Jacqui Smith's 80 per cent claim

[Colin_and_Shelagh]

In the debate about special schools on 22 June Jacqui Smith, who is Minister of State for Schools, said:

 

"Previous work by the (National Autistic) Society and by the all-party group on autism has shown that about 80 per cent. of parents with autistic children in mainstream education felt that they were getting very good support."

 

I emailed Jacqui Smith via the DfES website to ask for the source of this figure and have received the following reply from Nigel Fulton:

 

The figure that Jacqui Smith was referring to was contained in the National Autistic Society's report 'Inclusion and autism: is it working?' (2000). This was based on responses from 1,000 of the Society's members and it found that overall 73% were quite satisfied or very satisfied with the education their children were receiving. If you would like to read the report it is available on the NAS' website and here is the link:

 

http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=160&a=3462

 

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Autism's 2001 'The Rising Challenge: a survey of Local Education Authorities on Educational Provision for pupils with Autistic Spectrum Disorders' was not, as the name implies, a survey of parental satisfaction with their children's education. What the Minister may have been referring to is that the All Party Group's report cross referred to the 73% figure in the NAS' 2000 report. If you would like to read the All Party Group's report it is also available on the NAS' website and here is the link:

 

http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=368&a=3921

 

You may be interested to know that a more recent report 'Parental Perspectives on Seeking Provision' [for children with autism] by Tissot and Evans from Brunel University (2005) found that 70% of the parents surveyed were happy with the provision their children were receiving, although the report did point out that for many this was only after a fight with their local authorities to get the provision they wanted. Almost 80% had their children in the school placement that was their first choice. The report is not available on Brunel University's website but here is the link to the press notice:

 

http://www.brunel.ac.uk/news/pressoffice/p...h/autism140305/

 

 

 

So there you have it. The report is five years old, and 35 (not 80) per cent were 'very satisfied' with the support their child was receiving. (The figures are on page 16.)

 

Colin

[call me jaded]

15% were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied, which is more than 1 in 8 parents. Surely not a figure to be proud of.

 

The dissatisfaction with SEN tribunal (32% not satisfactory at all, plus 18% not really satisfactory) is very telling.

 

Ho hum.

[mandyque]

It would be interesting to know how many people were asked this question, and which mainstream schools provided good care. In the case of most of the ASD children I know, mainstreaming has had significant problems from funding one to one supervision and help to teachers not understanding, or worse, refusing to understand, that the child with autism in their class has special needs and needs to be treated differently to other children sometimes.

[Elanor]

Colin

 

Thanks for doing this research - that 80% claim has been irritating me for weeks.

[elaine1]

my son is only getting suppourt now he is in secondary school. he gets 7 and a half hours a week now at primary he got none at all.

 

I would say he is very typical !