Review of Special Educational Needs and Inclusion - Department of Education, Northern Ireland

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.