Government concedes need for more support for autistic pupils

The government has admitted that more needs to be done to improve educational services for children with autism, after the children’s commissioner lent his weight to the National Autistic Society’s Make School Make Sense campaign.

Last week, Al Aynsley-Green said it was imperative to ensure there was a right school for every child, that teachers received the right training, and that schools had the right approach to children with autism.

“It’s appalling and it’s shameful for our country, the fifth richest economy in the world, to have so many children who are not being looked after and given the resources they need to develop to their full potential,” Green said.

“These aren’t things that cost large amounts of money. It’s cultural change; it’s a way of understanding the lives of these children and how we can improve them.”

Following Green’s intervention, schools minister Lord Adonis accepted that more needed to be done. “We do need to do more in terms of resources and support and expert services to be able to give children with autism the attention they deserve,” he said.

The National Autistic Society is calling on the government to make autism training mandatory for all special educational needs co-ordinators and to produce and distribute autism resource packs for teachers to all schools.