Here in the UK, there is some controversy as to why a Cabinet minister and former education secretary should send her son, who has some special educational needs, to a private school. Does she not trust the state system?
I have four things I wish to say to her:
1. Well done – your child’s educational needs are important.
2. An even bigger ‘well done’ for craftily avoiding a real scandal. Had your child been allowed quick, free and easy access, within the state system, to suitable provision, I for one would have wanted to know how you had managed to avoided the two to three year torturous and emotional battle that many other parents and children have to go through.
3. Our state schools are set up to produce league tables and achieve government targets. They do not have the expertise, the stamina, or the resources to help special needs children and they are failing them. You know that – DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
4. I am sorry that you our going through all this shit with the press, but parents of special needs children do suffer – it is as simple as that! If parents are not prepared to stand up and fight, their children lose out.
What do you think happens to the children whose parents cannot negotiate the system or pay for private education?
(I am going to look for this women's email address)
9 comments:
Hear, hear!!! :]
Yep, good call all around :)
thats a good call kat :) when we was kids, our parents did not have that option. now special needs children need to & can be taken care.
Baroness Warnock, one of the architects of the special needs system, said support for children with learning difficulties in mainstream state schools was often "extremely inadequate".
The schools usually try to meet their needs but they haven't got the staff or the resources and it is placing too much strain on them. Our special schools have been closed but the money saved has not been reinvested.
Why am I not suprised that the money from the closure of special schools hasn't been reinvested in providing support for children with learning difficulties in mainstream schools...
It's probably going toward propping up the Defence Budget which must be going through the roof with both Afganistan and Iraq eating up the billions.
Well said Kat!!
Clearly Ruth Kelly didn't have a choice. All her other kids are in state education as well. If it raises awareness of the issues then its a good thing, even the conservatives didn't try to make capital out of it. It was more the press as usual.
No access to her personal wesbite, no email address available, but it seems you can contact her via this site if you make up a Bolton address....
Thanks Bluefluff. I think she has got to know how other people think and feel and just how many of us think and feel it. As am MP she isn't just responsible for her own child.
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