directly from her autism.

I won’t go into the details of how I responded to this, but I will say that I spent some time after that meeting reading up on the law on educating Disabled children. To my relief, I found much in the Children and Families Act, the Equality Act and UN Convention the Rights of Disabled Peoples that defended the right of disabled children to enjoy a primary and secondary education, including a mainstream education.

Once I had my guns lined up, I penned a 20-page complaint about St Anne’s sloppy performance and their discriminatory treatment of Suki, a three year old child with autism.

To be sure that Suki would have a place the following year, we applied to twelve other schools while waiting for St Anne’s response.

Little did we know that another horror show lay in wait for us.

We first of all visited another religious school called Archbishops Sumner and were left speechless when the Head and SENCO told us flatly that they would not use Suki’s budget to hire a oneto-one teacher. As our jaws dangled slack and our eyes widened, they explained they would disperse the money around the school to pay for ‘training in general’ and ‘you know, just staff’.

The Head then sent a letter to Lambeth saying Suki’s presence in the school would be ‘incompatible with the efficient education of other children’ (yes, that tired old line again) and that there was no point in Suki attending the school without one-to-one support – the very support they had just refused to give despite there being a budget for it!

And then things got worse.

A school called Oasis in Waterloo also turned Suki down, saying she was a child of violence who’d pose a serious risk to children and adults alike. This was because of Suki’s previous habit of gently cupping people’s cheeks in her hands to say hello, a gesture so gentle it could make a grown adult cry.

Schools with autism units inside them also turned Suki down as did one specialist autism school called TreeHouse in Highgate, one of only two out-of-borough schools we applied to. TreeHouse said they couldn’t admit Suki because she had occasionally felt fear in the past (due to her autism) and we lived too far away.

Being rejected by TreeHouse was a little like being turned away from a fish and chips shop for having the temerity to ask for fish and chips.

In all, 12 out of 13 schools rejected Suki, including, initially, St Anne’s.

As school after school turned us down, it seemed like society, as a whole, was shutting us out. I felt then that I could imagine what it must be like to be a member of a leper colony, reviled and banished from mainstream society. No other protected characteristic group would face this level of exclusion. If they ever did, it would surely make the headlines in the national papers.

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Parent voice I didn’t have the resources of energy or time to challenge all the schools so I just put in a complaint to Oasis, the school that had made Suki out to be Charles Bronson in nappies.

Oasis backed down and so, after three months of deliberations, did St Anne’s. In their letter, St Anne’s said they would accept Suki because it was religious establishment and as such it believed in a quote from the Old Testament that says: ‘how we treat the very least of our brothers is how we treat ourselves.’

It made their stance clear. Suki, to them, was of little value – the least among us.

Those schools’ arguments for rejecting Suki were morally and legally weak and they’d probably have lost if we’d taken them to court. They were trying, I suspect, to protect themselves from having to make any adaptations that would cost them time, energy and resources and they didn’t much care about the impact of their decisions on us.

Just one school said they’d be happy to accept Suki, a mainstream primary school called Heathbrook.

The Headteacher there was warm and welcoming from the start and called me on my mobile phone a few times to talk about transitioning Suki to his school and the ways they could support her to develop to her full potential.

Their upbeat and welcoming letter came after we’d received ten icy rejection letters and by the time we got it, we were deeply distressed. Reading the Headteacher’s kind words almost caused me to break down in tears of relief. His offer restored some of our faith in society and humanity and brought us solace and comfort when we were feeling like social outcasts.

Heathbrook is significantly further away from us than St Anne’s and we didn’t want Suki to go through a change of location, setting and staff; however, we eventually decided to move her there because, in the end, attitude overrides all other considerations.

The stance of Heathbrook’s Headteacher makes a mockery of the positions adopted by the other 12 schools, showing they most certainly could have taken Suki on if only they’d been willing to accommodate her differences.

Reasonable adjustments are not always about ramps, lifts, widened doorways and different forms of reading material – sometimes they are mainly about attitudes.

Heathbrook will not go up in smoke when Suki joins this September. Nor will its children have their educations and futures ruined because Suki is there. Instead, they will have their social educations enriched by having someone among them who is neurodiverse. They will also, I suspect, adore Suki for her infectious smile and laugh and her sheer difference, just like the children at St Anne’s did.

Stories like this shouldn’t be getting told in Britain in 2023. The fact that they are shows there needs to be a fundamental shift in attitudes in many quarters before Disabled people can hope for meaningful improvements.

