Letters
I’d rather my taxes paid for SEND In his letter published on 14th May, I understood Jeremy Bloomfield to be critical of the fact that cost of supporting a child with specials needs equates to that of ‘leading public school education’. I suggest that a child with special needs is at least as deserving of this expenditure as someone who typically has many advantages in life already. I am very happy for my taxes, at whatever level, to be spent on supporting a child with special needs. By the way, I believe my taxes subsidise the running of public and private schools due to their being eligible for charitable status and this I do object to. Janice Blackwell Wincanton n Further to Mr Bloomfield’s letter in your last issue, I agree that the amounts of money spent on the children with special educational needs and disabilities mount up and seem eye watering, but I hope this might help shed some light on this area. The following must be considered by the council with regard to meeting each child’s needs; Home to school transport. This will invariably be a door to door service for many, possibly in specialist vehicles with a passenger assistant to care for the child’s needs in transportation. Given the geographical spread of special schools, even within Dorset, a greater distance is travelled by many, if not most. Class numbers in special schools are smaller, SEND Teachers are on average, paid more reflecting their specialism, dependent on a child’s EHCP requirements. There may well be further teaching assistants required on a one to one basis and in addition inputs from specialist practitioners such as educational psychologists, speech therapists etc. There may be specialist equipment needed adapted for each child, possibly adaptions required to school premises to support a child’s needs. 40
Cartoon by Lyndon Wall justsocaricatures.co.uk
A key driver behind the need to expand our own provision in Dorset is a shortage of the right provision in special school settings (in fact this is a common issue for many local authorities) and the trend shows a growing demand. This has led to a premium for places in independent provision, which if left unchecked would cause Dorset Council to not meet our legal obligations to educational need and serious financial risk. Councillors are in full support of the acquisition of this site and believe it will become a real centre of excellence, not just for the pupils who will attend, but for the training of staff and support workers to further their development. To add respite care in addition gives the parents and careres of those with high need a real lifeline. The initial purchase of the site had to be made by a private bidding process I believe through the agents. I am quite confident that cabinet members would have been consulted at the time and as soon as the purchase had been made and the sale agreed it was made public. We really do have an excellent officer team at Dorset Council and they have our full support. I do hope this answers your
questions, but you are able to put a question directly to Cabinet to be answered in full and in public at their forthcoming meetings – you can find full details on the Dorset Council website. Carole Jones Councillor on Dorset Council for Sturminster Newton n I am saddened to see the BMV propagate the anti-vaxxing myth that smallpox can be spread by bedbugs and a lack of vitamin C in a letter from Alison Watson (14 May). This quack theory, popular in the earlier 20th century, has long been discredited and lives on mainly in the pernicious online propaganda against covid vaccination. A quick look at the official Government CDC (Centre for Disease Control and Prevention) site will remind people that “Smallpox can be spread by humans only. Scientists have no evidence that smallpox can be spread by insects or animals.” The WHO concurs. Vitamin C’s role is negligible. Only vaccination eradicated smallpox. Henry Merritt Shaftesbury n I write to express my concern about the letter (May
14) referring to the article about Benjamin Jesty which appears to support an anti-vaccination agenda. The letter is littered with fundamental mis-information about smallpox and the role of vaccination in the total eradication of the disease. Smallpox was a viral disease primarily spread by inhalation of airborne droplets through faceto-face contact, much the same as covid is transmitted. It could also be spread via bodily fluids and materials contaminated by them. Smallpox was not known to be transmitted by insects and animals. Smallpox can now only be found preserved in liquid nitrogen in a few laboratories. Because of vaccination, the last known case was in October 1976 and in 1980 the WHO certified its eradication. This was a triumph for vaccination and is no doubt somewhat problematic for those who lobby against vaccination. The vaccine itself was not without some element of risk, but its benefits hugely outweighed the costs. There was a risk of one in a thousand suffering a non-life threatening reaction while between one and two people per million suffered a fatal reaction. However the disease itself killed over a third of those who contracted it and left many survivors blind and most severely scarred. There are many parallels with the vaccines now being used to control, and hopefully eradicate the virus at the heart of the present pandemic which is causing multiple millions of deaths globally. There is a resistance to vaccination among some groups and at a time when world health is dependent on the successful vaccination of millions it is deeply worrying to see the publication of misleading material which appears to be a deliberate attempt to undermine confidence in the process. Brian South Shaftesbury n Further to the article on
