What will the Conservatives do for disabled children?

While I was off in Scotland last week looking for the Loch Ness monster, David Cameron was busy setting out the Conservative party’s stall on policy towards disabled children.

It made for very interesting reading. Some interesting points jumped out at me:

1) Instead of subjecting parents to repetitive assessments by different professionals, a ‘crack team’ of professionals should visit families at the same time to assess what support is needed – in terms of social care, benefits, etc. The idea is that a one stop shop will reduce the bureacratic experience faced by many parents.

2) Decisions about what education support a disabled child should be given should be based on their needs. Yet too many parents feel that the local authority cares more about how much it’s going to cost them. At the moment, the same people who do the assessments are the same people who pay for it. In response, David Cameron has pledged to look into making assessments independent of decisions about funding.

3) The Conservatives seem to want to end the trend towards closing special schools ending – to ensure that disabled children aren’t put into mainstream provision where this is inappropriate and to give parents more choice.

The above chime with much of what NDCS is calling for as part of our Close the Gap campaign – and so is something to be welcomed. Personally, I’d like to hear more about the Conservatives will be closing the gap in attainment between deaf children and their hearing peers. Will there be more specialist support funded, for example?

We’ll be keeping an eye out for more policy announcements from the Conservatives to see what they might mean for deaf children. In the meantime, what are your thoughts on the above?

Data on how deaf children are doing at school – now out

Last week, while I was sunning myself on holiday, NDCS published the data given to us by the Department for Children, Schools and Families on how deaf children do in their GCSEs in England in 2008. They don’t make for pleasant reading:

Only 28% of deaf children got five GCSEs at grades A* to C (including English and Maths) compared to 48% of all children. Put in another way, nearly three quarters of deaf children leave secondary school having failed to hit the Government’s expected benchmark of success.

27% of deaf children hit the same benchmark in 2007, so deaf children are doing slightly better. However, all children are doing better too. As a result, the attainment gap between deaf children and all children has widened between 2007 and 2008. When we do the number crunching, we see that in 2008, deaf children were 42% less likely to as well in their GCSEs than all children.

Given that deafness is not a learning disability, 42% is a pretty big attainment gap. We’ll be doing some media work to highlight this gap and to support our ongoing campaign to close the gap.

We also have data for each of the regions in England. London fares as the region where deaf children are least likely to do as well as all children. Here, a deaf children is 50% less likely to hit the Government’s expected benchmark for success than all children.

This is the first time much of the data has been made available. Some is already hidden away on DCSF’s website in a different format – but DCSF have not published regional data, information on the attainment gaps and details of three year averages. They’ve passed this information to us because we asked for it, and have been happy for us to go ahead and publish it for them.

DCSF’s website also contains information about how other groups of children get on. I haven’t checked for this year but in the past, the gap in achievement between deaf children and all children was greater than that between a) boys and girls and b) white boys and black Caribbean boys. The achievements of all children is obviously important – but it is striking how much attention has been placed on the latter two attainment gaps.

What do you think about the gaps in attainment? Are you surprised that it’s not narrowing? And what does the Government need to do to start closing the gap?

NDCS supports call for action on inclusion

As well as being an opportunity to eat lots of easter eggs, Easter is traditionally the time of the year when teachers get together for their various conferences. The National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Woman Teachers or NASUWT have been busy this week debating the difficulties teachers face in making inclusion of children with special educational needs a reality in the classroom.

This chimes with much of our campaign work to Close the Gap in how deaf children do at school compared to their hearing friends. So we issued a press statement in support. And here is what we said:

“The National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS) is supporting the NASUWT’s call for action on inclusion. NDCS believes all deaf children have a right to an education that makes them feel fully included in the life of the school and ensures that they make the same educational progress as their hearing peers. To achieve this, a continuum of provision is needed to ensure that the education service meets the needs of all deaf children. Too often, this is not available and children are expected to adapt without the support they need. As a result deaf children continue to under achieve – deaf children were 41% less likely to achieve 5 GCSEs at grades A* to C, including. English and Maths, in 2007.

A significant number of parents regularly contact the National Deaf Children’s Society with concerns that their child is not receiving his or her entitlement to appropriate education. When we investigate, we often find frontline classroom teachers trying their best in very difficult circumstances without the required support and advice to meet the pupil’s needs.

Teacher’s need more support. When a child with special educational needs enters the classroom, teachers should automatically be given training, access to qualified specialist support and guidance on how to adapt the curriculum for their needs.

