Local Conservatives say new Cambridge Report on Special Needs should halt the closure of Blanche Neville School 18/05/06

Local Conservatives have called on Haringey Council to stage a radical policy re-think after an education expert warned that allowing children with special needs to take part in mainstream school classes can be "a form of abuse". The Labour-run council wants to close the Blanche Neville School for the Deaf in Highgate, which serves deaf pupils from across the borough aged between 3-19.

Justin Hinchcliffe, of Haringey Conservatives, said:

"This report shows too many children with special needs are being forced into mainstream schools.  Parents are being denied a proper choice.  The obsession with inclusion is unfair on children with special educational  needs, unfair on the rest of the class and unfair on teachers. This report should lead the Council to a radical rethink on its inclusion policy and to halt the closure of the Blanche Neville School."

He was responding to a "costs of inclusion" report on Special Education Needs, drawn up by Cambridge University's John MacBeath , which warned that teachers and teaching assistants often go beyond the call of duty to help children with special educational needs, while the children themselves could be "excluded" by sitting in a classroom that did not meet their needs.

Pointing to a secondary school timetable, which results in children rushing from different subject lessons, Professor MacBeath said special needs children could find the process as bewildering as being on another planet. He added: "You might find it a form of abuse, in a sense, that those children are in a situation that's totally inappropriate for them."

ENDS.