Response of the Suffolk NUT to the Consultation Document on Oakwood School, April 2000

  1. The NUT supports inclusive education and wishes to see as many pupils with Special Educational Needs, including EBD, educated as much as is practicable with the peers in ordinary schools, whether this be in fully integrated classes or with some or all of their teaching taking part in specialist Units or Support Centres which form part of the school.
  2. The NUT realises, however, that inclusive education will not be suitable for all children: some will need to be educated separately from their peers, either full or part-time, because of the particular challenges which they pose to the principles of inclusion. Oakwood has been fulfilling such a role and has taken pupils who have been particularly difficult to educate successfully (and without detriment to the rest of the school community) in ordinary schools and who may also be difficult for their parents to cope with. For this reason, Oakwood has had a residential element.
  3. We believe that inclusive alternatives will only work if they are carefully planned, properly funded, staffed and managed. No existing "exclusion" places should be removed from the facilities available until and unless suitable inclusive alternatives, which are at least as advantageous to the pupil and meet his/her special needs, are actually in place and available.
  4. The NUT recognises that the County Council has made some progress in addressing the future of EBD in the County and that the EBD Review has now been published. However, there is still much work to be done to turn this review into a detailed action plan for the provision of EBD specialist help and provision to all Key Stages, both sexes and all geographical areas.
  5. It is not true to claim that claim that alternatives to Oakwood's specialist provision are already available or that they will be by September or December 2000.
  6. We therefore point out that the closure of Oakwood Special school in December 2000, reopening as a KS2-3 PRU with a more local catchment area, will leave gaps in the provision of EBD facilities in some parts of the county and for KS4 boys, in particular.
  7. We therefore remain concerned that, despite all the evidence submitted to the first consultation document, the proposal to close Oakwood is still being proposed before details of, and consideration of, a county-wide strategy for the development of EBD in Suffolk. Although the present situation is marginally better than for the first Oakwood consultation, because of the publication of the EBD review, no detail about provision and time scales for alternative EBD provision is available before the deadline for comments on the Oakwood proposals. We are still being asked to respond to (incomplete and inaccurate) proposals on one link in an, as yet, non-existent chain.
  8. Furthermore, the current consultation document is silent or vague about a number of issues which need to be stated before a realistic response to the full proposals can be made. We refer to details as to management structure of the three "elements" at a new Oakwood, the decision to bring in an outside agency (not mentioned at all in the consultation) to run the Centre of Excellence, the proposed size of the PRU and capacity of any residential facility.
  9. We are therefore forced to continue to oppose the proposals as set out in the consultation document as totally inadequate, still premature, incomplete and complacent. The document fails to make the case for closure of the existing facilities, remains vague about future provision, is misleading on what will take place in the Oakwood premises, and fails to deal with the immediate concerns of parents, pupils and staff whose education and work has been disrupted by the original premature and ill-considered closure announcement.
  10. We do not have the information on which to judge the effectiveness of alternative provision for KS4 boys (as opposed to what a continuing Oakwood could offer), where KS4 pupils statemented as requiring residential education would receive it, and where extra EBD PRU places will be available, to replace or improve upon what Oakwood offered. Neither do we have the time scale for the introduction of new EBD provision county-wide.
  11. The first Oakwood consultation document suggested some areas where a new PRU could be opened. Unfortunately, this second document does not, yet it is a year on from the first. By this time, the Union would have expected to see in the present proposals some clear and definite plans to open new KS4 PRUs in areas outside the Oakwood "catchment" (See 5.8) before or at the same time as the closure of Oakwood in its present form and the loss of its KS4 provision.
  12. The NUT does not accept the suggestion in 3.9 that "alternative full-time arrangements" for the pupils affected by the emergency closure have been successful or acceptable. All pupils have had an unacceptable disruption to their education, most are receiving less than full-time education, some are receiving as little as 5 hours per week tuition, and none are receiving their statutory right to residential education, as stipulated in their individual statements. The consultation document does not address the fact that the LEA is in breach of its statutory duty to these pupils, neither does it suggest where future referrals for residential education will be sent, and at what cost.
  13. The lack of information on future EBD places in the County has increased uncertainty for the current Oakwood staff. The consultation document should therefore have included a section on employment stability and should have indicated areas of potential redeployment of existing specialist staff, to aid the retention of suitably qualified and experienced staff in EBD education. (The Union has evidence of considerable difficulties of staffing even our existing EBD PRUs: we cannot afford to alienate those who are able and equipped to do this challenging task.)
