The Codes of Practice

Respective governments issued 2 Codes of Practice (DFE 1994, DfES 2001c), the second replacing the first, in the wake of the Warnock Report (DES 1978). The full name of the 1994 Code gives a clear indication of its function: Code of Practice on the Identification and Assessment of Special Educational Needs (DFE, 1994). So the Code was regarded as a type of manual to guide schools and LEAs as to how to identify special educational needs. Although the Code (2001) was not statutory, there was an implication that schools should conform to it – in the words of the Code (ibid):

schools, early education settings and those who help them – including health and social services – must have regard to it. They must not ignore it. (DfES 2001 iii)

Both versions of the Code are therefore key documents for professionals and for the understanding not only of SEN but also of the special education

system of which the concept of SEN is part.

The Codes of Practice (DFE 1994, DfES 2001c) were based on the principle of a continuum of need for those pupils ‘assessed’ by the system (DES, 1978). However, despite this, both Codes introduced defined and demarcated stages of intervention into the system. The focus for all these stages was the individual pupil invariably identified by the teacher.

It must be noted that the use of a continuum of need also has a more sinister and insidious connotation in the history of special education. Tomlinson (2012) observes that:

Cyril Burt, appointed by the London County Council as its first

psychologist in 1913, noted what was later described as a continuum of special educational needs, when he wrote of the difficulties of classifying the disabled, the lower attainers and those in need of special attention as ‘the defective merge into the dull and the dull into the normal

(Burt,1937, pp. 14–15). (4)

So a continuum of need can also be used to separate out the ‘normal’ from those regarded as not ‘normal’. This demonstrates that the conception of SEN and the use of SEN to classify children can have negative consequences far beyond the classroom.

The 1994 Code (DFE, 1994) was based on 5 stages of diagnosis and intervention. Stages 1 to 3 were school-based stages requiring minimal outside intervention apart from seeking advice from non-school based professionals eg education psychologists. Stage 4, also called the Statutory Assessment stage, was when the submission of ‘advice’ from a raft of professionals including an educational psychologist, medical professionals and Social Services professionals. Advice would also be sought from parents/carers. The final Stage of the Code was when the pupil would be issued with a Statement of Special Educational Needs, a legal document outlining the special educational needs of the pupil and specifying the

provision ie the support to be provided for the pupil, including where the pupil would be educated, whether in a specified mainstream or specified special school. While the relative informality of the school-based stages of the Code of Practice (DFE, 1994) make for some elasticity and permeability, the Statement of Special Educational Needs is rigidly defined and demarcated.

The 2001 Code represents a further step removed from a continuum of need. For instead of 5 stages, the 2001 Code (DfES, 2001c) introduced 3 Stages,

thus making for a less smooth progression. The Stages, now given names, are School Action and School Action Plus, both School based, and the Statement of Special Educational Needs which, as in the previous Code, would be the legal document drawn up by the LEA. While the new Code no longer included a specific Assessment stage, the latter did not disappear. It was simply incorporated into the Statementing stage. Thus in the new Code (DfES, 2001c) the involvement of professionals remained as important as in the previous Code (DFE, 1994).

The 2001 Code gives a curious reason for the change from 5 stages to 3 stages. In explaining the stipulation of two school-based stages it states:

The Code recommends that, to help match special educational provision to children’s needs, schools and LEAs should adopt a graduated

approach through School Action and School Action Plus and Early

Years Action and Early Years Action Plus in early education settings. (iv)

I think that in order to have a more graduated approach one requires more stages, not fewer. In order to map progress or a decline in a more gradual way, surely dividing such change into more and smaller steps should be more effective.

It seems that the two Codes of Practice(DFE 1994; DfES 2001), stemming from the Warnock Report (DES 1978), exemplified a change in the landscape of special education and in turn in schooling in England in general. Prior to the Warnock Report (ibid) the distinction was between mainstream education and special education, with special schools being the province of the latter (Riddell and Brown 1994, Lunt and Evans 1994). Subsequent to the Warnock Report (DES 1978), and formalized in the Codes of Practice (DFE 1994, DfES 2001c), special education was in effect introduced into mainstream schools. The Codes of Practice (ibid) were therefore an expression of the systematic mainstreaming of special education. They were therefore instruments of integration.

Whereas before, a child identified with so-called special needs would be sent to a special school, the Codes were in effect a manual for a ‘graduated response’ up to the Statementing stage, of integrating such children into the mainstream school without having to send the child to a special school. In that sense the Code changed the landscape of special education. This is all about the location of pupils formerly in special schools who can now be

accommodated in mainstream schools. As Rieser (2000) says, this is about integration – ‘a matter of location’ (Rieser 2000 150). Integration can also be seen as regulating ‘the flow’ of pupils from special schools to mainstream schools (Slee 2011).

However, as Armstrong and Sahoo (2011) show, in the UK the tenacious existence of special schools remains to this day, a phenomenon which in my experience is also evident in Keystone itself.