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Young person's voice

Hear my voice

By Blake Williamson Life as a nonverbal communicator has given me some extraordinary experiences especially, ironically, around communication. The notion of communication being one dimensional i.e verbal, is still the default for most people, with any anomaly eyed as suspicious.

The possibility that we may all at some time during our life be nonverbal, even if only for a while, is a very real probability; weakness from illness or injury, a stroke, pneumonia, anxiety, Parkinsons or simply laryngitis. Given these odds it feels incongruous that my facilitated communication is received the way it is. Those who are unfamiliar with me find this concept difficult to comprehend and are often quite vocal with their opinion.

Facilitated communication is used when a person's physical abilities affect accuracy when pointing at letters on a board to spell out words and sentences. The facilitator reads what has been written and speaks those words. My Personal Assistants (PA's) take great care when reading and then expressing my words to accurately convey my meaning. I have used this method from childhood, from family, classroom assistants, college support, university mentors to PA's. Many have acknowledged my communication within educational settings, some have challenged it. These challenges always came from a power dynamic which had to be picked apart to illicit understanding, which I worry is now the default approach in many schools and classrooms.

I have always hoped that the visibility of a nonverbal communicator within education, communities, work, and leisure environments shape the understanding of educators and influence the learners of communication in all its forms.

Anything but silent A poem by Blake Williamson We understand others far beyond just speech There is so much underlying that words alone cannot teach We are anything but silent if you take the time to know Friendships can be richer if we sow patience and watch it grow My opinions are just as valid and I have plenty to convey The rewards are simply richer if we all get a say

Image: Blake Williamson, Author

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Young person's voice Inclusive support and relationships: Personal assistants

By Maresa MacKeith, ALLFIE’s Youth Parliamentary Officer Disabled people have the right, as stated in Article 19 of UNCRPD, to be included in their communities with the “personal assistance necessary to support living and inclusion in the community” (b). Young people also have this right to be included at school, with appropriate support. (Article 24 2 b and 2 e). In addition, young people with communication needs have the right to “augmentative and alternative modes, means and formats of communication” (Article 24 3a). Many Disabled people struggle to recruit and get the role of a personal assistant recognised for the skills involved.

For Young Disabled people in a school setting all this has to be taken into account. In school a Young disabled person has to make friends and they have to be able to express their thinking by whatever means is best for them. The assistant has to have a developing relationship of trust with the young person with the time and commitment to learn the skills needed. The job of the assistant in school for Young people, with a level of need similar to my own, is about enabling the right to a life and the recognition that the young person also has the right to be able to contribute to the lives of the others around them.

I am in the process of recruiting a new personal assistant. Every recruitment, for me, is momentous as I use a communication system that depends on support from a PA. This means I cannot share my thinking or my needs without that support.

The skills the PA will have to learn might take months and depend on a close relationship. This is the same for a Young person in school with similar needs.

The separation of young people with “complex” needs in units or special schools is a denial of these rights. All Young people have something to give society as a whole.

The recent SEND Alternative Provision Improvement Plan implies that Young Disabled people with “complex” needs should go to a special school and be separate from others. In my experience of a special school, this never included making a relationship with an assistant who knew what I needed. It was, instead, being passed around from one person to another, none of whom had the skills to assist my communication.

Developing a relationship with a PA takes time as there has to be a level of trust that is not often encountered in most people’s everyday life. Many Disabled people, like myself, cannot ask for what we need, express our thinking or move on our own so are completely dependent on help for everything. The upside of this is that I have made close relationships with many of my PA’s.

As part of ALLFIE, in my role as Youth Parliamentary Officer, I am looking forward to having the opportunity to give Young Disabled people a voice to those who create education policies.

We need a society where all Young people have their needs met and can contribute in their own way. The only way to achieve this is for all young people to grow together with the time and resources to meet their needs. This means, for some, that a consistent developing relationship with assistants is crucial. Other Young people will then see that it is their right too to have the help they need from people they know and trust.

Image: Maresa MacKeith, Author and ALLFIE’s Youth Parliamentary Officer

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Policy

Edmore Masendeke is ALLFIE’s Policy and Research Officer

What Could be the Impact of a 20% cut in new EHCPs on Disabled Children and Young People?

On 10 September 2023, the Guardian reported that the Government plans to cut the number of new Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) for children with Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) by 20%, through its “Delivering Better Value” (DBV) programme.

