Special Needs Education Post 16
Surprise, surprise a week later I totally didn’t anticipate having another question at PMQs. Then as I sat down and picked up the order of business I suddenly see I am number 13 and then I relaxed as number 13 is never reached in PMQs, but then of course, as time went by, number 13 began to become a possibility. In the last seconds I got my chance to ask my question. I came back to a campaign, which like all good campaign’s starts locally. I am really worried locally that while we have pretty good facilities and much improved facilities - like the new special school in Huddersfield - not enough is being done for young people with special educational needs. There have been some really good things in special educational needs up until the age of 16. But post 16 there is much less provision, I am really worried some of the facilities provided by the mental health trust and the vocational enterprise centre are due to close. Some young people with strong educational needs have been prevented from continuing with courses at Huddersfield Technical College. And I do not see Kirkless Social Services picking up where there is need. We need positive things for people up until 18 who suffer from mentally illness or other types of disabilities. I just don’t think it is joined up enough and there is enough provision. This would be prove beneficial for the young person themselves and for their families and carers. So I asked the Prime Minister would he re-double his efforts and will he bring those different departments together to make sure we have a joined up set of proposals, and I got a good response from the PM on that too.
It’s been a busy two weeks, in-between all this there are the other high profile things. My new committee, I chair the Children, Schools and Families Committee which replaces Education and Skills. We have had seminars to decide what we are going to look at first, and we have taken our first evidence session and interviewed the OFSTED inspector. So a very interesting and challenging path ahead.
