Education, Culture and Sport Committee, 06 Sep 2000

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 6, 2000

Official Report 245KB pdf

---

Special Educational Needs

The next item on the agenda is visits to schools providing special education. There have been two visits since our previous meeting. Karen Gillon and Lewis Macdonald visited Donbank Primary School, in Aberdeen.

The school is excellent. A unit looking after the needs of a number of children with special educational needs is attached to the school, but the focus is on the integration of those pupils in the mainstream curriculum. The school certainly served to shatter some of my illusions and prejudices about how people, and in particular those with profound special educational needs, could be educated in a mainstream classroom. It is an example of good practice. In particular, I saw at first hand how children with Down's syndrome and cerebral palsy are integrated in the school in a way that I had not believed possible.

Again, the issue of individual learning plans was raised. I was told about the need for them because they help pupils and parents to focus on achievement—we should not expect any less from our children with special educational needs, although the targets might be slightly different. Another issue that arose was the time scale: whatever time scale was applied, people were able to meet it, and it could be adjusted to the needs of the child rather than set down what had to be done at different stages.

The school and the authority have a forward-thinking approach to integration and individual learning plans. It is part of their ethos. The head teacher was very enthusiastic. The school has many social problems and is not the kind of school that one would expect to be at the forefront of integration. It is a very good school. There are difficulties in involving parents because parents there have not traditionally been involved in the school. Some home-school link workers have been appointed, who will work to find ways in which parents can become more fully involved in the school. The visit was a very positive and challenging experience.

If there are no questions for Karen Gillon, we will move on to the second visit, which Ian Jenkins made yesterday to Kingsinch School.

I think Brian Monteith was counting his press releases at the time and did not manage to come with me to Kingsinch School yesterday afternoon. The school is associated with Liberton Primary School, with which it shares its campus. Kingsinch provides for youngsters with special educational needs that we would describe as moderate learning difficulties compared with some that we have encountered before. Youngsters on the autistic spectrum are prominent in the intake. It was a smashing visit. The ethos and the atmosphere were superb. I had a good chance to talk to some of the more senior youngsters, from whom I got the feeling that the school is looking after them well.

What is different from other schools I have seen is that at the top end of the school, where there is a relationship with Liberton High School, youngsters who are doing higher still units and third-year pupils who are doing access units go—under supervision—to Liberton and some Liberton pupils occasionally came to Kingsinch to join modules that are being done there.

The headmistress pointed out that when the youngsters leave the school, some of them enter what is essentially a social work context. However, there is a joined-up approach; they are being taken into what used to be day centres and so on. They are being better looked at—an individual learning package, if you like, is being offered beyond the normal school leaving age. That was a hopeful sign.

As we went round the school, the importance of the expressive arts was apparent. At all levels there was a tremendous art gallery, you might say, around the place. At the primary level there was music and so on. The ethos of the school was positive and helpful.

You say that Kingsinch has a close relationship with Liberton Primary School.

It is on the same campus as the primary school. It was the secondary school—

Where they share modules.

Could the children at Kingsinch not attend the primary school, or is it necessary for them to be separate?

I spoke to a wee girl who went to Liberton. She would probably have been what you and I would call a third year. I think she was up for standard grade English, which she found an emotional strain. She seemed confident about where she was, but felt that the big classes at Liberton were threatening. For the record, it was not that there was anything wrong with Liberton, but that she was emotionally fragile and needed support. She was being well looked after where she was. A sensitive partnership was being developed.

That is an interesting point. An emotional situation is not immediately recognisable, which means we may overlook it.

We would not have recognised that immediately.

There is always someone with the pupils. However, that individual is not tied to them, but does a bit of team teaching. One of the technical teachers at Kingsinch went to Liberton with a wee group of pupils. The pupils were integrated with the Liberton classes and the Kingsinch teacher became a team teacher in that group.

During the recess, Nicola Sturgeon and I visited the Craighalbert Centre, which we were very impressed by.

Do you want to report on that?

I have not prepared a report in great detail. However, this brings us back to the part in the draft about the position of grant-aided schools, where people are doing powerful work with children with severe, low-incidence difficulties. When we visit a place like that, we wonder not necessarily how we would provide for the pupils but how we might continue to build up the knowledge and the resources to support those pupils either in the Craighalbert Centre or in mainstream schools.

I visited the Craighalbert Centre and other schools in the remit of the inquiry. The centre is very interesting as it pursues a policy of taking children at a very young age, but encouraging them back into the mainstream. We will talk about what lessons can be learned from such schools when we come to discuss the report itself. However, there is no doubt that this school, Donaldson's and the Royal Blind School are very impressive and we have quite a decision to make about their place in the whole system.

Thank you. Despite our timetable, I will visit the Craighalbert Centre next Monday, because the school was keen for us to visit. I am also visiting Harmeny school, which is another grant-aided school.

I appreciate that committee members had a lot of stress and strain of business, as Mike Russell mentioned earlier, and I am not just getting at Brian Monteith for not being able to attend yesterday, but I should remind members that schools get quite excited when they know that we are coming, so if you cannot attend, it would be quite useful to let the clerks know so that they can inform the school. I know that it can be very difficult and that you can be called away at the last minute, but it would be helpful if members bore that in mind.