- The Convener (David Stewart):
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I welcome you all to the Public Petitions Committee, and I remind everyone to switch off mobile phones and any electronic devices.
The first item on our agenda is consideration of new petitions, and we have two to consider. The first is PE1409, on bridging the training gap. The petition concerns training for education staff on learning disabilities and autistic spectrum disorders. Details can be found in paper PPC/S4/11/9/1. Members should have a note from the clerk, a briefing from the Scottish Parliament information centre, and a copy of the petition.
I welcome our guests from Enable Scotland—Linda Whitmore, who is the development officer for children and young people; Nigel Over, who is a trustee; and Amanda Bradley, who is a member. You are all very welcome, and thank you for coming along. I invite Linda Whitmore to make a short presentation of around five minutes, after which I will throw open the meeting to questions from members of the committee.
- Linda Whitmore (Enable Scotland):
First of all, thank you for inviting us here today to give evidence. I will give members of the committee a little bit of background on why we arrived at our campaign and petition.
Enable Scotland has a young families support committee, of which Nigel Over and Amanda Bradley are both members. Mandy is the chair, and Nigel is a former chair. The committee is made up of the parents of children and young people with learning disabilities, and of professionals in the field of learning disability. The committee identified a lack of appropriate support in the classroom as a barrier to effective inclusion in mainstream education for children with learning disabilities. Based on their own experiences, parents on the committee felt that one reason for the barrier could be the lack of effective training for teachers and support staff in the classroom. A lot of anecdotal evidence that we gathered from parents across Scotland supported that view. Earlier this year, Graham Donaldson’s review of teacher education highlighted the fact that teachers themselves agree with our conclusion: they feel that the level of training that they receive on additional support needs is inadequate, and they do not feel fully confident in the classroom about their ability to support pupils with additional support needs.
Among the results of the lack of effective classroom support are high exclusion rates. From statistics from the Scottish Government, we know that exclusion rates are twice as high among pupils with a disability, and five times as high among pupils with additional support needs. There are also many cases of so-called informal exclusions—when parents are asked to take their child home for a cooling-off period because the teachers cannot cope with the child’s behaviour. Such informal exclusions are never recorded. They are actually illegal, but we know that they are common occurrences.
Another result is lower educational attainment. Again, statistics from the Scottish Government show that only 48 per cent of school leavers with additional support needs achieve five or more standard grades at foundation level. The figure is 92 per cent for school leavers without additional support needs. Pupils with additional support needs are also much less likely to enter employment, further education or training.
There is a huge emotional and physical toll on families when a child is unhappy at school. Both the parents and the children suffer, and Mandy and Nigel will be able to tell you more about that from their experience. Parents have often said to me that they feel that they have to fight for their child’s right to effective education that meets their needs. The parents of children without a disability do not have that fight on their hands.
We have found that many parents are choosing to take their children out of mainstream education and place them in special schools. Often they do so reluctantly—their first choice would be for their child to be effectively included in mainstream education—but they feel that it is the only option that is available to them, because they are not satisfied that their child is receiving the support that it needs in the mainstream school.
Having identified the problem, we wanted to know why it has arisen. Last year, we undertook some research relating to the 2010-11 curriculum and published a report called “Bridging the Training Gap”—you might have it in front of you; if not, we can make it available to you—which is based on the results of freedom of information requests to local authorities and universities. Some of the key findings of the report are that two thirds of local authorities give teachers continuing professional development on general additional support needs and equalities issues, but it is mandatory in only five areas—East Ayrshire, East Lothian, Midlothian, Perth and Kinross and the Scottish Borders. About half of the local authorities deliver a similar type of training to learning support assistants but, again, that is mandatory in only four areas. More than 90 per cent of local authorities offer training to teachers and learning support assistants on specific learning disability-related topics, such as autism, Asperger’s, dyslexia and Down’s syndrome, but none of that is mandatory. A teacher can go through their entire teaching career without ever having had to undergo training on supporting a child with learning disability in their classroom, even though the chances are extremely high that they will have at least one such child in their classroom every year.
The findings from the universities showed that all initial bachelor of education courses cover general ASN and equalities topics in the core curriculum, and universities say that they embed inclusion in all their modules. Obviously, that is good news, and we are happy about that. However, only three universities—Edinburgh, Aberdeen and the West of Scotland—cover specific ASN topics such as learning disability, dyspraxia, autism and dyslexia as part of their mandatory content. Four universities offer elective modules that cover ASN issues in depth, but the numbers for those modules are heavily capped, and they are always oversubscribed. Incidentally, the students almost always comment on how beneficial those courses are and how much more confident they feel as a result of having taken them.
