About Special Needs Education

The development in the thinking around special educational needs has taken a pathway from the implementation of the Warnock Report in the early 1980’s to the conceptualisation of ‘integrated services’ in 2005 with a concern that the needs of young people are met. This involved a move towards local authorities becoming commissioning agents for services, focusing on quality control rather than delivering services themselves.

This journey has had many phases, some of which have had a lasting and some may say detrimental impact on the quality of services offered to children and young people with special educational needs.

For example the argument in favour of inclusion is worthy and argues for the best opportunities for young people to be delivered wherever practicable in mainstream school settings. The interpretation of this laudable aim was, in some authorities, to close specialist facilities for young people with SEN.

Fortunately our local response in Stockton on Tees was more measured, with a concern that young people should have their needs met. This priority of individual achievement has led to the retention of a mixed economy of provision that includes specialist facilities and schools alongside high quality inclusive provision within mainstream schools.