Paces

Xavier Response

On 24th June, I posted ("Xavier Support") a copy of a letter which I sent to Jenny Haddrell, Assistant Director-General, Education Queensland, about the future of the Xavier Special Education Unit.

I have received the following response. (Is there someone who might update the Xavier weblog with the latest news?).

Dear Mr Perrin

Thank you for your letter dated 23 June 2008 regarding recent OECD research, conductive education and the work of Queensland's Xavier Special Education Program.

I am pleased that the worthwhile work of the teachers and specialist staff at Xavier Special Education Program is internationally recognised. I have forwarded your letter to my colleagues Mr lan Hawke, Assistant Director-General, Strategic Policy and Performance and Mrs Clare Gardiner-Barnes, Acting Assistant Director-General, Student Services for their consideration. The Strategic Policy and Performance Division oversee the department's research program while the Student Services Division oversee funding and support strategies for students with disabilities.

The Queensland Department of Education, Training and the Arts has an active program of research which informs evidence-based decision making in policy and program development. I would encourage you to examine the department's research website as it provides information on the department's research and development priorities, research application process and summaries of recent educational related research.

If you have some preliminary ideas or a more developed research proposal I would encourage you to contact one of the above officers. In the first instance, I believe that Mrs Gardiner-Barnes may be the most appropriate contact. She can be contacted on telephone (617) 3235 4172 or by email clare.qardinerbarnesädeta.gld.gov.au

Once again thank you for your interest in Queensland education and the Xavier Special Education Program.

Jenny Haddrell
Assistant Director-General

Still "No Voice"

It seems that Sheffield parents were a little premature in detecting a change of heart in respect of consultation, which I reported a couple of days ago.  Claire sends the following update, which I copy in full.  There is obviously considerable turmoil, but the strong sense that parents have that they are not being properly consulted clearly does not reflect well on the SEN Team. It does not take great wisdom to see that it would be a sensible course to address these consultation concerns and the concerns that parents have that significant changes are being implemented without consultation.  A contributory root cause of the current turmoil is that Sheffield does not have a Strategic Plan for the education of children with special needs. As a Strategic Plan is simply a document that sets out an agreed course of action (What? Why? When? How?) which all stakeholders can share and understand, then it might, (a) not unreasonably, be said that the SEN Team cannot know what it is doing in any planned way and (b) that it is not surprising that other stakeholders are concerned and confused. 

This lack of strategic planning compares poorly with that of the Adults with Learning Disabilities Team, whose consultation during the latter part of 2007 and into 2008, whilst not perfect, was a model that the SEN Team might consider.

It is also unfortunate that this turmoil - and apparent disregard of parents as key strategic stakeholders and partners - should be happening in the inter-regnum between the departure of former Director of Children and Young People services, Jonathan Crossley-Holland and the arrival of the new Director, Sonia Sharp.

Anyway, this is the email from Claire:



UPDATE ON “NO VOICE” CAMPAIGN

 

Thank you to all of you who have supported the “no voice” campaign. The campaign’s focus continues to be insisting on the right of parents/carers to be consulted about changes to special educational needs provision in Sheffield.

 

Unfortunately, the information we conveyed to you in our last email has since proved to be wide of the mark. The CYPD (Children and Young People’s Directorate) are not going to start consultations on the changes to the SEN/LDD service from scratch.  As far as we can understand, they are only going to consult on the fate of the integrated units. This means that they are standing by all the changes that have already been made, (ie delegation of sen budgets to mainstream, absorption of the autism specific service into a generic LDD service, management restructure etc).  We apologise for this misinformation but it is an indication of the difficulties we face in trying to obtain any information whatsoever.

 

In spite of promising the protesters last week, Ms Ludlam, (Director of Specialist Services at Council’s Children Service), has not contacted parent groups to talk.  In view of the lack of communication we have today written to CYPD, asking them to confirm/explain simple factual information relating to the action that the LA has already taken. (Copy of questions asked at bottom of this email).  The questions do not relate principally to future proposals for change, nor do they encompass parent’s concerns about specific changes.  This is because the CYPD has yet to acknowledge that there has, to date, been a need to consult parents.  So, it is necessary for us first to establish exactly what has happened to date.