However, the Government denied that the 20% is a target that it is working towards in communication with the Special Needs Jungle.

The Government has said that the 20% is an expected outcome of the DBV programme, including improving early identification and the quality of SEN Support (school-based support for Disabled children and young people without EHCPs). As the latter outcomes are not associated with the DBV programme, but the SEND and AP Improvement Plan, and the two are being managed separately, the Government’s response has not reassured the disability community/ALLFIE that EHCPs will

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not be arbitrarily reduced through the DBV programme.

ALLFIE’s main concern is that a reduction in EHCPs will adversely affect Disabled children and Young people’s access to education and learning in mainstream educational settings. We also believe that Disabled children and Young people from disadvantaged backgrounds will be affected the most as evidence shows that Disabled children and young people experience higher levels of poverty and social disadvantage than the general population. In January 2020, close to a third (31%) of Disabled children and Young people were also eligible for Free School Meals (FSM). In addition to coming from underresourced households, these children and Young people are more likely to be socially disadvantaged due to a range of intersectional injustices, such as generational poverty or poor living conditions.

Policy Also, some of their parents are unable to work as they cannot find jobs that are flexible enough to allow them to both work and care for their children. Therefore, the cut in the number of new EHCPs is likely to put these Disabled children and Young people at risk of being excluded from school/college and achieving poorer outcomes than their non-disabled peers.

This is not only because of their economic and social disadvantages, but also because their parents are less likely to have the resources to challenge a decision by a Local Authority not to issue an EHCP.

education and learning opportunities, and these opportunities are most likely to be less than those of their non-disabled peers.

As a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), the UK is obliged to ensure an inclusive education system that is not discriminatory against Disabled children and Young people. This includes ensuring that they receive the support they require to facilitate their effective education within the general education system. While the UK has not yet domesticated the UNCRPD, the Equality The number of pupils with an EHCP increased Act 2010 prohibits all forms of discrimination by 9% between 2022 and 2023 to almost against Disabled children and Young people 390,000, and by a total of 64% since 2016. This and requires all local authorities, schools and increase was partially driven by the need to colleges to make reasonable adjustments, to secure an EHCP to ensure that Disabled children ensure Disabled children and Young people and Young people could get the support that are not at a substantial disadvantage compared they need in mainstream settings, as there with their peers. Due to the discrepancies in is insufficient funding for children and Young the support available for those without EHCPs, people without EHCPs. Securing an EHCP gives some Disabled children and Young people are children and Young people labelled SEND the already at a substantial disadvantage compared legal right to support and has, unfortunately, with their peers. Cutting the number of new become the only way that some children and EHCPs is likely to put more Disabled children Young people can get the support that they and Young people into a similar situation. need in mainstream settings. Therefore, cutting the number of new EHCPs will make it difficult Therefore, before cutting the number of new for Disabled children and Young people to EHCPs, the Government should ensure that get the support that they need to access and the support available for those without EHCPs remain in mainstream educational settings, as adequately addresses their support needs. the available support for those without EHCPs It should be as flexible and responsive to the varies depending on what school/college you needs of Disabled children and Young people go to and local budgets. This means that there as possible. Support should also be adequately are disparities in the support available for those funded and more consistent across schools and without EHCPs. local authorities. Cutting the number of new EHCPs, without first ensuring that the support These disparities do not guarantee Disabled available for those without EHCPs adequately children and Young people equal access addresses their support needs, is likely to to education and learning opportunities in reduce the education and learning opportunities mainstream educational settings. This means for Disabled children and Young people in that Disabled children and Young people mainstream educational settings. at different schools/colleges have different

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SEND Review We should be wary of Government SEND initiatives, but is the SEND Change Programme an opportunity to develop Inclusive Practice?

By Richard Rieser, World of Inclusion The crisis in Schools Grant Higher Needs Funding: How statutory EHC Plans are paid for [£2.3billion deficit in 2023/24 in England]. This has been ringing alarm bells in the Treasury and many Local Authorities for the last 4 years. The crisis has been caused by Government policy toward mainstream schools making inclusive education of Disabled children much more difficult. This includes narrowing the curriculum, increasing assessment, getting rid of continuous assessment, cutting the value of SEND budgets, increasing workload on staff, setting up academies (many with rigid behaviour policies), failure to deal with bullying, non-compliance with the Disability Equality duties and destruction of Local Authority support for SEND schools. As a result, parents increasingly sought refuge in an EHC Plan, special schools and independent numbers of cases at First Tier Tribunal have risen from 3,000 to 13,000. Numbers of EHCPs have risen to 390,000, now 4% of the school population. Both numbers and percentage of Disabled children in special schools are at an all-time high. (1.94% of all 5–16-year-olds: 172,772 in 2021) Rather than deal with the policy difficulties leading to the failure of inclusive education, managerial solutions are being sort over the last three years with the Safety Valve and Better Value programme.

