Every Teacher Matters – and so do TAs!
November 11, 2010, 10:39 am
Filed under:
Education and the new government | Tags:
Coalition,
coalition cuts,
disability,
education,
education reform,
government,
National Autistic Society,
Reform,
SEN,
Special Educational Needs,
TA,
Teaching AssistantThe Natioinal Autistic Society’s ‘Education Update’ page is asking for comments regarding Reform’s new report ‘Every Teacher Matters’ at:
http://nas-education-update.blogspot.com/2010/11/reform-some-radical-proposals-for.html
A worrying aspect of this report is that it advocates limiting the use of teaching assistants (TAs) in class, suggesting that extensive use of TAs could even be damaging, particularly in the case of children with Special Educational Needs.What do you think about this?( See my comment on the Education Update page.)
A good TA has often been all that has stood between our children and failure. I know this to be true because they WERE failing before they had TA support.
An impartial examination of the role of TAs in education must be carried out before any further changes are made. Reform is a self-declared right-thinking organisation, set up by a current Conservative government minister. They are clearlly not impartial and my view of teh report is that they set off from an ideological viewpoint i.e Cutting costs and then looked for evidence to support it. The worrying thing is that they have influence over the Government (or is it the other way round!)
Please please please either responsd to the NAS or respond on here, it really is important. Whilst you are on the NAS website please take a look at what the Government are trying to do to the Autism Act, watering down the statutory guidance to reduce it’s funding implications.
Ellen Power
The General Public is not objecting …
September 23, 2010, 8:56 am
Filed under:
Special Needs Education | Tags:
accountability,
Coalition,
education,
educational cleansing,
government,
ideology,
language,
legitimacy,
nicola clark,
rich and poor,
sharp elbowed parents,
social inclusion,
Special Educational Needs,
spinNicola Clark says in yesterday’s Guardian ‘Stripping SEN children of their labels smacks of educational cleansing’ and she’s right. She says
‘In my view, stripping the children of their labels and giving more power and less accountability to schools smacks of educational cleansing. Without specific support, SEN children’s needs won’t be met and challenging behaviours will manifest. Predictable exclusions will no doubt follow.’
I wholeheartedly agree with this. Not only that, I think the timing of the OFSTED report that advocates that schools do less in terms of labelling or that there be a reduced legislative right for children to have their SEN identified and provided for is not an accident. The whole business of meeting the needs of SEN children in schools will cost less because they will be entitled to less, and these children will simply soon not be in mainstream schools as they find they can’t cope and schools find they don’t have to keep them.
When you look at the language used by the coalition, its ministers and some of the Press, to describe – ‘scroungers’, ‘benefit cheats’, ‘SEN misdiagnosed’, ‘sharp elbowed parents’ – you can see that a whole sector of the population that is vulerable is being set up to have the support they receive taken away. The public sector have ‘gold plated pensions’ the private sector has ‘suffered for too long;. The coalition is trying to hoodwink the electorate into going along uncomplainingly with their new ideologies that can only serve to widen the divide between the rich and poor, the haves and have nots …….. and dare I say it, the deserving and less deserving. The spin and language used by the coalition is trying to reshape the public perception of who deserves to be supported in society and who doesn’t. I find the compliance, or lack of objection from the general public utterly depressing, particularly when it comes to education and social inclusion. Meanwhile the government machine trundles on, approviing a free school here, closing a LA controlled school there, and to object is to be one of a few ‘voices in the wilderness;.
The one thing that will get this coalition government through is not the veracity of their ideals, or the legitimacy of their ideology, but the simple fact that the general public is not objecting.
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