There was a thoroughly depressing piece by Fran Abrams in the Guardian’s Education Section on 11th April 2017, headlined ‘Schools battle to support special needs as teaching assistants lose jobs’ – ‘Pupils are at risk of being turned away from mainstream schools as classroom support falls victim to budget cuts’. To read it, which I recommend, follow this link .

Here is not the place to present arguments for and against special schools and provision within mainstream schools. Would it not just be nice if parents had the choice between two viable and adequately funded options (that is assuming they can navigate the statementing process)?

To declare a personal interest, I do not think my autistic son would have survived his brief sojourn within the mainstream system without the dedication and support of two particular teaching assistants (TAs) – who understood my son and his condition better than any of his teachers. (For information, one of Rescare’s trustees has experience as a teacher, and latterly as a teaching assistant. In recent years, he has been warning us of this developing crisis).

PS. So good to see education, let alone special needs education, so high up the political agenda in the run up to the general election (Ha!).