The government Safety Valve has given additional money to Local Authorities (LAs) with the highest deficits, for 5 year period to help them reduce deficits in exchange for more cost effective delivery. In 2021, 5 LAs had £100million. In 2022, 9 additional LAs had £300million and in 2023, 20 additional LAs had £586million. This has caused much concern that the legal rights to EHCPs are being undermined in practice, without changes in law.

Some 55 councils with less severe deficits are being supported through a separate scheme called Delivering Better Value: • Appropriately managing demand for Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs), including assessment processes that are fit for purpose • Use of appropriate and cost-effective provision - this includes ensuring mainstream schools are equipped and encouraged to meet needs where possible, whilst maintaining high standards for all pupils. This is a £19.5million consultancy with Newton Europe and CIPFA working mainly through case review.

Recently, Delivering Better Value programme was heavily criticised and Government Minister had to issue grovelling statements when it emerged that Newton Europe, the consultants were contracted to reduce reliance on EHCPs by 20% for new EHCPs. Matt Kerr, a parent who discovered this is not convinced by the replies. All these measures will continue with the High Needs Budget at £10billion and rising.

Those who support Inclusion and look in dread at these manipulative programmes may at least want to examine one new element of Government SEND policy that seems less punitive and mechanistic.

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SEND Review Images: The Department for Education SEND and AP Change Programme SEC workshop

The £70million SEND Change programme just being set up, is focussing on a whole system approach, with a clear focus on early identification, quality first teaching, intervention and pivoting improved support in and around schools. This is focusing on the 85% of children with SEND in mainstream schools and examining ways to change and improve inclusive practice and looks like an opportunity we should engage with.

The Change Programme Delivery Partners are 9 consortiums of Local Authorities and other relevant partners (early years, schools, Post 16, health, families and community) who are being given 6.3million each to spend over 2 years. The objective is to pilot ways to enhance mainstream settings and come up with suggestions for reforming the EHC Plan Process (Information from presentation to Special Education Consortium on 19th October 2023). It is envisaged that the Local Area Inclusion Plan and Data Dashboard will demonstrate the changes to enhance inclusion that will be taking place in the 31 Local Authorities . These will lead through to enhanced standards and guidance.

In the Inclusion Movement we should be engaging locally and emphasising: • Local groups of teachers, parents, Disabled people and Young Disabled people should engage with these processes and argue for what we know works to enhance good inclusive practice.

• We need to keep pressing that all partners are much more aware of the Equality Act and its implications for Disability Equality and intersectionality. This includes insisting the Access Planning Duty is fully implemented.

• Create much more awareness of good inclusive mainstream practice developing around thew world and the link to Article 24 of the UNCRPD. • Not re-invent the wheel but learn from the many studies and recording of good inclusive practice in English schools over the last 30 years e.g. the 2006 Reasonable Adjustment Project.

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Disability history month It is ironic that a Conservative Government that came to power with David Cameron committed to rid the education system of the ‘bias to inclusion’ has been so successful, that it now has to come up with a whole range of measures to reduce reliance on expensive independent schools, reduce numbers in special schools and

work on ways of improving inclusive practice in mainstream schools for budgetary reasons!

What they and potential Governments need to realise is that inclusive values and equality have to be at the heart of the state education system and many of their policy folies that hinder this must be got rid of.

UK Disability History Month 2023 This year Disabilit y Histor y Month runs from 16th November to 16th December. The theme is Disabilit y, Children and Youth.

The h i s to r y of t h e mi st reat m en t and p r e jud ice to war d s D isab le d child r e n a n d Yo un g p e o pl e i s ex am i n ed. Sol u tio ns to the o ng o ing issue s ar e d is cusse d f or e d uca ti on a n d soci al care st af f. M any activitie s ar e p r es e nted in ways childre n of d if f e r e n t a ge s can rel at e t o.