What can be done about the problem? Enable Scotland is calling for mandatory training for teachers and learning support staff, not only on general topics around ASN, inclusion and equalities but on three specific areas: learning disability and autism awareness, behaviour management, and communication strategies. We would like that training to be delivered by universities as part of their core initial teacher education curriculum, and by local authorities, as part of their annual CPD programme.
We also call on the Scottish Government to ensure that the issue is fully addressed by the Donaldson review partnership group, which was set up this year to implement the recommendations of Graham Donaldson’s report, “Teaching Scotland’s Future”. One of the recommendations was that all new teachers should be confident in their ability to address additional support needs. We whole-heartedly support that recommendation, and we hope that you do, too.
- The Convener:
Thank you for that comprehensive presentation. I will kick off the questioning. I invite the other witnesses to intervene at any time in answer to my questions and those of my colleagues.
What would the practical reality be for parents and children if your suggestions were accepted? Do you have any specific outcomes in mind? Earlier, you talked about lowering classroom exclusion rates. Is that one of the outcomes that you believe would result from the recommendations?
- Linda Whitmore:
I will let Mandy Bradley and Nigel Over tell you about the practical benefits for families, but we see lower exclusion rates as almost a by-product of our most important aim, which is to ensure that all pupils are adequately supported in the classroom. We believe that the training that we are calling for would create a much warmer, more inclusive atmosphere not just for children with learning disabilities but for all children, because all children would benefit from that.
The training would have a positive effect on exclusion rates, but it should also improve attainment because, if a child is supported to learn in a way that suits their learning needs, it is more likely that they will have higher attainment when they leave school, whether in terms of academic qualifications or in raised self-esteem, confidence and an ability to lead an independent life.
- Amanda Bradley (Enable Scotland):
Sending a child to a mainstream school is a stressful experience for most parents, but when your child has a learning disability, it becomes an incredibly stressful experience, because school can be difficult for them every day. It is not just an occasional thing for them; it is an everyday prospect.
Until we developed the petition, I was not aware that teachers were not trained in additional support needs. I assumed that all teachers had some training in that. When we undertook the investigation and the freedom of information request, I helped Linda Whitmore with some of the work, and I was surprised to find out that few teachers have an opportunity to become more up to speed on what is going on.
Things change all the time, so continuing professional development is important, as well as training for new teachers. However, an important starting point is for new teachers to have at least some training on additional support needs, and not just as a modular option. It would be helpful for parents to know that teachers have some knowledge. Families are under an incredible amount of stress, and it is useful for parents to know that their child’s educational achievement can improve no end just by having teachers involved who know that there is something that they can do to help such children.
Teachers often start from the point of not knowing what to do, which means that children are often excluded at a later stage or transferred to a non-mainstream establishment, which is what happened to my child. It was my choice to transfer her to a special school, but with hindsight, it would not have been necessary if the teachers in the mainstream school had had some training on additional support needs.
- Nigel Over (Enable Scotland):
My son started in an annexe to a mainstream school, which he survived for about the first one and a half years, but I was called in on 15 of the 20 school days in a single month because of his behaviour and disruption. It became apparent that he was dependent on his classroom teacher to translate for him, to try to manage his behaviour, to try to get him involved, and to communicate. When he was out in any of the other classroom settings, he could not cope and the staff did not know how to handle him.
When we sat down and discussed what my son needed in order to prosper in mainstream education, we came up with a shortlist of requirements. At the top were behaviour management and communication strategies and the requirement for all members of staff with whom he would come into contact to understand his disability. He moved to a grant-aided special school, where he has been for the past seven years. In that school, training is provided. Since his move, we have had one or two blips, but the emphasis has always been on his learning, his achievements and his development as a person rather than on how we are going to manage his behaviour and stop the disruption.
If all staff had a better understanding, it would give them confidence and all children would benefit. For me as a father, it would have meant that I was not dragged into the school to discuss the behavioural issues and I would have been able to be more supportive and proactive in relation to learning outcomes. There would also be benefits from the school’s perspective.
We focused on exclusions because the statistics on exclusions are available. I asked a quick question of my daughter’s headteacher, and the answer was that it takes about 11.5 hours of staff time to deal with an exclusion, and there are roughly 33,000 exclusions a year in Scotland.
The recent BBC documentary, “Classroom Secrets”, which was broadcast in July, estimated that three weeks of teaching time is lost each year in every school to low-level disruption in the classroom. If training was delivered, there would be a colossal improvement in that and teachers, other staff and parents could be more proactive in delivering the education outcomes that we seek.