We support NASUWT’s call that inclusion needs to be addressed. Government and local authorities need to take action to ensure that inclusion is a reality for all deaf children.”

There you have it. I’m now going to go back to wondering how to pronounce NASUWT…

An end and a beginning for deaf children in Westminster

Last week, the parliamentary year ended. And then this week, a new one began. Nobody did an Auld Lang Syne, though the Queen did dress up a bit and hit the town.

With the end of the parliamentary year, all parliamentary petitions (known as early day motions) were wrapped up and no more signatures could be added to them. So we did a bit of number crunching to see how many MPs supported one or both of the two early day motions that were tabled in the last year on deaf children and education. These were early day motions 592 and 1607. Both called on the Government to take action to close the gap in attainment between deaf children and their hearing peers, and both pointedly pointed out that deafness is not a learning disability.

And the total number of MPs came to…. 156. Considering there are 645 MPs, this is nearly a quarter of all MPs. Since Ministers or anyone with a small part in running the machinery of Government cannot sign an early day motion, 156 is really quite good. I’m pleased. It’s allowing us to say that one in four MPs support our campaign.

But we won’t be looking back. On Wednesday, the Government set out it’s priorities for the future and its legislative plans for the year ahead via the Queen’s speech. NDCS did a news item on this, setting out the Bills that NDCS is going to be paying close attention to. For example, the proposed Equalities Bill might provide us with an opportunity to put forward changes that will benefit deaf children. This will be a big piece of work for us going forward. The proposed Children, Learning and Skills Bill might also be an opportunity for NDCS as well.

So its out with the old and in with the new…

PS Did you spot anything in the Bill that caught you eye or which might positively impact on deaf children? Let us know any thoughts you might have…

Getting answers to Parliamentary Questions about deaf children in Westminster

It was two days late but we finally got an answer to Tom Levitt’s parliamentary question on deaf children and what is being done to narrow the gap in educational attainment (which I blogged about last week). The reply, which came from Sarah McCarthy-Fry (Minister for SEN) and which constitutes an official statement on the issue, was:

We have been looking at the data on attainment gaps between hearing impaired children and their peers with the National Deaf Children’s Society, in the context of our public service agreement target to narrow attainment gaps between disadvantaged pupils and their peers. Our national strategies advisers are looking with local authorities at the proportions of children who are achieving less than levels expected for their age at Key Stages 2 and 4, and at the actions being taken to reduce those proportions over time. We have commissioned research from the National Children’s Bureau and the Thomas Coram Research Centre to establish why there are such wide variations between authorities on the identification and classification of children with all types of SEN but using deaf/hearing children and autism spectrum disorders as exemplars.

To help narrow outcome gaps between children with SEN and disabilities (including children whose hearing is impaired) and their peers, we committed £18 million in the Children’s Plan to: improve work force knowledge, skills and understanding of SEN and disability through better initial teacher training and continuing professional development; developing better data for schools on how well children are progressing, and guidance for schools on what constitutes good progress; and continue to strengthen the position of SEN coordinators in schools. The Training and Development Agency is currently consulting on proposals for nationally accredited training courses for new SEN coordinators.

We have also committing to funding, from September 2009, additional places on courses leading to approved mandatory qualifications (MQ) for teaching children and young people with sensory impairments. The TDA has been working with interested parties to establish arrangements for making best use of the funding we are making available.

In addition, we have committed £800,000 for a pilot project to raise awareness of British Sign Language and upskill the current specialist work force.

On the plus side:

* It’s good to get the Government’s own view on how it thinks it is working to close the gap. There are clearly a few work streams in place which is obviously good news and good to be reminded about. It’s all useful information for our Close the Gap campaign.

* NDCS got a mention. Which is always nice.

On the downside:

* There was a missed opportunity for the Government to set out a clear ambition to close the gap in attainment between deaf children and their hearing peers. This has always been implicit, and it’s always slightly disappointing that it’s never been made fully explicit.

* The answer doesn’t provide any numbers or targets for how it expects the gap to close. We may come back to the Government to press them on this issue.

Anyhow, it’s a useful reply, and one which can refer back to in our correspondence with Government officials. We’ll also be thanking Tom Levitt for raising this issue in Parliament and helping to raise awareness among other MPs of the deaf children and educational attainment.

We’re expecting some more questions to be tabled in Parliament next week on deaf children, which I’ll be blogging about soon.

Asking questions about deaf children in Westminster…

One MP who has been very supportive of NDCS’s work is Tom Levitt. He’s one of the few MPs in Parliament with a qualification in sign language and has given deaf awareness training in a previous life.

