Halstead: Broad labelling of special needs could explain exclusion figures, claims headteacher (From Halstead Gazette)
Get involved: send your pictures, video, news and views by texting HG to 80360, or email us Click here for more details »
Halstead: Broad labelling of special needs could explain exclusion figures, claims headteacher
3:00pm Tuesday 5th February 2013 in News
Halstead: Broad labelling of claims headteacher
A headteacher claimed the increasingly broad labelling of children could explain why almost all pupils excluded from the district’s primary schools in the past two years had special educational needs.
Thirty-three of the 36 given a fixed term exclusion between September 2010 and Easter 2012 had special educational needs (SEN).
Just one of the exclusions involved a Halstead school and it was not disclosed whether the child had SEN.
Essex County Council admitted the “over representation” of pupils with SEN being excluded was a countywide and national concern.
Sarah Donnelly, headteacher at Richard de Clare Primary School, in Parsonage Street, claimed the broad labelling of special educational needs could go some way towards explaining the figures.
Some 21 per cent of schoolchildren in England are now identified as having SEN.
SEE THE HALSTEAD GAZETTE FOR THE FULL STORY