- The Convener:
That is helpful. Thank you for those very full answers.
14:15
- Sandra White (Glasgow Kelvin) (SNP):
I want to start at the beginning. I am under the impression that, when learning difficulties are identified, an education road map is provided for each individual pupil. When Enable identifies difficulties or when people come to Enable to say that their child or relative has difficulties at school, do you find that the difficulties were identified before the child went to school? Are schools and teachers made aware of the difficulties? Autism is a spectrum and dyslexia has many different aspects. Are issues identified before a child goes to school and are schools made aware of them?
- Amanda Bradley:
My daughter has what used to be referred to as a moderate learning difficulty. Basically, she has a non-specific learning disability, which means that there is no name for it. It was not identified before she went to school. As a parent who has had to fight all the time—although my daughter is now 19, so I do not have to fight so much any more—I know that, once a school identifies that a child has a difficulty, legally, it must go through the process and meet that child’s needs. However, schools are often reluctant to identify an issue. That was the case for me and it is the experience of other parents whom we have spoken to.
If a child has more complex and obvious needs, the school cannot avoid the issue and the needs have to be met. The diagnosis is there and that is fine. However, with children who do not have a specific diagnosis and who are not on that spectrum, some schools are less likely to identify those needs because they will then have a legal obligation to meet them. A child does not have to have a diagnosis to have a need. I chose not to go ahead with a single diagnosis for my child as she was being tested all the time. I then had to fight the school system to explain that, just because her condition did not have a name, that did not mean that she did not have needs. It is really a financial issue for schools. I often felt sympathetic towards headteachers because they have to deal with all the financial implications. I was fighting for one child, while headteachers are fighting for the whole school.
- Sandra White:
You are absolutely right about the learning map. All members will have had constituents come to them with that particular problem. Enable is looking for a more proactive approach. It would be interesting to get information from local authorities. If they were more proactive, they could identify cases such as the one that you mention in which a child should qualify for a learning map. Is that what you are looking for?
- Linda Whitmore:
I have spoken to many parents whose children have diagnoses. Julia, a mum on our committee, has two boys with autism who have had diagnoses for a long time. Even when a child has a clear diagnosis, that does not mean that they will receive the additional support that they need in the classroom. That often comes down to the classroom teacher. That was certainly the case with one of Julia’s sons. The classroom teacher was well meaning but did not have even a basic understanding of how autism causes social interaction difficulties. Without that basic level of awareness, the legislation gets stuck. The three strands that I mentioned need to be in place: a basic understanding of learning disability and autism, communication skills—because not all pupils communicate in the same way—and behaviour management skills.
That is what we are asking for. It is being done but it is not mandatory, and that is the difference that we want. A lot of good work is being done, but we want to ensure that it is accessible to all teachers and support staff, as that would make a massive difference to families.
- Bill Walker (Dunfermline) (SNP):
Good afternoon, everyone. I have family experience of the subjects that we are talking about.
I have a fairly fundamental question. You raised the subject of money, unfortunately. Increasing pressure is being put on mainstream classroom teachers and assistants because they are expected to do more and more things well. Acting as devil’s advocate, I wonder whether it would be worth while to direct current resources to specialist teachers rather than to training every new teacher in specialist skills, which would obviously be expensive, and it would be demanding for the teachers to learn a wide spectrum of skills. Would it not be more worth while to have more and better specialist teachers, not just in special schools but in special units attached to mainstream schools so that pupils could go back and forward, rather than have the whole thing mainstreamed for every teacher and assistant? What do you think of that as an option? I am just asking the question and not promoting it.
- Nigel Over:
My son was in a situation like that, in that training had been given to the classroom teacher and the classroom assistant but not to the rest of the school staff, which meant that he could not engage with them. He would go into a classroom where the teacher could not understand him and he would get frustrated and start self-injuring. The teacher would not know what to do, so they would call in the specialist teacher. We are asking for a basic level of understanding to be reached through three areas of mandatory training so that each teacher would have sufficient confidence in their approach and would not have to refer to a plan or call in a specialist. We are looking for that kind of base level. It is not about putting the emphasis on specialist teachers, who at the moment have the desire, willingness or support that they need; it is about giving the skills to other staff, so that our children can be fully integrated into and involved with the whole school community.
- Bill Walker:
You have partly answered my question, because I wanted to establish what level of knowledge mainstream teachers need. You appear to suggest not that all mainstream teachers become specialist teachers, but that they are trained to such a level that they can recognise the problems, following which the child may have to be passed on to another learning environment, unfortunately.
