The Commission on School Reform, the education arm of the independent, non-party think tank Enlighten, has today called on the Scottish Government to launch an independent national enquiry into the capacity of Scotland’s schools to provide Additional Support Needs (ASN) in light of a huge and continuing increase in demand.
Since the passing of the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act in 2004:
- The concept of ‘special’ education needs has broadened to include any children who are deemed to require ‘additional’ support, without a clear and consistently applied diagnosis
- The number of pupils recording as receiving ASL has risen from less than 33,000 to over 284,000 – a nine-fold increase, representing more than 40% of the school population
- Audit Scotland has concluded that almost all ASL is provided in mainstream classes by classroom teachers
It is therefore now calling for an independent Expert Committee of Enquiry to:
- Evaluate the extent to which the rise in ASN is due to parental pressure, changed diagnostic criteria and increase in real need
- Investigate whether current approaches benefit those considered to have additional needs or whether they have an impact – adverse or otherwise – on other learners
- Assess the impact of the Presumption of Mainstreaming
- Assess the impact of ASN on the fairness of examination arrangement
The full paper can be read here.
Shadow cabinet secretary for education and skills, Miles Briggs MSP, said: “The enormous rise in pupils with additional support needs is putting our schools under intolerable strain, so it’s the duty of SNP ministers to examine the causes of it and the best solutions for all pupils.
“Teachers should not be expected to cope with the added pressure and workload without adequate training and support, yet SNP ministers have done almost nothing to investigate the impact it is having on them, on their ability to provide additional support in mainstream classrooms, or the consequences for other students.
“Jenny Gilruth and her predecessors as education secretary have done little to examine the reasons for the explosion in the numbers of children being assessed as requiring additional support or to question the presumption of mainstreaming. That must change.
“The Scottish Conservatives secured a review of the delivery of how mainstreaming is implemented, but a thorough scrutiny of the current approach to ASN is now urgently needed. There cannot be any more of the denial, dithering and deflection that has characterised the SNP’s education policy for years.”
Frank Lennon, a former Headteacher and member of the Commission on School Reform, said:
“The current unsustainable position has arisen from allowing an approach which is well-intentioned but has never been exposed to serious scrutiny. It is incumbent on the Scottish Government to spend time understanding the situation, and then dealing with it.
“In primary schools, the position is particularly acute. There is no structure of posts with pastoral care responsibilities. Class teachers carry much of the burden and senior leaders often spend a large proportion of their time on pastoral support.
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“A huge and increasing proportion of time, energy, expertise and resource in schools is spent on pastoral issues, such as attendance, behaviour and additional support needs. In many (perhaps most) schools these three areas dominate the daily life of the schools’ senior leadership and pastoral teams and have a major impact on the work of class teachers.
“The vastly increased demand for ASN is creating the single biggest post-pandemic pressure in Scottish schools, and the Government must now address it as a matter of great urgency.”
