Government challenged on teacher training

MPs have challenged the Government on whether teacher training to work with children with special educational needs is adequate, after NDCS raised concerns.

The challenge came in a debate on the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill (external link), in which the Government is proposing to make a number of changes to the law to improve the educational and vocational opportunities avaiable to children and young people.

NDCS has briefed MPs on a range of concerns, including whether teachers receive adequate support and training to be able to work with children with special educational needs, including deaf children.

In response, the Government highlighted a number of workstreams to address this. Whilst this is welcome, NDCS remains concerned that more needs to be done to ensure teachers are able to engage effectively with deaf children.

More information

Below are relevant excepts from the debate: 

Nick Gibb, MP for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton:

"Amendment 77 was inspired by the National Deaf Children’s Society. It says that:

"A significant number of parents regularly contact NDCS with concerns that their child is not receiving his or her entitlement to appropriate education. In many cases, when NDCS investigate, it is found that frontline classroom teachers are trying their best in very difficult circumstances, without the required support and advice to meet the pupil’s needs.”

It goes on to say, for example, that:

“there has been no guidance published for teachers on how to differentiate the teaching of phonics for deaf children, even though, a teaching method based on the listening of sounds is clearly inappropriate for many deaf children, particularly those with severe hearing loss"...

The NDCS goes on to say that, according to reports:

“many teachers currently spend one morning over a four year course looking at the needs of all children with SEN—even though Government figures show that one in five of the school population is estimated to have a SEN.”

The NDCS believes that teachers should be entitled to training on how to teach children with special needs. Amendment 77 is a probing amendment that is designed to ensure that the provisions of the clause will apply to teachers who want to improve their skills in teaching children with special needs. If the Minister clarifies that the clause applies to teachers in those circumstances, I will not press the amendment...

Sion Simon MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills :

Amendment 77 concerns a different issue. It would include in the Bill a specific reference to qualified school teachers with responsibility for teaching children with special educational needs to ensure that they are eligible to make requests for time to train where training would ensure that the needs of the children could be met. The hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings has told us what underlies the amendment, and I have been happy to assure him that the training needs of such people will be met under the legislation.

I would like to highlight a couple of things quickly before moving on to address how the amendment would affect the clause. The first point worth noting is that all teachers have, as the amendment suggests,

“responsibility for educating children with special educational needs”,

particularly now that we have more inclusive learning environments. Specially commissioned materials have been created through the inclusion development programme, which is funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, for serving teachers and the assistants who work with them on areas of SEN that we know they find difficult. The first of those materials, on children who experience communication difficulties, was published in 2008, and similar resources on autism are to follow this month.

We are also supporting a series of practical measures for training teachers through the Training and Development Agency for Schools, such as the creation of new study unit material that training providers can use to strengthen those elements in their courses. Funding has been provided to encourage training providers to take up the units, and pilot institutions are working with others in clusters to show how the new resources can be successfully incorporated into existing courses. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there is already action in hand to address the issue.

Turning to the amendment and clause 39, I can confirm that, under new section 63D, employees who are teachers of children with special educational needs are treated the same way as other employees. There is no need for specific provision to accommodate them. Teachers will be qualified as employees under these provisions and will be able to make requests for time to train, where they are employees as defined in the Employment Rights Act 1996 and met certain other limited conditions. They must have been employed by their employer for the necessary period specified by the Secretary of State. They must not fall within subsection 7 of new section 63D and, on that basis—finally—I hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree to withdraw the amendment...

Nick Gibb MP: I am reassured by what the Minister said about teachers, that they will be covered by the provisions in clause 39. That is a welcome assurance, but he underestimates the concerns of the teaching profession about the lack of training for SEN—half a morning in a four year course, though it may well be longer than that—but the NUT has produced its own report about the difficulties faced by the teaching profession when it comes to helping children with special educational needs in the best way possible...

Read the full transcript of the debate > (external link)