- Linda Whitmore:
We are not expecting or asking for every teacher to have a deep understanding of every condition of learning disability; that would be unreasonable and inappropriate. We are asking for basic awareness of the needs of children with learning disabilities and autism, which covers a large number of pupils. We are asking for understanding of some practical strategies that can be put in place in the classroom, some of which are very simple, and of how to communicate with a child who does not speak to you. Those things do not cost a lot of money. When we offset that against the high cost of exclusions, we believe that the cost implications would not be huge. However, it is not for us to produce a detailed financial breakdown.
We are not asking for detailed training, but we do not feel that it would be appropriate for children with learning disabilities to be taught only by specialist teachers, because that would not create the fully inclusive environment that we aim for in schools. We would like training to be extended to all staff who come into contact with a child with learning disabilities or autism in the classroom.
- Neil Bibby (West Scotland) (Lab):
I am aware of at least one local authority in Renfrewshire that has cut specialist psychological services in schools quite substantially. Is that being replicated in other local authorities? If that is the case, it would give more credence to your argument for the need for greater training for all teachers.
- Amanda Bradley:
I am not in Renfrewshire; however, I am in another local authority area where psychological services are being cut. I agree that cuts are going to be made across the board in many local authority areas, but the point is that teachers need to be made aware of these issues. Very often, the things that are referred up to psychologists do not need to be and they are referred up only because teachers do not know how to cope with very minor issues. My daughter never had behavioural issues and had quite good levels of communication; her learning disability affected her learning, not her behaviour in class. However, eventually she became psychologically affected because the teachers were not aware of how to deal with what was not a severe learning disability.
That sort of refer-up-and-refer-out approach is exactly what we are trying to avoid. Children should not be referred up and referred out simply because the teacher does not know anything at all about anything that is going on with them. These matters can very often be dealt with at a much lower level and such an approach would support not only the education system as a whole, but children with more complex needs who have more need for resources that are not as available as they used to be.
- Neil Bibby:
You mentioned using university courses as a means of providing training. Have you had any discussions with universities as well as teachers and support staff about such training?
- Linda Whitmore:
We have been in discussion with universities. Indeed, a number of lecturers have taken the opportunity to make online comments about the petition. One said:
“With inclusion so established as an aspiration, such training should be mandatory”
while another pointed out:
“I believe it’s so important that teachers are aware of social models of disability, social as well as educational inclusion, bullying, disabled children’s rights”.
We have also received many positive comments from teachers and support staff who see the need for this training to be mandatory.
- Amanda Bradley:
This semester, I gave a lecture to fourth-year students at the University of Strathclyde as part of an elective ASN module and yesterday I was part of a panel of people who had presented on it. The 120 students on the module, which I think was four times oversubscribed, are going to go into education next year and are desperate for information about and knowledge of how these things feel for parents and other teachers. We even had probationers present to the students to give them some idea of what they will come up against. The students were very positive about the module but, as I have said, they were not the only people who were interested in it. The whole year was very interested in doing it—ideally, the whole year should have done it—but there were simply not enough places.
- Mark McDonald (North East Scotland) (SNP):
I have a few questions, although you have partly answered what I was going to ask. I am no expert on teacher training—I lay that on the table now. How many modules are done by an entire year and how many are elective? How might the mandatory element fit into the current teacher training set-up? Would it be fairly easy to achieve or will it involve a bit of manoeuvring?
- Linda Whitmore:
I am not an expert on teacher training either, so I cannot answer your question in any depth. Moreover, each university sets its own curriculum and such modules are not standard. However, I refer you to “Bridging the Training Gap”, which details what each university offers and what their modules contain. It is not for me to rewrite the core initial teacher education curriculum and I do not intend to do so.
All the universities are embedding inclusion to a certain extent—in some cases it is minimal and involves only one or two lectures in first year—and are giving a general flavour of additional support for learning legislation and equalities issues. We want them to beef up the approach a bit and make it more in-depth, so that trainees are aware not just of the legislation but of how it translates into practical strategies in the classroom. We want that to be part of the core curriculum, although it is for the universities to decide exactly how to do that. I do not know whether that answers your question, but it is the best that I can do.
14:30
- Mark McDonald:
Your answer covered the issue, given that neither of us knows a huge amount about training. Perhaps the committee can explore the issue further.
You said that continuous professional development is patchy—I think that is the best way to describe it—across the local authorities. Have you approached local authorities that are not providing CPD opportunities in additional support needs in order that you can ascertain why?