The w e bs i te h as man y resou rces includ ing a histo r y and time line activ ity, exa m i n i n g th e oral h i st ory of Di sab ility, Child r en and Yo ung p e o p le in th e f irst a nd s e c o n d h al f of t h e 20 t h C en t ur y. It examine s the his to r y o f the ed ucation of Dis a bl e d c h i l d ren f rom segregat i on to inclus io n, with filme d examp les o f inc lu sion wo r ki n g a n d r espon di n g t o di sabi lity b ullying .

Fo r c o n te n t a n d act i v i t i es con t act U KD H M Co o r d inato r r lr ie se r @g mail.co m

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Legal Question

M

y daughter Mia, aged 11, has Down syndrome, Autism and Epilepsy, and we live in rural England. Mia had a positive experience in her mainstream primary school, where a good circle of support staff ensured all her different support needs were met. She also had a network of close friends, with whom she enjoyed various extra-curricular activities, both in and after school. Mia has been looking forward to going the local mainstream secondary school in September, which also has good extra-curricular activities, where she would join some of her primary school friends as well as making new friends. The school Mia wants to attend lies between our house and her grandparents’ house, and she also has an older brother who attends the school, so she will have additional family support including us or her grandparents collecting her after school. However, the local authority is not in a position to fund all her support needs in this secondary school, which we are very disappointed by.

What rights do we have this secondary school named on her EHCP, to enable her to have support in secondary school, and who has final responsibility for this?”

Unfortunately, you do not have an absolute right to agree. If they don’t, your appeal will be more difficult have your preferred school named in Mia’s EHCP, but but not impossible, as the FTT will consider all the there is a presumption that the local authority (LA) evidence in the whole. should name your preferred school in Mia’s EHCP, and If the school is found to be suitable, the FTT will this should be the LA’s starting point. This is because go on to decide whether Mia’s attendance at the your preferred school is a mainstream school (I have school would be incompatible with the “efficient use also assumed it is a state school), which the LA of resources”. Whether this exception will apply will should name unless particular exceptions apply. The depend on what provisions Mia needs to meet her onus is on the LA to set out why these exceptions SEN, and how much they would cost the LA/public purse. I.e., if the LA names a school which already has apply rather than you. all the provision Mia needs but your chosen school These exceptions are: would require significant funding to meet need, this • That the school is unsuitable for Mia’s age, aptitude, exception could apply. This is very individual to the or ability. In other words, it cannot meet her needs; facts, and you would benefit from detailed legal advice should this exception be relied upon by the LA. And/or • To place her there would be prejudicial to the You also asked about who has final responsibility for efficient education of other students and/or use of providing the support named in Mia’s EHCP. This rests with the LA. If Mia does not receive the provision in resources. her EHCP, legal action can be taken against the LA. If the LA does not agree with your preferred school and allocates Mia a school elsewhere, they need to To summarise, you do not have an absolute right to have your preferred secondary school named in name that other school on her EHCP no later than Mia’s EHCP, but you do have a right to appeal against 15th February in the year she is due to transfer. the LA’s refusal to name the school, and there is a At that point, you will have a right of appeal to the strong presumption in favour of parental preference.

Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal Based on what you have told us, that you requested (the FTT). a mainstream (we think state) school which is local to During the course of your appeal, it would be wise you and to which you could arrange transport, you to focus your evidence on why/how your preferred have a strong starting point. school is able to meet Mia’s needs. Whether the FTT finds your preferred school to be suitable for Mia’s We wish you and Mia all the best. needs will depend largely on what is specified in This legal question was posed Sections B and F of her EHCP.

by Edmore Masendeke, The question is: does the school offer what Mia Michelle Daley and Louise needs? The school’s own views are relevant. If they Arnold. It was answered by think they can meet need, there is a good chance Eve French, Simpson Millar that the LA or the FTT standing in their shoes will Solicitors

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This magazine is published by: The Alliance for Inclusive Education (ALLFIE) A national campaigning organisation led by disabled people. ALLFIE works to change laws, practices and procedures which discriminate against Disabled Young people and prevent inclusion. ALLFIE works together with allies to build a social climate in which everyone has a valued place.

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World of Inclusion A consultancy that provides advice, resources and training in the UK and around the world to develop equality for disabled people especially in education. Richard Rieser is an expert disabled international equality trainer, consultant, film maker and writer and teacher.

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DISABLED PEOPLE, PARENTS AND ALLIES, WORKING TOGETHER to educate, facilitate and empower everyone who wants to be part of the growing inclusion movement. Together we want to bring down the barriers so all young people can learn, make friends and have a voice in ordinary school and throughout life. For each and every young person, this is an essential human right.

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