I begin here with the opening words of Death of a Nightingale.
Prologue
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
TS Elliot, Four Quartets, Little Gidding 1942
I attach a Health Warning for Termites to this Post.
For those who have not read my earlier Posts, “Termites” are those who are programmed to build and defend their nests, and do nothing more. If they return to the starting point in their lives, they do not see it for the first time so much as see it as they saw it for the first time. They have binned or, in current parlance, deleted without reading anything and everything that conflicted with it.
I identify one such “Termite” in the Play. I do not name him or others like him.
Act One Scene 3
Margaret Williamson, the head teacher of Brighouse School, and Joan Errington, the English teacher, discuss where things are going wrong in education.
JOAN ERRINGTON I read an article recently by one of our clever, clever wise guys – far too many of them in education, and too clever by half for our own good, if you ask me. He said – children with special needs come in tens, scores, even hundreds, not one by one. He said you’ve got to give up the individualised approach. Would you believe it?
MARGARET WILLIAMSON Yes, I know. And I am afraid that some academics just don’t understand, and of course they go on to teach their students the error of their ways No doubt they then get their students to repeat those errors to pass their exams. Ugh.
I myself read this article some years ago. I don’t suppose its author will give one moment’s thought to the issues that I raise in this Post. It will be of interest only to those who want to move on, who see that meeting the very different individual needs of children should be of the essence in education, far more important than anything else.
As Eileen Winterton, chair of governors, says in the Play: “You can’t turn the clock back. Those people shouldn’t be looking for an old clock. They should be looking for a new compass.” This is what I say too.
Had I not been a governor of a special school for children with a physical disability and an associated learning difficulty from 1988 to 2002, chair of governors for most of that time, I could not have written Death of a Nightingale or this Blog. And I probably would have felt no compulsion to write anything at all.
However, after a full and varied working life, I had experiences here that led me back where I started from. I saw it for the first time. It was not the same view.
The strength and the vulnerability of parents with children with special educational needs is a case in point. I had no idea of either.
I caution you at the outset. If you like to think about children with special needs, do not forget their parents. They too have their rights. And they have very real responsibilities that they feel more than most.
On the back of that, they fight for their children’s wellbeing. They care. They really do. When the School which I was a governor of was threatened with closure, its head teacher at the time said to me that the Local Authority trying to close the school would have to deal with that. They never quite did, and the School is still there to this day.
Death of a Nightingale is not about that School. It is more about the 100 special schools that have been closed in the UK since 1997. It is a work of fiction, but every now and again the facts of my own experience come to the surface. I can never forget them.
In this Post I will share them with you together with the insights that they have given me.
Read the following extracts, and see if you can spot them:
From the Cast
Parent Governor Gillian (Jilly) James – housewife – mother of Terry. She has a short fuse and she had a fight to get Terry into the School. “I told them that they could look after Terry for me for a week. Then they would know what I have to live with.” Her husband is an engineer, often working away from home, leaving her to look after things in his absence.
The words that I give to Jilly James are the words a parent governor said to me to describe how awful it was seeing her child regularly bullied in a mainstream School. (Revisit Post 11) Despite best endeavours bullying continues to blight the lives of many of the most vulnerable children. Who are they? Children with special educational needs of course.
Another of my experiences is echoed in the following, this time illustrating parent power.
Act One, Scene 2
James Harrington, the Mandarin from the Department for Education and Skills, and David Harding the Director of Education in Westborough are meeting with Judy Fotheringham, a regional officer, to progress Inclusion in Westborough. The parents’ campaign to fight the closure of Brighouse School, a special school for physically disabled children, is a problem.
JAMES HARRINGTON Thank you Judy for setting up this meeting. The Minister suggested that I see you. He does think that this situation needs to be actively managed. He didn’t like having to reject your proposals, David, but he really had no alternative.
DAVID HARDING I agree. I don’t hold it against him.
JAMES HARRINGTON And we don’t hold it against you. But we certainly don’t want other parents copying them. Fifteen and half thousand objections giving reasons why the school should not be closed, and two TV celebrities and a former international footballer. We can do without that again. We don’t mind petition signatures. There can be millions of them so far as we are concerned. Ultimately we just shred them and recycle the paper. It’s a great safety valve for the disgruntled. Objections with reasons – that’s another matter. Each one of them is shred resistant.
