Review of Special Educational Needs and Inclusion
Every School a Good School – The Way Forward for Special Educational Needs and Inclusion.
The Education Minister, John O’Dowd, published the Summary Report of Responses to the Consultation on the Review of Special Educational Needs (SEN) and Inclusion. In this, the Minister presented the findings from the consultation, indicated his broad direction of travel and outlined his key preferred proposals.
The Summary Report contains a factual analysis of the responses received to the formal consultation on Every School a Good School - The Way Forward for Special Educational Needs and Inclusion, which ran from August 2009 to January 2010. The Department has carried out a thorough analysis of every response received and reported these responses in the Summary Report and its associated appendices.
Since January 2012, the Department has been engaging with key stakeholders including parents, schools, voluntary and statutory organisations. The Minister has met with a number of organisations and a number of reference group meetings have been held in each Education and Library Board area; these have been attended by parents, teachers, staff working in schools and representatives from voluntary organisations.
Following on from this engagement, on 16th May 2012, the Minister presented a policy paper to the Education Committee for their consideration. The Committee will now have an opportunity to provide feedback on this paper.
The next stage in the development of the SEN & Inclusion Policy will be to develop a Policy Memorandum for presentation to the Executive Committee for its agreement. Following that any proposals for change to primary or subordinate legislation will be drafted. This draft legislation will then go before the Assembly, at which point there will be further public consultation.
The Presentation to the Education Committee, the Summary Report and the original Consultation documents are available for you to download in PDF format. If the documents are not in a format that meets your needs please contact the Special Education and Inclusion Review Team. We will be pleased to consider any requests for copies of this document in alternative formats such as large print, Braille, audio or in other languages.
Minister's Presentation to The Committee for Education 16 May 2012 PDF181 KB
These policy proposals were contained in the Policy Memorandum Paper agreed by the Executive on the 5th July 2012.
Summary of the Policy Proposals PDF 200 KB
Report
Appendices
Appendix 1: Summary of the review consultation questions and proposals PDF 485 KB
Appendix 2 : Engagement with stakeholders PDF 86 KB
Appendix 3 : Campaigns and petitions PDF 952 KB
Appendix 4 : Summary of responses from consultation meetings PDF 1,017 KB
Appendix 5 : Breakdown of responses by respondent groupings PDF 4,026 KB
Appendix 6 : Responses from organisations representing the education sector PDF 7,167 KB
Appendix 7 : Responses from some statutory and voluntary organisations PDF 2,522 KB
Appendix 8 : Updated Responses from Statutory Education Partners PDF 2.19 MB
Appendix 9 : Responses from children and young people PDF 2,576 KB
Appendix 10 : Extracts from responses which relate to the EQIA PDF 174 KB
Consultation Documents
Children and Young People's Consultation Document ( English) PDF 230 KB
Children and Young People's Consultation Document (Irish) PDF 246 KB
Equality Impact Assessment
There are limited numbers of hard copies of the Summary Report available. If you require a hard copy you can contact us in the following ways:
Phone: 028 9127 9762
Fax: 028 9127 9100
Textphone: 18001- 028 9127 9762
For information on Text Relay visit the Text Relay website.
Email: seninclusion@deni.gov.uk
Post: Special Education and Inclusion Review Team,
Room G17a,
Department of Education,
Rathgael House,
43 Balloo Road, Bangor,
Co. Down,
BT19 7PR.
SEN CPD Literacy Project
The SEN Continued Professional Development (CPD) Literacy Project is being jointly delivered by Stranmillis and St Mary’s University Colleges. The Department is funding this project for 3 years, with a total investment of some £3.4m.
All primary schools are invited to take part in this training, with the first programme being delivered over the 2012/13 academic year starting in September 2012.
The project aims to deliver whole school training that will enhance the skills of teachers in primary schools in the teaching of reading, writing and spelling, enabling schools to identify and address literacy difficulties in a timely and appropriate manner.
The project also offers specialist training (accredited by the BDA), to a number of SENCos and teachers, to enable them to identify children with literacy difficulties including Dyslexia, assess their individual needs and provide appropriate interventions.
For further course details please access this link - Literacy Flyer PDF 983KB
