The sun is shining and there is a light breeze as four-year-old Thomas Tovell concentrates hard on helping his fellow classmates in the school’s outdoor learning area. He is warmly wrapped in his anorak and his teaching assistant Rebecca Kerry looks on, offering encouraging words. Thomas has Down’s syndrome, and he requires constant support from his assistants throughout the school day. However, budget restraints mean that both he and his support staff may soon be forced to say their goodbyes. The school’s budget deficit of £120,000 has led to the redundancy of 50 teaching assistants, and a third of them will lose their jobs. With fewer staff, the school would find it difficult to support Thomas and three other pupils. The Local Government Association (LGA) warns that a similar situation could occur in mainstream schools across the UK, leaving pupils with special needs without the adequate support they require.
Oddly enough, educating pupils in a special school is generally more expensive despite the fact that real-term cuts in school budgets continue to rise, along with costs such as national insurance and pension contributions. The average cost of a primary place in Derbyshire is £3,888 when compared to around £10,000 for a place in a special school. Even so, Hilton primary school receives £3,900 per pupil and £8,000 for one-to-one support for Thomas’s education. Nevertheless, the whole process of educating Thomas costs £24,245 and leaves the school with a deficit of £12,345 p.a. To make matters worse, Derbyshire County Council only funds Thomas’s teaching assistant for twenty-two hours each week, and the school must cover the additional ten and a half hours. This is also true for many of the eighty-two pupils who receive special needs support. One boy needs help with feeding, toileting, and cannot speak, and is only likely to receive fourteen hours of assistance, although he would like to enter the reception class in September.
Kevan Lomas, the Headteacher of Hilton primary school, feels that his school is hard hit by this crisis. He believes that the school has a moral obligation to meet the needs of all the children in the community, but teaching assistants work well beyond the hours they get paid for, and this creates difficultrties. Not only do mainstream schools face cuts and budget freezes, but the number of special needs pupils is increasing, leading to even more issues. Official statistics reveal that more pupils are being educated in special schools (8.5% in 2016 as compared to 5.6% in 2012) while the proportion of those attending independent schools has grown (4.5% to 6.3%).
Councillor Richard Watts, who chairs the LGA’s children and young people board, highlights another problem: the government has proposed a new national funding formula for pupils with special needs. This proposal would leave local authorities with less ability to be flexible in their spending. Traditionally, local authorities have used central budget money to subsidise special needs support, but should it be turned down, schools will decide where the money goes, without considering those pupils who require assistance. This situation leads to a higher risk that mainstream schools will be reluctant to educate those pupils who require the most support.
The Department for Education, however, has a different opinion.
It has earmarked an extra £220m to support councils’ special needs provision this year and next, and it has also promised a further £215m to improve facilities and build classrooms.
Local council officers have been consulting with the staff of Hilton primary regarding the school’s financial difficulties in Derbyshire. The council has allocated £100,000 from contingency funds for this year, but they believe the root cause lies in central government funding for schools which needs improvement. Plans for placing pupils into mainstream alternative schools are in consideration; however, the council assures that the families’ needs and wishes will be taken into account throughout the process. The council acknowledges the crucial role of teaching assistants and the tough decisions that the Hilton primary staff is facing. Some schools in the area are facing similar struggles as Hilton primary.
At the end of the school day, parents collect their children from Hilton, where Year 6 pupils have just come back from a residential trip. The staff members who accompanied the students are looking forward to some time off. One of those parents is Becky Smeathers, who went with her daughter Josie, who has cerebral palsy. Smeathers feels that Josie has been lucky as she has received support to attend the primary school. The school provided an additional 10.5 hours of support per week beyond what the local authority pays for her 22 funded hours. However, future students may not receive the same provision.
Josie’s difficulties in communicating with teachers, inability to do things independently, and reliance on others for assistance make it difficult for her to fit in an environment where there is a high student-to-teacher ratio. Without the additional support, her mother fears she cannot remain at the school, and she may have to go to a specialized school instead, where students also have disabilities. Josie’s integration at the primary school has been hugely beneficial to her, giving her opportunities to interact with other children, laugh and enjoy life the way she desires.