DAVID HARDING You’re dead right, but our political masters say that we have to consult. They just don’t realise how wasteful of time this is when parents take the offer seriously. Not just hours, days and days, nights and fucking nights. That’s how long it took three people to go through their written objections. And then we had to respond to them all.
JAMES HARRINGTON That’s one of the things that the Department is worried about. We just don’t want it to catch on. This is the second time it’s happened. It’s getting to be a habit, and one we can do without. We’ve now taken the Minister out of the firing line here and set up School Organisation Committees to deal with school closures and take the flak.
DAVID HARDING That was a clever move, a gesture to local democracy but making it much easier for us to deal with.
JAMES HARRINGTON But we still don’t want the idea to catch on.
JUDY FOTHERINGHAM I did have a word with David about that.
DAVID HARDING Yes and I had a word with the Head. Told her to keep the celebrations local. She got the message that the school should not use the Internet to tell the whole world about it. I told her it would not go down well if they did. She understood.
JAMES HARRINGTON Good. That’s one of the things the Minister was very worried about. The other, of course, is how you get the show back on the road.
James Harrington says it is the second time parents campaigned with thousands of reasoned objections and not just petition signatures. I witnessed the first occasion myself. It persuaded the then Minister of Education, Charles Clarke, to throw out the Local Authority’s plans.
I don’t say that this exercise in mobilising opinion will always get results, but it will at least force civil servants to work for their money; and it does illustrate parent power.
Perhaps because parents have this power, reinforced as it is by a statutory right to opt of mainstream education for their children, that the State, promoting Inclusion, loads the scales against them. This may help to explain their vulnerability.
This is illustrated in the Play.
Act One, Scene 1
Anwar and Judith Fawzi have brought their son Harry, a child with brittle bones, to visit his new School. Margaret Williamson, its head teacher, is introducing it to them in the middle of a music lesson. Terry is a pupil.
MARGARET WILLIAMSON We had a team of three out there. Gordon Davis did fantastically well. Last but not least there’s Terry here. He lost one year’s schooling while his mum and dad tried to get him in here. Tell the Fawzis about it, Terry.
TERRY I’ve got Crohn’s. It’s not very nice, but the physio’s help here whenever I need it. It’s great. The stupid local authority said there was nothing wrong with me.
MARGARET WILLIAMSON Don’t say stupid, Terry. But it is what happens when an official of the Council decides these things. There really should be a multi-disciplinary team making these decisions. The Council doesn’t want the medical people in on the actual decision taking at all. They actually don’t want them to say anything at all to parents. They think it’ll cost them money.
JUDITH FAWZI Well you know I am a nurse. Nurses are not allowed to suggest a suitable school to parents. Would you believe that?
MARGARET WILLIAMSON I would. Health and Education are two separate worlds. We’ve got NHS people here, but they are, and they aren’t, part of our team.
JUDITH FAWZI Yes and those local authority officials don’t really know anything about either of these worlds, if you ask me. They should remember that the very first thing a parent asks when their child is born is whether it’s okay. They should remember that.
ANWAR FAWZI They should remember a lot of things.
I knew one child with Crohn’s disease that actually lost two years of her education until her parents finally secured her entry to a special school. I don’t think she ever was compensated for her loss.
By the way, it was a London cab driver who said to me that those who ignored the needs of individual children should remember that the first thing parents ask when their child is born is whether it is okay.
Maybe if they remembered, they would not then be quite so keen to load the scales against parents and pretend it is otherwise.
Act One Scene 3
The Scene is set in the Staff Room. Margaret Williamson, head teacher, is explaining to Wendy Robinson, a non-teaching care assistant, why parents find it so difficult to get their children into the School.
MARGARET WILLIAMSON Meanwhile our great government can’t make up its mind whether we are a part of one large sausage machine, or a lot of small sausage machines, and they keep coming up with more and more paper plans, more and more targets.
WENDY ROBINSON They certainly keep themselves fully employed. Good intentions maybe, but so had my Aunt Mabel.
MARGARET WILLIAMSON Who is your Aunt Mabel, Wendy?
WENDY ROBINSON She doesn’t actually exist. But in our family we always blamed her when things went wrong.
MARGARET WILLIAMSON No, she exists alright. She works alongside Murphy. Did you not know? I’ll tell you exactly where she is.
