Debate contribution: Special Educational Needs and Disability: Investment and Transformation

Debate contribution by Ms Kellie Armstrong on 26 February 2024.

MLA

Ms Kellie Armstrong

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

26 February 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Special Educational Needs and Disability: Investment and Transformation

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4231238

Read the official Assembly record

Text

When we think about education and children with special educational needs, we need to bear equity in mind. To get equality for all pupils, we need to think about how we can encourage and increase the investment in the children who need more help in order to be treated equally. I support the Alliance motion and confirm my support for the Ulster Unionist amendment. I absolutely agree with Mr Butler on that one. I declare an interest as chair of the all-party group on learning disabilities and vice chair of the all-party group on disabilities. In those roles, I have heard from pupils and parents that the current system for supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities is failing them and their schools. I will use my time to discuss the failure of the system to work appropriately at the time of transition. Every year, children with special educational needs are notified about the school that they are to attend weeks, if not months, after their peers. Why? The Assembly has been calling on the Department of Education to stop that unfair and discriminatory treatment of children with disabilities since I came into the House in 2016. It did not just happen last year: it happened the year before that, the year before that and the year before that. Indeed, the Children's Law Centre has said that SEND provision has been allowed to degenerate into critical failure. I appreciate that the Minister has talked about the strategic placement board. If we are investing that money now, I fully expect that children with special educational needs will not be left in that situation this coming summer. It is time that we ensure that every child, irrespective of whether they have a disability, finds out what their next school will be at the same time.

I do not want to have to sit in another meeting room with parents in tears, frustrated that their child is the only child in a primary school without a school place. Minister, as a parent, it breaks my heart when I hear a child with a disability asking why they do not have a school place: have they done something wrong, or is it because they are disabled that they cannot get a school place? That is a disgrace.

I appreciate that a period of transition is complex, so I ask the Minister to confirm whether any learning has been taken from the experience of the special educational needs and disability tribunal. If the members of that tribunal had been consulted, many of the repeated errors and continuing mistreatment of children with disabilities and their parents would have been dealt with and would no longer be part of the system. I demand that the use of the term "supernumerary" when referring to children with disabilities stop today. Treating children with disabilities as separate and not counting them in a school's intake says much about a system that is based on division and difference; it should be a child-centred and inclusive approach. The Department of Education decided to place children with disabilities in mainstream schools. It is for the Department of Education to stop using outdated and segregating language. I will say nothing about the fact that there is very little provision for after-school facilities for children with disabilities. I am very fortunate to know Killard House School, a moderate learning difficulties (MLD) school that has helped children to achieve GCSEs and develop their skills to the very best that they can achieve. Many children leave school with qualifications enabling them to enter the workplace. The system currently moves MLD children into mainstream, where children with disabilities are separate and not even counted as part of the school intake or exam result achievements. Is this system working to develop children with disabilities, or is it further segregating children with disabilities?

Thank you, Principal Deputy Speaker. I think that I might need it. I was about to move on to part of what the all-party group on disability heard from Fleming Fulton School, whose representatives talked about the Careers Service and how they felt that their school was a poor relation in comparison with the grammar schools only a few miles away from them. Some 27% of people with disabilities are not in employment. The statistics for Northern Ireland are the worst in the UK. The careers advice that these schools receive is limited compared with that received by other schools. For example, as part of the careers system, children from Fleming Fulton School have been asked to go to work placements that they cannot get to because the public transport system requires them to phone 24 hours in advance to book a wheelchair place. Two children from the same school cannot go to the same work placement because they need two wheelchairs on a bus, and no buses have two wheelchair places. While that is an infrastructure issue, it comes back to careers people not giving children the appropriate advice or support. The children already believe that it is too difficult to get to work, so what is education providing for those young people? I have to ask the Minister to clarify whether basic disability awareness is built into all transition services, including careers advice. I am also very aware that much has been made about the amount spent on special educational needs, particularly on the workforce.

It is time that we bring workforce pay issues together and put forward a case, because they are not second-class workers; they are key to our children's well-being.

929 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:43 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reads every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification