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Should children with special educational needs go to mainstream or special school? This question always provokes strong opinions, but over recent months the debate has raged with renewed vigour. Why? Because Baroness Mary Warnock, the pioneer of inclusive education, appears to have had a change of heart over its merits.

Warnock recently wrote that it is time for a radical review of education policy.(1) She proposes that instead of inclusion by having all children on the same premises there should be inclusion by learning - in other words, including all children in education by helping them to learn in whatever environment is best for them, which is not necessarily side-by-side in the same classroom. She suggests that some children, such as those with autism, fare better in separate institutions, and recommends setting up smaller, specialist schools.


This flies in the face of current education policy and brings it almost full circle - ironic, given that Warnock chaired the 1974 committee that led to more inclusive legislation via the Education Act 1981.

Since the 1974 act, the direction of policy has been clear. Under the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001, children with SEN have a right to a place in mainstream school, and schools can only refuse to accept them if they can prove that the education of other children will suffer.

Last year, the government published Removing Barriers to Achievement, its long-term education strategy for children with SEN, which included plans to educate more children with SEN in mainstream schools.(2)

And last December, under its Specialist Schools programme, the government selected 12 trailblazer special schools to take up a new specialism in SEN and share their expertise, particularly with mainstream schools, to support inclusion.

But despite these developments, a recent report has questioned local education authorities' commitment to inclusion. The report from the Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education finds that in England, little progress towards inclusion was made during 2002-4. The percentage of 0-19 year-olds placed in special schools and other segregated settings fell only slightly, from 0.84 per cent in 2002 to 0.82 per cent in 2004 - a difference of 2,109 pupils.(3)

In addition, the report revealed wide geographic variation - pupils in South Tyneside, where 1.46 per cent of pupils were segregated in 2004, were 24 times more likely to be placed in special schools than pupils in the London Borough of Newham, where the percentage was 0.06. Newham has actively pursued a policy of inclusion since the early 1980s. South Tyneside says that the figures are skewed as they took into account a pilot programme involving 20 mainstream pupils who spent time in a special school, doubly counted some pupils because of a change in data system, and included pupils who are registered at both mainstream and special schools.


Whatever the situation in individual authorities, figures alone seldom tell the whole story. Knowing which settings children are placed in does not give any indication as to how well they are getting on and just because a child is in mainstream education it does not necessarily follow that they are automatically being included.

Issues such as these are likely to be central to the forthcoming House of Commons education and skills committee inquiry into SEN, due to begin in October. But whatever it uncovers will be too late for the parents of children starting school this term: they have already had to weigh up the pros and cons of mainstream versus special school.

(1) Mary Warnock, Special Educational Needs: a New Look, Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, 2005
(2) Removing Barriers to Achievement, Department for Education and Skills, 2004
(3) Segregation Trends - LEAs in England 2002-4, Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education, 2005