Mum wants little Johnny to come to this school. Thinks it’ll meet Johnny’s needs. The medics agree. We agree, and we’ve got a place for him – and the more kids in this school the less on average each one costs. Yes? But no, Murphy who’s not wired up to what we do decides the fate of little Johnny and wants to send him somewhere else, and Mabel, who of course is legally qualified, chairs the tribunal that decides what’s in Johnny’s best interests so long as it makes the best use of economic resources, and she goes along with Murphy. Mabel’s word is final.
But you can appeal against it. To whom? I’ll give you one guess….To the ever courteous, totally dependable Mabel. The needs of little Johnny are supposed to be paramount, but they get lost somewhere along the way. What a crazy mixed up world. They’ll give the job to a computer next. You watch.
I could put names to Aunt Mabel and Murphy.
Going to a Tribunal without the help of lawyer is like swimming in a turbulent ocean without a lifebelt. But if you are lucky enough to have a lifebelt, you need to make sure it is fully inflated. Not all are.
Officials don’t just load the scales. They build up expectations that are not always realised when their children are excluded in an inclusive environment. (Revisit Post 8.)
Act Two Scene 7
Brighouse School is being demolished. Anwar and Judith Fawzi and Emma Kirk, the music teacher, are watching.
ANWAR FAWZI I hate them. Kids have just one chance, and they spoil it for them with their big ideas. And I hate them for something else. They try to make us feel guilty doin’ the best for our kids, givin’ good schools like this a bad name as a reason for pulling them down. I hate them.
EMMA KIRK They don’t understand. Schools like this have the gift of healing, and they engage the spirit. That’s what’s so good about them. They just don’t understand.
JUDITH FAWZI I really do wish someone would expose the lousy, stinking, hypocritical charade of those who put it about that they care. They say the rights of you kids are paramount. Words. Empty words. Holy Jesus, you just try to assert those rights today in a tribunal. It’s difficult enough as it is.
ANWAR FAWZI And not cheap.
JUDITH FAWZI No, not if you have to get a medical report. And now they’re trying to get rid of Statements altogether. Then you’ll have no rights at all. They’ll try to make out it’s in our interests, when it’s only in theirs. You know, all they do is play games with people’s lives – you kids are just little pawns in a gigantic game of chess.
You may not be totally surprised when I tell you that Judith Fawzi’s description of the charade that is played out by those who put it about that they care are the precise words I myself have used when seriously provoked.
Act One Scene 6
Margaret Williamson, head teacher, and Joan Errington, the English teacher, are sharing their worries.
MARGARET WILLIAMSON…Then the ‘phone rang. I had a really distraught mum complaining about the LEA. She’s wanted her son admitted to this School for ages. The LEA will admit him to almost any other one. You wouldn’t believe what her son’s been doing – smearing his business all over the walls of the house. Sheer frustration if you ask me. I am sure we could do something for that boy. And that poor lady has to deal with this all on her own.
JOAN ERRINGTON Well that’s the sort of thing that happens when the LEA decides to starve a school of pupils. Positively inhumane, if you ask me.
MARGARET WILLIAMSON I’m afraid that it is. The real problem is the LEA. And they actually want me to work with them to close the school …to try and prove to the parents that the School just isn’t viable, and that their kids would be better served in mainstream schools. I don’t like letting the school down, but you can’t fight them, can you? They are bound to win in the end whatever our parents say.
The ‘phone call I refer to was to me.
The moral of this particular Post is very simple. If you want to help children with special needs don’t just project your own needs as you see them or imagine them on to everyone else. Their needs may be different. And don’t just work it out in “the library of your mind.”
Don’t be reassured by those who say that Inclusion is working or will work with a little more money and training, when politically they can’t say what they really think. The facts are otherwise. Baroness Warnock, not me. (Revisit Post 13)
Think of the individual child. Teachers, carers and therapists have to. And think of their parents, too. They are in the frame not outside it. And if you think that a holistic approach is important, and I am sure that it is, make sure that this is reflected in your approach.
Heaven knows, parents of children with special needs have a difficult and challenging time as it is, especially if they have other children to bring up as well, sometimes also with special needs. The State and Local Authorities should not make it more so. Yet, in my experience, all too often they do.
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