 

 

HOW YOU CAN HELP

 

We have been overwhelmed by the number of parents, (representing children with autism and other disabilities), who have wanted to support the “No Voice” Campaign.  Below are suggestions for ways you can help:-

1  Write to you MP and your Councillors

If you wish to support the No Voice campaign please write to/attend the surgeries of your MP/Councillors explaining that parents have not been consulted about changes to SEN that have already taken place.  Forward to them a copy of the questions we have asked the CYPD, which are shown at the end of this email.  Ask them to ask the CYPD the same questions. ( Nb we have addressed the questions to Ms Ludlam at jayne.ludlam@sheffield.gov.uk )

 

2  Come to the “Autism Alliance” meeting

We would like to use the support we have received for the No Voice campaign, both from the “autism community” and from parents/carers of children with other disabilities, to establish a permanent campaigning voice.

 

We do not wish, ever again, to find ourselves in this dreadful situation where we are having to fight to hang on to a less than perfect service because the proposed service is much worse.  As parents we wish to be involved, in partnership with the schools, teachers and Local Authority, in “building” services that our children “need” and deserve.  We are, therefore, proposing that we set up the “Autism Alliance” as a permanent campaigning body. Whilst the Alliance’s first task will be to continue with the No Voice campaign, it is our intention that it would ultimately be the campaigning organisation for all issues affecting children and adults with autism in Sheffield.

 

Whilst this body will principally concern itself with issues relating to autism, we are hopeful that parents of children with other disabilities will come to our meetings and either support what we are doing, or consider organising similar bodies with the ultimate goal of creating a “multi-disability” campaigning group.  So, please come to our setting up meeting even if your child does not have autism.

 

We will be holding an open meeting between 7 and 9 pm, on Tuesday 15 July 2008, at the Salvation Army in Psalter Lane to set up the Autism Alliance.  We will write to you again before then with details of some of the issues we will want to address at the meeting.  Please put the date in your diaries.

 

3  Write to the Press

The “Star” published a letter (26.06.08) and a report of the protest (27.06.08) on the “No Voice” campaign.  Further letters in support of the campaign would ensure that more parents get to hear what is happening.

 

4  Petition

A number of people have asked to sign a petition in support of Parents’ rights to be consulted over changes to SEN.  We will shortly be setting up an Autism Alliance website, and will post a petition on-line. Hard copies of the Petition will also be available through the Sheffield Autistic Society newsletter, at local autism meetings, at the Aspergers Conference on 30 June, downloading from the website once it is up and running.

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

Thanks again to everyone who has supported the No Voice Campaign

 

Please keep in touch.  Let us know about any progress with MPs etc

 

Claire le Feuvre

Phil Cooney

 

 

COPY OF CYPD QUESTIONS TO USE WHEN CAMPAIGNING

 

A  “Learning Difficulties and Disabilities (LDD) Development Paper” – Agenda item 3, 6 June 2007, Council papers

1  Is the above paper the policy document for special education needs in Sheffield?

2  If it is not, please could you tell us what is the policy document.

3  Please can you tell us whether the current policy document has been distributed for consultation to the following:-

(a)  Parent/carers (individual)

(b)  Parent/carer groups

(c)  Mainstream schools

(d)  Special schools

(e)  Integrated Resources

 

  4 In the “LDD Development Paper” you write “ ..all other developments (ie development of city-wide outreach programme/review of integrated resource provision/development of role of special schools/review of SEN transport policy), rely on the need to substantially reduce the link between Statements and funding.”  Since you believe all the policy changes are dependent on each other it would seem that you should have consulted on the proposed policy changes as a whole.  Yet, you seem to be adopting a phased consultation/implementation approach. For instance, you have consulted on the new internal management structure, but not on service delivery. Given this, how do believe it is possible to consult in any meaningful way, since any single change to an individual proposal could render the overall Plan unworkable?

 

5   In one letter about the proposal to re-structure the LDD Services you wrote “The first stage of the process is to create the management structure within LDD Services to enable work to begin on shaping frontline service delivery …”  It is our understanding that management structures should reflect effective service delivery, not precede it, and that planning is a“bottom up” (ie based on the needs of individual children) not a “top down” process.  Please explain why you have not done this?

