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People with Down's Syndrome (Education)

Angela Watkinson (Upminster) (Con): I add my congratulations to those paid to the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) on securing this debate—it is a very important subject. His reputation as a champion for the Down's Syndrome Association and for children with Down's syndrome is well deserved.

As expected, this morning's debate has been a consensual one. Members of all parties wish the best possible educational opportunities for children with Down's syndrome. I worked in a special school for many years, and one of the first things that I learned was that it is impossible to generalise about children with special needs—they are all individuals. Children with Down's syndrome demonstrate that well, because they span the spectrum of ability.

Improvements in health care over recent years have increased the life expectancy of people with Down's syndrome. Given that many of them are born towards the end of their mother's child-bearing years, their long-term future after elderly parents predecease them is becoming an increasing problem. It follows that acquiring as much independence as possible prepares them best for adult life and that education is the key to that independence.

The first educational hurdle facing parents is obtaining that essential statement of educational needs as early as possible. There is evidence that some parents, particularly those who are less determined or articulate, experience difficulties in obtaining a statement. We have all had letters from constituents about that. It is as well to realise that people usually contact their Member of Parliament only as a last resort: when they have tried everything else—all the normal channels—and they have not succeeded. Therefore, when they come to us they are fairly desperate.

Local education authorities have to bear the cost of the statementing process, which is considerable. They often have insufficient staff to cope with the level of demand and the consequential delays often result in tribunals, which cause additional stress to the parents, and, more seriously, a delay in the pupil accessing proper education.

Most, if not all, statements will include a need for speech therapy. As we have heard this morning, good communication is an essential life skill and is particularly important to somebody with Down's syndrome. As all hon. Members present will be aware, there has been a chronic shortage of speech and language therapists for decades. Even when primary care trusts are able to fund additional therapists, they find it almost impossible to recruit them. The Government face a real challenge to find out why that underprovision has proved so intractable.
I was told that 180 speech and language therapy students graduated last year. The mystery is where they went. What career paths did they choose? Apparently, they did not choose special education. I know from discussions with the very dedicated team of speech and language professionals in Havering that they suffer frustration at being unable to meet the level of local demand, and I know that that is not peculiar to Havering.

Interestingly, some children attending our Sure Start programme are presenting with speech and language problems. Although identifying problems at that stage is highly beneficial to those children, speech and language therapy resources are finite and that early intervention is leaching resources from other areas of provision, such as schools.

I noticed a question that the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East put to the Minister on 13 July on the subject of availability and competencies of speech and language therapists. In her reply the Minister said:

"With the extra investment announced in the 2002 Budget, we expect the NHS to have net increases of at least 30,000 therapists and scientists, including speech and language therapists by 2008."—[Official Report, 13 July 2004; Vol. 423, c. 1117W.]

I know that is a global total. How many of that 30,000 does the Minister anticipate will be speech and language therapists, and what progress has been made since 2002 towards increasing the total available?

Access to pre-school and nursery provision is an important building block in the development of a child with Down's syndrome. Learning social and interpersonal skills and gaining self-confidence through play, music, painting and games at nursery school makes those children ready to benefit from the next stage of a more formal learning experience at school.

The next dilemma for any parent whose child has Down's syndrome is whether to opt for mainstream or special school placement. Some families find coping with disability harder than others, and supporting those families is something that special schools are particularly good at. Because they are smaller, it is possible for the staff to get to know the whole family—siblings and parents—and to understand their problems, lend a sympathetic ear and offer a word of support in a way that the demands of a busy mainstream school would make difficult.

The Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 gave all pupils the right to be educated in a mainstream school if that is the choice of their parents. Sensibly, the learning and safety of others must not be jeopardised by the placement of a child with special needs in a mainstream setting, and so the success of the placements depends heavily on the provision of special learning assistants who are properly trained and available for enough hours to meet the child's needs. The special relationship between the SLA and the pupil is essential in understanding the child's difficulties, recognising triggers for difficult behaviour and establishing workable strategies to avert crises in the school day. That support can make the difference between success and failure for the pupil, but the cost is high and can cause severe pressure on school budgets.

The Down's Syndrome Association's survey of parents this year revealed among other things that both types of school have had widespread success in educating pupils with Down's syndrome. The report on the survey contains many supporting statements from parents, many of which we have heard this morning from the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East, but the satisfaction level is not universally high. Some experiences have not been happy and it follows that LEAs need a flexible arrangement whereby mainstream pupils who do not thrive are able to transfer to a special school, and vice versa. In that way, the two types of school can be mutually supportive and offer the best possible opportunities for pupils.

The process must, of course, continue post-16 in local sixth form and further education colleges, and offer Down's syndrome students a range of opportunities to continue to establish basic skills, and to learn new workplace skills to maximise their employment chances. The London borough of Havering is particularly good at that. Our aim should be that every LEA supports students with Down's syndrome who wish to continue to improve and develop to their full potential.

We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink) about an establishment on Canvey Island that offers business opportunities to physically handicapped people. We need more of such establishments for those people with Down's syndrome who cannot quite cope with the standard employment environment. Having said that, a young man with Down's syndrome who works at my local Tesco has an instinctive idea of customer care. Nothing is too much trouble for him when he is asked for help. He is an asset to the organisation, and others would do well to learn from that. People with Down's syndrome, who often have a charming and helpful side to their nature, would be a great asset to a shop floor or in other workplaces.

Bob Spink : Is my hon. Friend aware of the great benefits to society at large of such business opportunities for physically handicapped people or those with special learning needs? The BOPH on Canvey Island provides printing, T-shirt printing and packing goods for other firms. It provides a very reasonable, high-quality service to the businesses and people for whom it works. It is a two-way process, and we congratulate those people on making use of such an establishment. Does my hon. Friend agree?

Angela Watkinson : I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is a very good example of how Down's syndrome people contribute to the rest of society. It is not always their needs but their contributions that are overlooked, and they have an enormous amount to offer.

The good work being done in some areas must be built on, so that all children with Down's syndrome, wherever they live, can access education without having to fight for it, beginning with that "open sesame"—the statement. That means finding a nursery place with properly trained staff and a school place where they will not be patronised, sidelined or even just tolerated, but welcomed and accepted for themselves and where they will receive learning opportunities suited to their specific needs. There must be a levelling up to the standards set in the good practice that we all know.

If the Minister would like to visit any of the three splendid special schools in Upminster—Corbets Tey and Dycourts, which are for children with moderate learning difficulties, and Ravensbourne, which is for children with severe learning difficulties—or any of the mainstream schools where pupils with Down's syndrome are doing very well, she would be very welcome.