Children with special educational needs in Brighton and Hove are to lose the specialist support credited with helping them to flourish in mainstream schools.
More than 3,000 people have signed a petition objecting to the cuts in just a few days.
And campaigners have warned that the Brighton and Hove City Council risks spending more money – not less – if it goes ahead with the proposed changes.
Specialist teacher Sadie Gillett, who works at Downs View School, in Woodingden, started the petition on 38 Degrees. To sign the petition, headlined “Don’t cut children’s rights to a specialist teacher in Brighton”, click here.
It is addressed to Jo Lyons and Regan Delf, in the council’s Children’s Services Department, and says: “Do not cut specialist advisory teachers from Brighton and Hove’s new Learning Support Service.”
The supporting information says: “Why is this important?
“Hundreds of children with special educational needs (SEN) in Brighton and Hove currently rely upon the specific guidance, hands-on support and training advisory teachers provide to themselves, their teachers, schools and families.
“We currently have five support teams specialising in autism, literacy, language, sensory needs and pre-school.
“Each team provides a phenomenal breadth of knowledge and experience enabling the children they work with to be educated with their mainstream peers.
“The current proposal to axe all five teams and replace them with 12 generic SEN advisers, no longer recognised as teachers, will not work.
“There will be far fewer advisers, meaning these children and their families will receive drastically reduced, ineffective support.
“These children deserve the skills these expert teachers bring. Generic advisers cannot possibly do the job of specialist teachers, and hundreds of children will suffer as a result.
“In the long term, this supposed cost saving restructuring, which will be implemented in April 2016, will cost the council more.
“As true understanding of special needs becomes diluted in schools, many more children will begin to fail in mainstream settings.
“We cannot let this happen to children with special educational needs in Brighton and Hove.”
One parents said: “This is a tragically false economy, not only for the children whose long-term life chances will be affected but for the local authority itself.
“As specialist support is cut, more parents are likely to take the authority to tribunal in search of costly out-of-authority placements.
“These are horrendously expensive and just a handful for would cover the relatively paltry sums the authority hopes to save.”
Two of my three children have special needs, they have been supported by PRESENS and one of my children attends their pre-school at the moment, my son has global development delay with a host of other things, and I have seen such a difference in my son since starting there in September 2015, what the council is proposing to do is turn their backs on the future generation and are again putting money before our children…
The Director of Children Pinaki Ghoshal is also the ‘champion of children with SEN’. The council number is 01273 290000. These are devastating cuts, families can register their concerns directly with Mr Ghoshal. Perhaps cost savings can be found in managerial positions rather than front line services.
This needs to be reviewed again – it’s always who needs the most gets the least terribly wrong
The council back a 32million pounds loan to the i 360 yet cuts into children’s support. disgusting!