And, prompted by our campaign to close the gap in educational attainment between deaf children and their hearing peers, he’s also tabled a parliamentary question on our behalf which we’ve been told will be getting a reply on the 10th November. The question is:

To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, what progress has been made in narrowing the gap in educational attainment between deaf children and their hearing peers; and what further steps he intends to take to further narrow the gap.

Will be looking forward to seeing what the Department for Children, Schools and Families say…

Getting ready for the party: final preparations for the party conferences

The party conference beckon ever closer. And like all good parties, I have been spending absolutely ages getting ready for it – though without the prospect of having a sausage on a stick to nibble on at the end of it.

I find myself nervously wondering if the party will go well. But we’re quietly optimistic. For the Liberal Democrat party conference, we’re doing a little experiment by inviting MPs to meet with a local young deaf girl called Laura. At the time of writing, ten MPs, including some senior Liberal Democrat bigwigs, have signed up to hear more about some of the experiences that deaf children face directly from a deaf child herself. One MP can make a powerful difference for us in the Houses of Parliament. So, with ten, we may even be able to change the world for deaf children and do ourselves out of a job.

As well as looking up biographies of all the MPs we’re meeting and sorting out logistical arrangements, we’ve also been thinking carefully about some of the points we’re going to impress on MPs. We want to tailor our messages around the particular interests of the MP but we’re also definitely going to be banging on about NDCS’s campaign to close the gap in attainment between deaf children and their hearing peers and our campaign report Must do better!. Three priority areas for us will be:

* Phonics and deaf children: getting the message out that phonics are inappropriate to many deaf children.

* Specialist support: the lack of skilled staff available to support deaf children in many parts of the UK.

* The need for better data on how deaf children are doing in schools at a local level.

At the risk of sounding like a self-important hyperactive TV news journalist, I’ll be blogging from the party conferences at the heart of the action, giving you regular updates on the top events. So look out for that next week as we head down to the seaside in Bournemouth.

Mentioning the phonics after all…

When I recently wrote about phonics, I got an interesting response from a guy who said:

Recent research in the United Kingdom showed that tests of the ability to distinguish isolated phonemes and syllables did not relate to tests of the ability to discriminate normal, everyday speech in any meaningful way. So why consider phonics for deaf children? I think if you are careful in the way you apply phonics, it can be helpful.

To those that don’t know, phonics is basically a way of learning literacy through listening to sounds (it’s a bit more complicated than that, but that’s the general gist of it). And just to prove that we do read our comments and take then on board, I thought I would respond to this and set out my own thoughts on the prickly issue of phonics.

First of all, intuitively, it is difficult to see how can a child who is profoundly deaf, who has little or no useful hearing, can learn literacy through a method that involves listening. Even if it was possible, it must be incredibly tiring and difficult to do so. I am most happy to be contradicted by research out there and would definitely like to take a closer look at the research mentioned so that we can use it to develop our thinking.

This is not to say that it can never be useful for deaf children. Many deaf children have some useful hearing and so it can useful for those. But it is difficult to see how it can be useful for all. And for those for might be useful, as the above comment says, it still needs to be applied in a careful way.

Which is why I objected to phonics being presented as the end-all solution to fix the problem entirely in the answers coming out from Government. In the context of parliamentary questions about deaf children, it is slightly baffling that phonics continues to be mentioned as the ’solution’ without a recognition or fuller acknowledgement of the subtleties behind it. We’re also concerned that teachers are not always aware of these subtleties.

My esteemed colleagues are currently developing some thoughts on this which will aim to look at 3 questions:

1) Is phonics appropriate to all deaf children?

2) If is not appropriate for some deaf children, how can these children be taught literacy?

3) For deaf children for which phonics is appropriate, does it need to be taught in a slightly different way to ensure it is accessible?

This may seem like a slightly airy-fairy debate. But I think it’s definitely one worth having – especially when you look at figures given to us by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (which are set out in the annex of our Must do better! campaign report), deaf children are 300% more likely to leave primary school without a basic understanding of literacy.

300%!! Something is going very wrong when it comes to deaf children’s literacy and so we really need to get to the bottom of how deaf children can learn literacy and the different approaches that should be used.

So, as before, please feed in your comments and enter the debate if you’ve got any thoughts on this issue. We definitely read them and we definitely appreciate them.

Don’t mention the phonics!