 

B  Other consultation documents

1  Have any consultation documents relating to the policy document above been distributed?

2  If so, (a) which documents?

(b) To whom have they been distributed?

(c) Please indicate when they were distributed, the closing date for consultation and the outcome of consultation, including which groups have  access to minutes of consultation meetings.

3  We understand that Sheffield Council is to ratify some/all aspects of the LDD changes at their September meeting.  Can you tell us what exactly they are ratifying and can you confirm that none of the action  they are ratifying has already taken place.  For instance, job adverts for posts in the new management structure appeared in the Star this month.

 

C  Delegated funding and Statements

1  Have you delegated SEN funding to mainstream schools?

2  On which date did you do so?

3  What is the formula for the delegation of funds? Please include references to Paper B, “Proposals for Changing SEN Funding linked to Statements”, Sheffield Schools Forum, 19 February 2008, where it appears that delegated budgets will be assessed solely on the index of multiple deprivation, free school meals, mobility and various academic attainment tests.

4  Please explain how delegated funds relate to existing Statements.  Specifically, do Schools continue to receive monies to support individual, named children with Statements?

5  Are Statements still being written for children with special needs.

6  Are school or LA staff advising some parents that they no longer need a Statement?

 

D  The Autism Service

1  Does the autism specific service still exist.  (We understand that there was an early years service, based at Ryegate, and a schools’ service).

 

2  Is the LDD support service now a generic service?

2  If a teacher in mainstream wants advice/support about an autistic child can you assure us that an autism specialist will be available?

 

E  Integrated Resources/Special Schools

1  Please can you indicate where the policy statement is for Integrated Resources and Special Schools?

2  Have you consulted on this?  If so, with whom?

3  What is the timetable for consultation and implementation for proposals affecting Integrated Resources and Special Schools?

Xavier support

I have this week sent the following letter to Ms J Haddrell, Assistant Director General, Department of Education, Training & The Arts, Queensland, Australia.

Whilst fully respecting the importance of the issues Andrew rightly raises and the contributions to the short but important debate that followed, I decided that some sort of action was required.  I had an acknowledgement from the Northern Ireland Assembly re Buddy Bear,  but haven't heard further news as to whether they won the financial backing needed.  I shall be interested to follow the Xavier story further.

Most of all, I would like to contribute to a growing sense of confidence in the international conductive education community that, no matter what our internal and professional debates within conductive education, we can collaborate across the world through the internet in ways that we can barely begin to imagine.

-------------------------------------------

23 June 2008

Ms J Haddrell
Assistant Director General
Department of Education, Training & The Arts
Level 22, Education House
30 Mary Street
Brisbane QLD 4000
Australia

Dear Ms Haddrell

Re: Xavier Special Education Unit

You may be surprised to receive a letter from England in the matter of the future of Xavier Special Education Unit. However, I trust you will not find the communication unwelcome.

My simple purpose is to draw to your attention two very recent scholarly publications from the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, of which Australia is a member nation.

The first, Evidence in Education: Linking Research and Policy (OECD 2007), based in studies initiated by a 1995 CERI report and centering on a series of international workshops held between April 2004 and July 2006, addresses the increasing pressure felt by all within the education community for greater accountability and effectiveness and also the increasing prominence given by governments to evidence-based research in setting education policy and in allocating public resources.

The second, Understanding the Brain: The Birth of a Learning Science (OECD 2007), the outcome of an international CERI project launched in 1999, aims at encouraging collaboration between policy makers, researchers and the education community “to open new pathways to improve educational research, policies and practices”:

We are all familiar with the importance of peer-reviewed, evidence-based practice in medicine, and the thoroughness with which theoretical and scientific knowledge are fused with professional experience. Indeed, it is impossible to conceive of modern medical practice without its emphatic foundation in scientific research across a range of disciplines.

Like medicine, education relies for its theoretical foundation (the understanding of learning and the practice of teaching) on other disciplines, such psychology, philosophy and sociology.

Unlike medicine, however, the theoretical foundation of education is “pre-scientific” – which is to say it lacks as yet either predictive or explanatory power. How children learn is not sufficiently understood to offer a guarantee of educational outcomes. The practice of education is still an art, not a science. The understanding of learning and practice of teaching are not as yet underpinned by a secure base of scientific and theoretical knowledge. This applies as much to the learning and teaching of children in mainstream schools as in special education.