- Linda Whitmore:
No—we have not done that yet. Our getting to this stage involved a very large piece of work, and an approach to local authorities would be the next step. I do not know whether that is a job for Enable Scotland or whether it is outwith our remit. We are not in a position to tell local authorities what to do.
The next step might be to highlight areas of good practice. It might be better to focus on areas in which an inclusive approach is mandatory, and to hold up examples of good practice. We are not here to pick out areas where things are not going well; we would rather concentrate on the positive and say, “Here’s an authority that’s doing this really well. You could roll that out.”
- Mark McDonald:
I agree that sharing best practice is always the best way to proceed.
From listening to Nigel Over’s comments and from my experience of working with headteachers in my capacity as a local councillor, it strikes me that when a pupil has additional support needs it is very much the role of the headteacher to satisfy themselves that staff in the school are appropriately aware of the issues and trained to deal with the child’s needs. Beyond the question of higher levels of training, is there a role for headteachers in ensuring that, for a pupil who has a particular need, not just the class teacher but all staff are aware of that, because the child will have contact with more than just the class teacher during the day?
- Linda Whitmore:
I whole-heartedly agree that there is such a role, as would many of the parents who are members of Enable Scotland. I have several case studies from parents who have said that if the headteacher’s attitude was different their child’s experience would be different. One mum told me that her child’s experience in school changed when one headteacher left and another came in—there was a clear demarcation between the two. It is often the headteacher who creates the school’s ethos. Leadership is important, and it makes a massive difference if the headteacher creates an inclusive environment and is aware of the pupils who are under their supervision who have additional support needs. I completely agree that it should start with headteachers.
- Mark McDonald:
Headteachers undergo various training. I think that there are a number of certificates, including a certificate of leadership—I cannot remember the exact terminology. As well as considering general teacher training and CPD, perhaps headteacher training should be considered, given the crucial role that headteachers play.
- The Convener:
I thank everyone for their questions and answers. The committee must consider its next steps. There are options in the clerk’s paper.
- Sandra White:
We should continue our consideration of the petition. I am concerned about the point that Nigel Over made about how one classroom teacher will know exactly what is happening but the child will move on to other classrooms, where the teachers do not know the situation. That came as quite a surprise to me—perhaps it did to other members.
We should take up Mark McDonald’s idea about writing not just to teachers but to headteachers. We need to write to the Scottish Government and to the Scottish education quality and improvement agency, as well. I would also like to get feedback from the councils that provide mandatory training.
- Mark McDonald:
I agree with Sandra White. I was going to suggest that we write to the Association of Headteachers and Deputes in Scotland. We could also write either to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities or, as Sandra suggests, to the authorities that offer mandatory training. We could also write to those that do not offer it to find out the reasons behind that—not to name and shame, but to see how we can encourage sharing of best practice.
- Bill Walker:
I reinforce the idea of contacting headteachers’ associations. Apart from the leadership aspect, headteachers should at the very least be trained in techniques not only for identifying pupils but for handling them. Although I expressed some concern about training everyone, we should get right on to that one with headteachers.
- John Wilson (Central Scotland) (SNP):
I have listened carefully to the discussion and to the question and answer session, and I have dealt with constituents who have faced similar problems to those that have been identified today. I also feel for individual teachers who are, in effect, being asked to deal with situations for which they are not trained. I suggest, therefore, that we write to the Educational Institute of Scotland: I am sure that the EIS, as the professional body for teachers, will have been contacted by teachers saying that they are being expected to deliver on issues for which they are not trained.
The wider question is how we take the petition forward. In the question and answer session we talked about teachers and support staff. I have picked up from dealing with a constituent that not only support staff in the classroom, but the janitors, caretakers and catering staff all need to be aware of the needs of the children. Although the teacher is responsible in the classroom, the janitor and support staff are responsible in the playground. For many children the playground is the biggest barrier to full integration in the school.
Maybe we could write to local authorities to ask what type of support and training they give to the other staff in the environment of education, by whom I mean the janitors, caretakers and catering staff who deal with children daily and, in some cases, deal with them more hands-on than some teaching staff.
- Sandra White:
I agree with everything that has been said. When we write to the Scottish Government we should ask whether training of teaching and support staff, as detailed in the petition, has been considered by the Donaldson review working group.
- The Convener:
We agree to continue the petition in the terms that have been suggested by colleagues and using the points that have been set out by the clerk. I thank all three witnesses for excellent evidence. We will continue to have a dialogue about your petition.
14:39
Meeting suspended.
14:40
On resuming—