Children Special School
When considering diversity, many people think of stereotypes, e.g. cultural diversity, gender differences etc. The problem with a stereotype however, is that no one individual conforms to it exactly, and yet, in the educational institute it is individuals that we are dealing with therefore, we place the emphasis on exploration of individual differences, and not stereotypes.
Do these differences really mean that some children and young people are uneducable and have to be segregated and placed in special schools?
Historical perspectives
According to Thomas and Loxley (2007) one of the first Special Schools in the UK was The School of Instruction for the Blind, in Liverpool 1791, also mentioned in The Warnock Report (p8). During the Nineteenth Century Special Schools were established for the blind, deaf and dumb children. During the 20th Century Special Schools grew in number until they catered for around 2% of the school population.
In the early part of the century people with learning difficulties were referred to as feebleminded, imbeciles and idiots.
Many of the special schools were started by voluntary organizations for pupils with specific disabilities. They were seen as more helpful and less intimidating to students with disabilities.
‘The term special educational needs began to come into use in the late 1960s as a result of increasing dissatisfaction with the terminology used in the Handicapped Pupils and School Health Service Regulations (1945), which classified handicapped children into ten categories according to their main handicap. There was, moreover, an increasing awareness of the frequency of learning and other difficulties affecting children's progress and adjustment in ordinary schools'. (Ronald Gulliford, (Ed) 1992 p1)
Before the Warnock Report it was commonly believed that special educational needs stressed that the deficits were from within the child. This came from a medical or psychological point of view which implied that the individual was in some way ‘in deficit'. The requirement for special educational provision was related to the concept of disability of mind or body. The 1944 Education Act defined 11 forms of disability but did not include groups of children who were considered to be uneducable due to the extent of their handicap. Disabilities were described in medical terms except for educational sub-normality and maladjustment which were more difficult to clarify, suggesting that there was a cut-off point between normal and abnormal. In 1970 legislation was introduced which stated that local education authorities had to make special educational provision for all types of disability, but this did not specify whether it should be in separate schools or classes. This resulted in special education being considered as that which only took place in special schools. (Sally Beveridge 1999)
The Warnock Report in 1978 was based on the findings of a committee set up to review the provision for children with mental and physical disabilities. The report made 225 recommendations, one of which was to abolish the use of categories, which it saw as damaging and irrelevant. The Warnock Committee advocated a wide range of special needs, rather than discrete categories. The Committee's research suggested that only 2 per cent of the school population required separate educational provision, but that there were another 18 per cent of children who would require special provision in normal schools. Warnock argued that this 18 per cent had always been there, but that there had not been a consistent effort to integrate these children in the system.
Legislation is gradually catching up with these recommendations. The Warnock Report formed the basis of the 1981 Education Act's policies on special educational needs (SEN), which introduced a different approach to the definition of children with SEN:
‘A child will have a special educational need if s/he has a learning difficulty requiring special educational provision. The ‘learning difficulty' includes not only physical and mental disabilities, but also any kind of learning difficulty experienced by a child, provided that it is significantly greater than that of the majority of children of the same age'. (1981 Education Act, p1)
The Act also stated that the education of children with SEN should be carried out in ordinary schools where possible. The Act therefore emphasized an approach that is in favour of inclusion and integration, rather than separation and isolation. This approach advocates that children with special needs should be treated as individuals, and that the particular resources that each child needs should be allocated to that child — for example, that the child should have a learning support teacher with them in the classroom, rather than being taken out of the class.
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