Clearly, one conclusion might be that “more research is necessary”. In the interim, another conclusion might be that for as long as we must depend upon the judgments of professionals and parents as to what works and what does not, we should value, and even celebrate, the schools we have that command the support of these same professionals and parents.

From the late 1940s, a Hungarian physician, Andres Peto, elaborated his theoretical and professional insights into learning and the practice of teaching to create a unified system of education of children with motor disorders now known in the English-speaking world, perhaps losing something in the translation, as Conductive Education. 

The Executive Summary of Understanding the Brain states: “It is possible to take advantage of the brain’s potential for plasticity and to facilitate the learning process. This calls for holistic approaches which recognise the close interdependence of physical and intellectual well-being and the close interplay of the emotional and cognitive” – precisely the position taken by Andras Peto and conductive education.

There is, of course, much more to be said about conductive education as a unified system and, speaking personally, I might well wish to debate theoretical differences with the professionals and parents at Xavier Special Education Unit. Nevertheless, the work at Xavier is internationally known, through conferences, congresses and reports. Their work brings recognition and credit to Queensland and enhances the reputation of Queensland Education.

The OECD, in its reports, confirms both how much in education practice is still to be supported by research evidence and also the challenging but still elusive potential being proposed by neuroscientists.

A bold, innovative and forwarding looking education authority might do a great deal worse that to cherish embryonic education systems and practices which appear to offer ways forward, such as Xavier Special Education Unit; to work in partnership with those committed parents and professionals; and together to seek ways of better integrating the work at Xavier into the mainstream.  Who knows, Queensland Education might consider its most valuable contribution to such a partnership to be funding a post for a full-time conductor and contributing to a research project?

Yours sincerely

Norman Perrin
Chief Executive
Paces Shefield

Dore pulls plug (2) or Dore has his plug pulled

Most people who maintain blogs, I suppose, do so in the hope that our postings might spark the odd thought in the occasional reader or, better yet, tempt the reader to leave a comment.

In a welcome comment added to my posting Dore pulls the plug, (May 29th) Brainduck gently but firmly chides me on my admittedly rather loose use of the phrase 'dancing on Dore's grave' and corrects (as Brainduck sees it, to be more strictly accurate, my statement, borrowed from The Times report, that Wynford Dore had 'pulled the plug' on his various international centres, whereas, says Brainduck, Dore was forced to, having been trading (allegedly) insolvently in Australia.

Brainduck may very well be right. I simply do not know. I have not investigated the legal and financial circumstances. My chief interest in the story was to do with Dore's financial model - a business financed apparently by fees charged to individuals plus income from another source, in this case from Dore himself, in the expectation of government funding at some future date. We in the "Third Sector" or the 'non-profit' world, do not spend over much time discussing the 'financial model' by which we run our 'worthy causes'. Perhaps we should? Perhaps there are lessons for us, as we strive for a sustainable future ourselves, in the collapse of Wynford Dore's venture? The financial model of most conductive education resources that I know of derives income, like the Dore Centres, through a mix of fees-and-other-income - 'other' in our case usually being from grants or fundraising.  Is this a viable and sustainable model? What options are there? That was what I was wanting to pause and consider, avoiding joining those who, in some of the comments I read, seemed to rejoice in the closure - brought about solely by financial reasons, as Brainduck says - of the Dore Centres and in the closing off of access to a treatment that many parents believed to be beneficial to the children.

Brainduck makes another important point, quite separate from questions about sustainability and the financial model, and, moreover, one with which I wholly agree. "Evidenced-based treatments matter, because people deserve what works and can be shown to work." Brainduck also writes: "I believe everyone should have access to the best possible evidence-based treatment" and "I believe in informed consent" - statements with which it is hard to disagree. (My interest is, of course, in education rather than "treatment")

Where I do hesitate to share Brainduck's certainty is Brainduck's apparent belief that Wynford Dore is to be held responsible for the lack of evidence: "There are no excuses for not doing the research, or (as Dore did) doing it so badly that it tells you nothing about a treatment." (Immediately, I must say that I simply do not know that Wynford Dore deliberately produced and promulgated fraudulent research - for that is what Brainduck is effectively saying. I cannot comment on the specifics. I do know that there is an awful lot of poor - or 'crap' to use Brainduck's choice of adjective - research. One notable example familiar in the world of conductive education was the so-called "Birmingham Report" (Bairstow et al 1993) that did so much damage to conductive education, the effect of which still reverberates around the internet today.)

