Acts

The 2001 Special Educational Needs Act and the 2005 Common Assessment Framework Abstract In the constant changing world that is the aftermath of continual revolutions of globalisation, adaptation is a necessary component of educational practice and policy selection. With this in mind, the government has passed a large number of new laws, regulations, and recommendations in recent years. During the course of this paper, we will discuss two specific educational reforms: the Special Educational Needs (SEN) and Disability Act 2001 and the Common Assessment Framework 2005 (CAF). We will discuss the impact of the CAF on the level of acceptance and success of the SEN Act, and address the main criticisms of each. The Special Educational Needs Act 2001 and the Common Assessment Framework 2005 The SEN and Disability Act 2001 and the CAF 2005 have continued to inspire a lively debate. While the SEN Act alone met with some meager degree of success, a consensus could not be reached on the validity of the new laws, and it became clear that further action was necessary to ensure that the mandated mainstreaming, which was intended to protect the rights and autonomy of these children, was not impeding the realistic delivery of a personal understanding of their unique needs and potential. The CAF was one of several initiatives taken in response to widespread doubt regarding the efficacy of the Acts and provided a nationwide model of expectation and practice (Pithouse, 2006). Together, these two changes in national policy would turn the tide of British education of children with special educational needs. Literature Review The function of CAF in addressing the shortcomings of the SEN Act was never explicitly acknowledged- but rather was presented as a generalized reinforcement of a number of educational reforms. The official purposes centered on children with an impaired “opportunity of achieving or maintaining a reasonable standard of health or development” (Pithouse, 2006, 201). One of the seldom-acknowledged purposes of the framework was to ease the burden from the exhausted professionals in the fields of social work. Thus, combining methodological recommendations for focus and economy, the CAF proposes educational change in a multi-faceted and complex capacity (Pithouse, 2006). Ironically, many of the original objections to the implementation of CAF focus were produced by the realization of an increased workload for the teachers who had the most direct educational contact with the children (Norgate, Traill, & Osborne, 2009). Nonetheless, the before and after success story of the SEN Act was largely dependent on the smaller recommendations of the CAF. In the last five years, the policies of the 2001 SEN Act have met with a mounting body of professional criticism. Baker (2007) specifically criticizes the governmental expectation that inclusion is a practical possibility for all students with special needs. As an experienced teacher, Baker refutes this assumption. While he does agree that segregated instruction does occasionally produce a lack of equity in the quality of instruction, he claims that- where this quality is sufficiently monitored- there is no barrier to a differentiated approach to instruction. Furthermore, Baker asserts that inclusion in some mainstream schools does not provide the same level of individual attention as would be afforded to them in a specialized school. As Cole wrote in 1989, “In noticing similarities between issues… understanding is increased and perhaps a few caveats are picked up for the future, but it would be naïve to suggest that history repeats itself” (as cited by Florian, 2002, 164). In the early years of the SEN act, Florian advocated an approach of mainstream inclusion and of more specific educational ideas. That call was answered by the CAF a mere three years later (2002). Taking both the issue of the SEN legislation and the 2005 CAF into consideration, one pilot study in Wales studied the very multi-agency approach (and the Integrated Children’s System in particular) which Baker recommended as an alternative to mandating mainstream inclusion of children with special needs. In this article, Pithouse (2006) recognized the utility and worth of the standardization of expectation, writing: “Until recently, referrers have tended to operate their own criteria about the sorts of needs or circumstances that should trigger their contact with social services about a child” (200). Even these steps cannot guarantee this equity of educational quality. While northern research tends to support the new legislation and recommendations, Gilligan and Manby (2008) present research (also from northern England) which implies that the usefulness of the CAF lies in utopian visions that are realistically hindered by the school systemic economy and availability of resources. In the United Kingdom, there are 1.5 million children identified as possessing special educational needs (Truss, 2008). Educational