  14. Since the consultation document was published, the Council has withdrawn the delegated budget from the Governors. This effectively means that the staff management has also transferred to the LEA. It is therefore reasonable to expect a statement from the LEA, in its consultation document, concerning the opportunities for staff currently employed at the school. We feel very strongly that the rights of Oakwood staff to be consulted, informed and treated with due consideration have been consistently ignored.
  15. The Union wrote to the LEA on March 1st, March 6th and again on April 8th seeking to meet to agree an employment stability policy and pointing out that the Union's continuing opposition to closure was entirely due to the lack of forward planning for the staff and pupils who were at Oakwood. Apart from an acknowledgement and a telephone call to say that it might be possible to talk about this at some future date, the Union's offer of talks and the principle of employment stability have both been ignored. Our opposition to the closure plan must therefore remain in place until and unless the medium to long-term future of pupils and staff is satisfactorily resolved.
  16. At the staff consultation meeting on 14th April, the Union repeated a proposal that the existing "Home Tuition" arrangements whereby some pupils were taught on Oakwood premises by some Oakwood teachers, should be developed and the proposed new arrangements trialled. The Union has been urging the LEA, since November 1999, to make full use of the staff's expertise and the existing facilities by increasing the number of pupils catered for by the interim arrangements at Oakwood. If the LEA agreed to a employment stability policy it would be possible to appoint designate staff to the new PRU and begin allocating KS2 and 3 pupils to have "home tuition" on Oakwood's premises, utilising the remaining Oakwood staff. These suggestions have all been ignored, despite the fact that it would not pre-empt the outcome of the EBD consultation process in any wa. The only assumption made would be that there would be a continuing need to maintain EBD teaching at KS3 on the Oakwood premises.
  17. The Consultation document is silent on whether the new PRU with outreach work will be considered as part of the "Special" sector in education and staff treated in no less favourable way as regards SEN specialist payments as in ordinary schools. It will be important, if staff are to be recruited or retained, for the appropriate special school allowances to be paid. The Union is requesting separate discussions on this matter, as part of a now over-due review of the PRU salaries policy.
  18. Paragraph 5.1 is misleading in its reference to "three specific elements". This implies that there are three roles for one new "super" Unit. In fact, it has since come to light that these "elements" are actually completely independent free-standing and separately managed establishments and that the "Centre of Excellence" will not even be based at Oakwood at all (despite the statement in 5.1 that Oakwood would be the "base" for the specialised team). We oppose the proposal to base the management of the Centre of Excellence away from Oakwood and suggest that this negates the avowed intention of providing "flexibility" of approach.
  19. The Union rejects the out-sourcing of the "Centre of Excellence" and points out that the appointment of the self-styled "National Teaching Advisory Service" pre-empts the outcome of both the present consultation and that on the still awaited EBD Review. We also point out that there was no consultation with the recognised Unions on the plan, now a decision, to out-source EBD expertise at a time when the County's own experienced EBD staff were facing redundancy. The current proposals do not mention the possibility of out-sourcing the "Centre of Excellence", or of handing over management of this important initiative to a body outside the control of the LEA and its other functions under Fair Funding.
  20. It has also come to light that there will be no connection between the residential and educational provision at the proposed new Oakwood. There will be no link between the social service need for accommodation and the educational need. This again shows that paragraph 5.1 was designed to mislead: there is no "flexibility" in the current proposals and no joined-up provision.
  21. Indeed, the meeting of staff was told by the LEA on April 14th that the premises of Oakwood would have three separately managed units: the PRU, the Centre of Excellence and the residential accommodation. We consider this to be unnecessarily complicated and contrary to the structure implied in the consultation document. Such fragmented management would militate against the flexibility of approach which we thought was the purpose of the proposal. We would consider that all three functions should come under the same management structure to allow for the range of educational facilities to include the option of true residential education, as at Hampden House, and so that the staff of the PRU and of the "Centre of Excellence" come under one decision-making, work-allocating arrangement, sharing the outreach and in-house approaches to EBD.
  22. The Union recommends that the services of Unit, accommodation and Centre of Excellence should be embraced under one organisation and one management structure.
  23. The Union has no specific preference for either Units or Special Schools as the structural basis for the delivery of EBD Education, but believes that the PRUs should be clearly accepted as "Special Education" and not "Education otherwise than at school". We do not, however, accept that a PRU is essentially any more "flexible" (5.4) than a school: it is the management of the provision which can build in flexibility.
  24. If, as we hope and expect from the document, use is made of the residential accommodation (7.2) the proposals should include details of how the PRU would interface with the residential side (a) for those who are resident but not attending the PRU and (2) those who are both resident and attending the PRU. Some of the activities and duties which are part of a residential situation should be maintained, to provide educational and recreational activities between the end of school and the hand-over to the evening care-staff. This would enable some of the objections concerning the ending of the "24 hour curriculum" to be address at least partially.