Why though do I hesitate?  Here are some 'headline' thoughts, that I would want to consider carefully, regarding 'evidence' and who is responsible for it.
1.  One major scientific process (and I am lay person so the learned ones amongst you must excuse the terminology) is to proceed from theoretical insights via research to evidential proof. In other words, do what you think right and hope the science catches up, to put it crudely.
2. "Lack of evidence" is only that. It is not proof. The collapse for financial reasons of the Dore Centres, the lack of proper research, if such it was, does not prove that there was not a benefit; it does not prove that the treatment did not work. It is only that there was a lack of evidence.
3. Almost everything that we do in education is based on the flimsiest of scientifically-based educational research. Education is 'pre-scientific', more Art than Science.  By that, I mean that little in education has predictive force.  ("Evidence in Education: Linking Research and Policy" OECD 2007). Some, no doubt, would say it should stay that way.
4. Finally, speaking personally, as a parent who saw in conductive education not just a theoretical breakthrough in understanding but a practical, lived and learned transformation in my own (then, young) daughter and others' children, and on that basis sought with others to introduce conductive education into my home city of Sheffield, by setting up actual services, I would be delighted to see proper research undertaken but Paces does not have the resources ourselves to invest in research.  I would be delighted if the Government  nationally or locally, that has no more evidential proof that what happens in mainstream and special schools for children with motor disorders actually works than we have at Paces, would be willing to undertake with Paces a major research programme - or if not with us, with the National Institute for Conductive Education.  And that, for me, is the nub of where I suspect I cannot follow Brainduck:  without the evidence, Brainduck, not unreasonably, would deny Government money to the Dore Centres and probably to Paces, as we too cannot yet "prove" that conductive education works. Without Government funding for research, there can be no evidence: without research Brainduck would have the Government withhold funding. That is a paradox to which I do not have an easy answer. However, I do not regard as satisfactory continuing to muddle on as we have been in the state education of children with motor disorders (no proper initial training for teachers and other practitioners; no theoretical - never mind evidential - understanding of pedagogy or learning or why the curriculum is as it is: in other words no-one having any wholly satisfactory reason why they are doing what they do daily in the classroom) based only on custom-and-practice and the wisdom of experience.

At this point, I would - with a huge smile - urge Brainduck to join with me in demanding the Government refuse to fund all educational practices in state schools for children with special needs that are not fully evidenced by research.

[Endnote: to be clear, nothing I have written here is intended to endorse or refute the efficacy of the Dore programme nor to pass comment on the performance of any company responsible for promoting or delivering the programme.]

 

Dore pulls plug

If you didn't see it, The Times today reported that Wynford Dore has taken the decision to close the Dore Centres (offering an exercise-based treatment for dyslexia) for financial reasons.

I am no position to comment on whether the approach worked or did not, and if it did, why it did.  There are two observations I make:

One: Wynford Dore injected £15m of personal funding. His financial model was a private sector model with the long-term expectation that central government funding would be forth-coming.  Although not a charitable financial model like many conductive education initiatives, there is a clear warning for us all.

Two: already evident in the article are those who are out to dance on the Dore grave.  They will do so if we too fail.

A new children's services Director for Sheffield

A new Director, Children and Young People Directorate, has been appointed by Sheffield City Council.

"Sonia Sharp, Strategic Director for Children and Young People's Services at Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council for the last three years is to be the new Executive Director for Children and Young People's Services. She will have responsibility for services supporting schools, as well as children's social care services and support services for vulnerable children."

 

"Having trained as an educational psychologist, Sonia worked in Barnsley, Lincolnshire and Buckinghamshire before becoming Assistant Director for Access & Inclusion in Birmingham. She then moved on to become Deputy Chief Executive of Education Leeds before taking up the Strategic Director role in Rotherham."

She replaces Jonathan Crossley-Holland, who moved on recently after 11 years.
 
You can read the full report on Sheffield City Council website.