Margot champions children with special educational needs
8th May 2009
Margot James has been appointed governor with responsibility for children who have a statement of special educational need (SENs) at Redhill School.
At her first meeting with Denise Benton, head of special needs at the school, Margot was briefed on the management of children on the SEN register. There are twenty three children with a statement at the school, mostly coming in to the school with scores below level two. In addition to children with a statement there are a further 160 children being actively managed by the school with a range of educational, social or behavioural issues.
In year seven children with special needs are placed in the Apex class of just fifteen children where they are given targeted literacy, numeracy and other help in maths, English and humanities. In years eight and nine special help continues in place of a second language.
Since the drive towards inclusion of children with special needs began a few years ago the number of teaching assistants whose job it is to support these children in mainstream education has increased from five or six to twenty five.
Parental choice and meeting the needs of individual children is paramount in this area. Far too many schools dedicated to meeting the needs of children with developmental delay of one sort or another have closed in the last decade, undermining that choice.