  25. The Union agrees that there are gaps in the provision for EBD pupils (4.1), but we fail to see how closing the KS4 element at Oakwood, before alternatives are in place, can assist in closing those gaps. It can only produce a new gap.
  26. We agree with the principles of both early intervention and re-integration, and that pupils can be referred to PRUs more rapidly if they do not have a statement of Special Needs. However, we do not wish to be seen as (a) a way of avoiding statements if the case merits one, (b) down-grading the SEN expertise of the staff (de-skilling) of the new PRU, (c) lowering expectations of the qualifications and experience of the staff of the new PRU / Centre of Excellence or (d) creating such an open admissions policy which means that the diversity of problems presented is too great or that the Teacher in Charge is forced to accept pupils for whom, in his/her professional opinion, the Unit is unsuitable for educational, social or Health and Safety reasons.
  27. We note that PRUs have a higher absence rate than Oakwood (and indeed other residential schools). Steps should be taken to ensure that referrals to the Unit do attend regularly. Given the wide geographical area affected and the part-time nature of PRU admissions, the staff would have to have more than the usual EWO assistance in order to follow up particular problems.
  28. The absence of statistics in the consultation document is worrying. We would wish to know how large the PRU would be, how many pupils it would cater for initially, how many staff would be required (a) for the PRU and (b) for the "specialist team" work. We believe that the numbers which a PRU can reasonably handle will be considerably less than the 58 places currently provided by the better staffing and support ratios available to the school in its current form. However, the figures given the document suggest a PRU of only three or four teachers. We cannot accept that this is a sensible use of such spacious facilities: a larger Unit, working "as one" with the Centre's outreach work and providing a flexible mix of support in schools with PRU and even Oakwood based Home Tuition, would provide much better "value for money".
  29. The costings given in 6.1 are presumably based on some notional figures for pupils and staff. It would have been helpful to see these figures. Any "savings" must be set against the cost of disruption in mainstream schools to be expected up to and until the whole county is served by such alternative EBD provision, and may not have taken into account travel costs and the costs associated with linking the day and residential provision.
  30. An issue in the past has been the Oakwood admissions policy: there have been suggestions from the LEA that it is have been too inflexible. That policy has been, and will be in the hands of the LEA and must be clearly stated. The current proposals are too vague about the purposes of the Unit itself, given that it will be providing facilities for a year group hitherto not supported by PRU provision.
  31. There should be similar policies and safeguards concerning the re-integration of pupils into mainstream schools. The criteria for "returning" pupils to mainstream schools must be clearly set out, together with the support that school would continue to receive from the specialist team and how progress would be monitored.
  32. The "catchment area" outlined in 5.8 is larger than that of any Upper/High School but the proposals are silent on transport arrangements, costs and other consequences. This could be particularly important if the "Centre of Excellence" staff serve a different area from the PRU.
  33. We welcome the inclusion of girls in a new Oakwood and wonder (a) whether this will extend to the residential accommodation and (b) whether any adaptations to the building or facilities would be required.
  34. We remain unconvinced that the new situation will be any easier to staff than the current PRUs and that converting to a PRU would attract sufficiently experienced and effective senior management, where salary levels are considerably lower than in the Residential Special School setting.
  35. We note that the Consultation document does not refer to the difficulties which have ensued from the emergency closure, including the cost of attempting to educate Oakwood pupils elsewhere, mostly by part-time tuition of as little as 5 hours per week. This should be taken as a warning that the alternatives are not easy to provide or manage. The proposal to close Oakwood and re-open as a PRU does not cater for all the children who were made school-less by the closure. The proposals should have indicated how all the Oakwood pupils would be accommodated within the new system: the fact is that this information would indicate the truth of the situation as consistently presented by the Union.
  36. Main Conclusions: There is no future for Oakwood as currently constituted: it has been destroyed by a year of uncertainty and mismanagement of pupils and staff. We therefore reluctantly have to accept that it cannot now be re-constituted. However, we believe that the County's alternative EBD provision is still not ready for the permanent closure of the school and its residential / KS4 provision at Oakwood. It is clear that alternative provision both in the form of additional PRUs and properly supported inclusion will not be ready by January 2001, let alone before then. Staff should be advised of the potential for continued employment so that they, with the appropriate pupil services personnel, could commence re-admitting pupils to the buildings of Oakwood and a designate staff could be used to trial some of the "flexible" approaches, together with re-opening the residential facilities, for some of the pupils whose statements of special need have not been met since the emergency closure of the school in November 1999.

Particular suggested action points include:

Martin Goold, Division Secretary

Suffolk NUT 26/04/2000