privatization versus mainstreaming aside, primary and secondary schools were the organizational leaders in the utilization of the CAF initiatives (Norgate et al., 2009). To reach a consensus, it is necessary to consult with the persons who tend to have the most intimate knowledge of the progress, successes, and failures of educational reform: the parents. In 2009, parental levels of satisfaction with SEN policies were gauged, recorded, and analysed by the University of Birmingham. Parsons, Lewis, Davison, Ellins, and Robertson expressed their curiosity about the nationalistic nature of SEN policies stemmed from an observation that the research cited in support of these developments was limited to certain regions, which would necessarily produce bias and skewed results. Their survey focused on the five elements of parental inclusion and autonomy, the level of accessibility of educational environments, attitudes and behaviors, knowledge and legislative awareness, and the impact of aspiration. However, they discovered that (even on the national scale) perceptions were mainly positive. The exception to this finding consisted of parents of children with psychosocial impediments. Pithouse (2006) acknowledges that the very reliability of the CAF depends upon its ability to react to the students and the educational research. Truss (2008) argues that the attitudes and behaviors component presents the SEN with an obvious manifestation of a disabling approach to the expectation for improvement. Where “normal” children would be referred to as students, those children with special educational needs are labeled in vague and impersonal terms, such as “the subject”, “the case”, “the patient”. To Truss, the argument against the original conceptualization of the 2001 SEN Act is comprised of the quantitative stance taken in its establishment. She cites both research and personal experience with the dehumanization of these children and even writes that she was accused of poor parenting of her son, Peter, who was identified as a child of SEN. Conclusion In 2005, Warnock criticized both SEN legislation and the recent development of frameworks such as the CAF, citing a paradox of competing goals- that of the provision for an increased perception of normalcy as a staple argument for inclusion and the need to provide additional educational support when it is necessary. Mary Warnock’s 1978 report had begun the momentous effort to produce a common ground between the extremes, but she had changed her mind (as cited by Terzi, 2005). In response to this change of heart, Terzi writes that the whole program and ideological system of current educational practice should not be uprooted. Instead it should be modified to reflect her belief “that reconceptualising disability and special needs through the capability approach makes possible the overcoming of the tension at the core of the dilemma of difference, whilst at the same time inscribing the debate within an ethical, normative framework based upon justice and equality” (2005, 443). While the intents are noble, these perspectives fail to provide any viable vocabulary or new practice for reducing the tension of difference that Terzi describes. It stands to reason, then, that the SEN Act and the CAF should remain. References Baker, J. (2007). The British Government's strategy for SEN: implications for the role and future development of special schools. Support for Learning, 22(2), 72-77. Florian, L. (2002). The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same' A Response to the Audit Commission’s Report on Statutory Assessment and Statements of SEN. British Journal of Special Education, 29(4), 164-169. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database. Gibb, K., Tunbridge, D., Chua, A., & Frederickson, N. (2007). Pathways to Inclusion: Moving from special school to mainstream. Educational Psychology in Practice, 23(2), 109-127. Gilligan, P., & Manby, M. (2008). The Common Assessment Framework: does the reality match the rhetoric'. Child & Family Social Work, 13(2), 177-187. doi:10.1111/j.1365- Norgate, R., Traill, M., & Osborne, C. (2009). Common Assessment Framework (CAF) - early views and issues. Educational Psychology in Practice, 25(2), 139-150. Parsons, S., Lewis, A., Davison, I., Ellins, J., & Robertson, C. (2009). Satisfaction with educational provision for children with SEN or disabilities: a national postal survey of the views of parents in Great Britain. Educational Review, 61(1), 19-47. Pithouse, A. (2006). A Common Assessment for Children in Need' Mixed Messages from a Pilot Study in Wales. Child Care in Practice, 12(3), 199-217. Terzi, L. (2005). Beyond the Dilemma of Difference: The Capability Approach to Disability and Special Educational Needs. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 39(3), 443-459. Truss, C. (2008). Peter's story: reconceptualising the UK SEN system. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 23(4), 365-377.