So after all that hard work in getting our campaign report written, published and launched, what have we achieved? Have we changed the world for deaf children and campaigned ourselves out of existence? Or was it all as pointless as Ray Quinn? Let’s take a look at what’s happened in the past month…

1) All MPs received a copy of the report and quite a few of them wrote to the Department for Children, Schools and Families to ask what the Department was doing about educational under achievement of deaf children. Quite a few replies have started trickling back to us. In one letter I’ve seen, Lord Adonis, the Minister responsible for children with special educational needs (SEN), says:

We support the aspirations of those, like the National Deaf Children’s Society, who believe that the perfomance gap between children with a physical or sensory impairment and children without special educational needs should be eliminated.

Ahh. The letter also says:

Our priroirty is to personalise learning, by focussing on each pupil’s progression, so that every child achieves their potential, whatever their starting point. High quality, systematic phonics… should be the prime approach for teaching children to read.

Arghh! Phonics is a way of teaching literacy to children which basically involves listening to the sounds of words. Because it involves listening, our report specifically says that the emphasis on phonics can sometimes be inappropriate for teaching many children literacy. So why is phonics being advocated as the prime approach? Slightly frustrating.

2) MPs have also been tabling questions in parliament on our behalf. Just before Parliament closed down for the summer, both Michael Gove and Simon Hughes asked about deaf children, which elicited an interesting reply. In one excerpt, the Minister says:

Our renewed literacy strategy builds on Sir Jim Rose’s independent review of the teaching of early reading by putting phonics at the heart of teaching reading in order to help to raise attainment levels amongst all pupils.

Arrrghhh! Phonics again!

3) We also managed to get lots of local papers from across the UK, from Glasgow to Cambridge covering our campaign, and highlighting how their local MP was supporting it. Here’s an example from Glasgow about Jim Murphy’s support for our campaign.

Local press coverage like this is helping us spread awareness of the problem across the UK. Disability Now magazine also covered the story.

4) Finally, Lord Adonis has agreed to meet with NDCS in September. This is very good news, and will hopefully allow us to explain in person why the need for action is so urgent. And why I go “Arrrgh!” everytime I hear the word ‘phonics’. We’re currently thinking up our ‘hit list’ of things we want to ask him to do.

My overall assessment? Well, we haven’t changed the world, but then that was never really going to happen overnight. Some of the replies coming through so far are slightly disappointing in their emphasis on phonics, suggesting that key civil servants haven’t really digested this point.

But I hope we’ve created a wide and warm base of support from which seeds of action may grow. It is encouraging that MPs are raising issues relevant to us – sometimes at our prompting but often at their own behest. Clearly we have some way to go – but we’ve made some small steps forward.

What’s your assessment? Let me know your thought while I take some big steps forward towards the pub.

An exciting day out on College Green…

Well, I am still alive after a week in which our campaign report was published. Sleep-deprived, but alive!

It’s been a great week – it may even constitute one of the highlights of my professional career – though the time when I was a civil servant and fell asleep in the back of a Ministerial car while the Minister was still talking to me takes some beating. Yes, our campaign report was launched on Tuesday at College Green, just outside the Houses of Parliament. Around 45 MPs came along to help launch it and have their photo taken with some deaf children from Barking, East London and our Chief Executive, Susan Daniels. The turnout was one of the highest we’ve ever had for a NDCS event.

So who popped over? In order:

1) Lord Adonis is in the first photo, the one with the purple tie. He’s the Government Minister responsible for children with special educational needs.
2) Then we have Michael Gove. He’s the shadow Minister responsible for Children, Schools and Families in the Conservative party.
3) Oscar winning actress, now MP, Glenda Jackson graced us with her presence.
4) And a personal hero of mine, David Blunkett, also came down to say hello.

So many MPs came that some were forced to wait for a few minutes to get their photo taken… Which made for a prime opportunity to lobby them… *evil cackle* But everyone I spoke to seemed really supportive of what we were trying to achieve and keen to do what they can to help. Lord Adonis even said the report was “excellent”. I won’t let it go to my head. Well, maybe a little bit.

Then it was all over, as soon as it had started and the children returned to school. As painful as it was to admit it, after all the work over the past few weeks, this is only just the beginning. Now we need to campaign to get the Government to implement all the recommendations that we called for. Lots more work to do!

You can read the report here. And if you want to take action to support it, you can write to your MP asking him or her if he/she agrees that it’s outrageous that deaf children in England are 42% less likely to get 5 GCSEs at grades A to C.

But, for now, I’m off on holiday! I’m taking 2 and a half weeks off to recharge my batteries. I look forward to telling you all about what’s in my inbox when I get back.