ASN needs in Scotland deserve ‘fundamental rethink’, says NASUWT
Nearly half (47%) of teachers say that there are pupils in their school who have been identified as needing specialist provision, but remain in their mainstream school
The teaching union (NASUWT) has called for more government support when teaching those with additional needs in Scotland.According to the union, only 2% of teachers in Scotland say that the pupils they teach who have additional support needs (ASN) always receive the support they are entitled to.
Over a third (35%) of these pupils rarely or never receive the support they need.
Although the number of pupils with ASN in Scottish schools is rising, funding, support and the number of places in specialist provision are all dwindling.
According to a survey of teachers by NASUWT, 93% said the needs of the pupils with ASN that they teach have become more complex during this time.
Some 69% said that the level of support received by pupils they teach with ASN has decreased over the last five years.
Nearly half (47%) of teachers say that there are pupils in their school who have been identified as needing specialist provision, but remain in their mainstream school because specialist settings are full. 43% said their local authority has reduced the number of places in specialist settings in order to manage budgets.
Over half (53%) said the number of specialist teachers employed to support pupils with ASN in their school has declined in the last five years. 62% said the number of specialist support staff has decreased during this period.
Unsurprisingly therefore, 94% said that the workload of teachers and school leaders in their school has increased as a result of underfunding for specialist services for ASN.
Only 2% of respondents say they always receive the support they need to teach pupils with ASN effectively. 46% say they rarely or never receive the support they need.
Over half (54%) of respondents who teach in specialist or alternative provision said they had been physically assaulted by a pupil in the previous year. Some 59% said they had been threatened with physical assault and four in five had experienced verbal abuse. Nearly half (49%) said they experienced such abuse daily or more than once a day. Two-thirds said the abuse is increasing in severity.
Only 14% said their school always takes appropriate action to address behaviour incidents when they are reported and just 4% said the same about local authorities.
Matt Wrack, NASUWT Acting General Secretary, said ““The results of this survey only underline the recent damning report by Audit Scotland which heavily criticised the Scottish Government’s failure to adequately fund, plan or resource its presumption of mainstream policy.
“While we welcome the recent commitment from the the Cabinet Secretary to look at what more might be done to support additional support needs in schools, we now need to see more detail about who and what will be involved in this review. Any discussions should certainly not be limited to just COSLA and local authorities.”
Mike Corbett, NASUWT National Official Scotland, added: “Teachers are now routinely being placed in a situation where they are expected to teach children with such high level and complex needs that they require almost one-to-one support at the same time as teaching the rest of their class.
“This is a betrayal of the duty of care which employers owe to both those pupils and to teachers. Pupils, teachers and families are being failed by the current system of ASN and the presumption of mainstream policy, under which children and school staff are being left to sink or swim.”
