Tory MSP Liz Smith says some local authorities refuse to send a child to a special needs school, despite it being best for the child, which disturbs her a lot.

Ms Smith asks if there needs to be a bigger debate about mainstreaming.

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Professor Sheila Riddell from the University of Edinburgh says there is a presumption of mainstreaming but if a local authority refuses to send a child to a special needs school, if that is best for them, they are breaking the law.

Colin Crawford from Glasgow City Council says the presumption of mainstreaming is absolutely what we want.

Kenny Graham from the Scottish Children's Services Coalition asks what mainstreaming actually means and points out it is not buildings, it is access to the full curriculum.

Greens MSP Ross Greer says there is inconsistency and he wonders if this is down to local authority resourcing and budget choices. 

Mr Greer says asks if mainstream schools would have been able to provide adequate support if they did not have six years of resource pressure.

Professor Sheila Riddell from University of Edinburgh says she supports inclusion and moving children to separate schools may not be the best way forward.

Prof Riddell say "we need to make sure mainstream schools are properly resourced."

Professor Sheila Riddell from University of Edinburgh says parents are often looking for a "silver bullet" to cure a child's condition and often it is the way remedies are marketed because parents need to pay for them.

Prof Riddell says often one to one support is the best way forward.

Sylvia Haughney has been a Support for Learning Instructor with Glasgow City Council for over 34 years.

Ms Haughney says the current cascade model of skills transmission is inadequate to ensure that today’s staff in schools are able to cope with the extraordinary demands of ASN.

She adds that progress is difficult to measure in the current system and planning has become subject to the random effects of chance rather than the systematic observation and correction, achievable in a multi-disciplined approach.

She says this is a direct result from budget saving cuts.

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Sylvia Haughney from Glasgow City Council says it is not just teachers who work in schools.

Ms Haughney says the training required for everyone is no longer there.

She says there used to be direct training from a psychologist and now there is just cascading training from someone who went on a course.

Ms Haugney says she asked one member of staff about what training they had in Asperger's to be to told that the person had been told to watch the Big Bang Theory. 

Tory MSP Ross Thomson says he recently met with a physiologist who talked him through reflexes and how problems with a child's reflexes are often not picked up.

Mr Thomson asks what can be done to deal with this and whether or not an early years questionnaire could help with this.

Parent Sharon Veelenturf says this area is very complex and that teachers are committed but do not always have the time to notice if a child is displaying slightly different behaviours.

Ms Veelenturf says teachers or those working with children need to have the time to notice and any assessment on this would have to be progressive. 

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Sally Cavers from Enquire, external says the impact of practitioners having less time can lead to communication break down.

Ms Cavers says it takes energy and capacity and ability to be able to access dispute resolution mechanisms.

Professor Sheila Riddell from University of Edinburgh says there is an opportunity to make connections in different areas of education.

"It is very important that this school attainment money is channeled into helping these children."

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Colin Crawford from Glasgow City Council says communication with parents is important.

He says it is challenging in terms of resources and being able to train all staff to all levels.

Mr Crawford also says there are fewer psychologists as a whole, but psychologists are now following a whole area appraoch.

It is absolutely about listening to parents and intervening as early as possible, he says.

EIS says it has "serious concerns" about additional support needs (ASN) provision in Scotland. 

It highlights three key issues in its submission: 

• the impact of cuts to ASN provision
• teacher morale
• attainment narratives.   

Image source, SPICe

The EIS says that cuts to school budgets, teacher numbers and the decline in support staff numbers is very problematic.   

Samreen Shah, principal teacher from Bannerman High School says 10 years ago schools has nurses and police officers in schools.

Ms Shah says schools now get educational physiologists once a month and that is "not good enough".

"We just don't have enough resources to deal with this but we are trying," she says. 

Scottish Children’s Services Coalition (SCSC) highlights three key issues: spending cuts, disparity of ASN recording between local authorities and inadequate staffing levels and training.

It makes the following recommendations:

•   Improved identification and support
•   Increased funding 
•   Better recording and reporting of ASN
•   Greater numbers of ASN teachers and support staff and better training for mainstream teachers 
•   Increased specialist provision for children and young people   

SCSC says that local authorities should be assisted to increase the number of special school/unit spaces available to reflect the rising numbers of children with a complex need.

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Kenny Graham from the Scottish Children's Services Coalition says parents are working harder than they should be to access ASN support.

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Carol Gilmour says some parents are struggling, whereas foster carers get information not readily available to other parents.

Sylvia Haughney from Glasgow City Council says there are not the same number of psychologists now for nursery staff of for speech and language.

Ms Haughney highlights the importance of early intervention.

Labour MSP Johann Lamont says it is "shocking" that so many families are presenting evidence of disparity. 

Parent Sharon Veelenturf says there is disparity in levels of ASN support at different schools.

Ms Veelenturf says some schools take a holistic approach and ASN children are integrated with other pupils.

She says, for mainstream schools without ASN units, "inclusion often means exclusion".