1st EBU International Conference on Education, 19-23 July 2000, Montegrotto Terme (Padua) - Italy

The education system for the blind in England

Brief paper by Colin Low, Chairman of the Royal National Institute for the Blind and Vice-Chair of the EBU Commission on Education (UK)

In order to understand the development of RNIB's education services it is important to understand the relationship between the role of the state and of RNIB. Unlike many European countries, education in the UK is primarily the responsibility of local government, with over two hundred separate local authorities running schools in their own areas. RNIB is a charity and as such we do not receive any direct grants from the Government but local authorities do pay for many of the services we provide, including places in our special schools. One of our main objectives is to influence the development of provision but we do not control provision and our activities must respond to the external environment.

The development of RNIB's education services can be summarised in four phases: the establishment of special schools, the emergence of direct support for integrated pupils, the development of an indirect service strategy to extend and improve integration and the move from integration to inclusion.

RNIB's role in education throughout most of the last century has concerned running special schools for the blind. The first UK schools for blind children were established at the end of the 18th century and RNIB was not established until 1868 and our education services were not developed until the 20th century. In 1918 we opened the first of ten Sunshine House Nursery Schools which were developed to meet the needs of very young blind children. Largely as a consequence of the move away from residential provision for young children, only two of these schools remain open and both now specialise in the needs of multi-disabled visually impaired children. In 1921 we established Chorleywood Grammar School for academically able blind girls aged eleven to eighteen. This school was intended to complement Worcester College for blind boys which had been established by a separate charity in 1866. RNIB took over Worcester College in 1936 and in 1986 the two schools were merged to form RNIB New College. Condover Hall, the first school for multi-disabled visually impaired children was opened in 1948 and a second school, Rushton Hall, was opened in 1960.

Over the last year we have undertaken a strategic review of RNIB's role in the provision of special schools and we are about to embark on a number of significant changes. Looking to the future, we believe that special schools will be required primarily for children with multiple disabilities. We are conscious that our schools only cater for around 160 multi-disabled children while there are over seven thousand such children placed in special schools which cater primarily for children with severe learning difficulties. One of our key objectives now is to develop services to support these schools in meeting the needs of children who have a visual impairment alongside other needs.

In the 1960s a number of pioneering integration schemes were established by other organisations and in 1970 RNIB established an Education Advisory Service to provide support for pupils integrated into mainstream schools. In practice this was a very limited service with only twelve specialist teachers working on a regional basis across the UK. Our staff provided advice for parents and for schools but case loads were very large and the level of support we offered was inevitably limited. Government reports in 1972 and 1978 encouraged the development of integration and we increasingly came to recognise that our Advisory Service did not provide an adequate structure for rapid expansion.

The Education Act of 1981 replaced categories of handicap with the concept of individual special educational needs and placed significant new duties on local authorities to integrate children with special needs. Children with significant difficulties were to have a 'statement of special educational needs' which explained what should be provided for the individual child.

RNIB became increasingly aware of the need to develop a new strategy to support the development of integrated education and a major research exercise was undertaken. "Vision in the Classroom", published in 1986, provided the basis for the new strategy. The key decision was that the focus of our Advisory Service should move away from direct support for families and schools in favour of advising local authorities on how to develop their own services. The strategy had a number of key elements:

  1. Policy - influencing central government and local authorities.
  2. Raising awareness through information and publications - we introduced an "Integration Bulletin" and a range of other publications targeted at local authorities, mainstream schools and parents.
  3. Advice and consultancy - providing specialist advice on the development of local authority peripatetic teaching services and establishing resource bases in mainstream schools.
  4. Training - we developed substantial training programmes for specialist teachers, mainstream teachers and classroom support assistants.
  5. Incentive schemes - we developed a number of services including an 'Integration Support Scheme' designed to encourage local authorities to integrate blind children.
  6. Support services for children and their families - services included weekends for families, vacation schemes for integrated children and an advocacy service for parents.

In order to implement this strategy we developed a network of regional education centres and these centres have recently been expanded to include post school education and employment services.

We think that RNIB can claim some significant credit for encouraging the development of local authority services. From a position where only a tiny minority of local authorities had specialist services twenty years ago, we have moved to a position where all local authorities have access to such services and we estimate that there are around 600 peripatetic teachers supporting visually impaired children in mainstream schools.

The 1990s saw a shift in emphasis from the concept of integration to the concept of inclusion, the key difference being that inclusion implies that mainstream schools and services are designed in a way that takes account of the needs of children with special needs, and not simply modified later to facilitate integration. The 1993 Education Act introduced a Code of Practice to be followed by all schools and a Tribunal was established to resolve disputes between parents and local authorities concerning the level and quality of services. The present Government is introducing further measures to encourage and enable schools to be more inclusive.

RNIB's strategy has remained broadly the same but with some important new elements. In particular, we are turning our attention increasingly to the quality of provision and to achieving equality of access to services in different parts of the UK. We are encouraging the Government to develop a set of quality standards to be adopted by all local authorities in order to overcome the wide variation in services from one local authority area to another.

The relative benefits of integration and segregation were hotly debated throughout the eighties and into the nineties but the heat has now largely gone from the discussion. The Government has a vigorous inclusive agenda but nevertheless recognises that there is a place for some special schools. RNIB has adopted a similar stand and this is summarised in our current policy statement concerning school placement:

"For most visually impaired children the appropriate placement will be in a mainstream school with specialist support...... While well resourced and properly supported mainstream placement should be the normal form of provision.... A special school placement will continue to be the most effective way of meeting need and family preferences for some children..."

The integration of visually impaired children has certainly come a very long way in the UK over the last twenty years and in one sense it may seem that we are now simply refining the art of inclusion. However, there are pressures in the system which could jeopardise the progress that has been made. In particular, there is some uncertainty about the future role of local authorities in the provision of education services. Since progress on integration has been linked primarily to the development of local authority peripatetic advisory services, any change in role could result in major disruption and even the reversal of the trend towards inclusion. Needless to say, RNIB will be watching this space very carefully.

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