AS part of the continuing debate in my county on the delegation of funding for children with statements of special educational needs, the local authority and the governors’ association have set up an open meeting for governors.
The LEA is strongly in favour of delegation. I am vehemently opposed. It is to the LEA’s credit that it has given me a 20-minute slot to make my case.
So far I have spent three hours writing my presentation and it is beginning to resemble James Joyce’s Ulysses in length and impenetrability.
I seem to have talked about nothing else but special needs delegation for the past six months - to colleagues, family, the cats. I am adopting a stream of consciousness technique of simply writing down all the arguments I can think of for retaining special educational needs money centrally.
The next stage will be to edit it into some coherent form and pare it down.
I shall then practice reading it aloud - slowly. “Don’t be strident,” advises my husband. He’s right, of course. “Don’t be sarcastic.” Hmm, more difficult.
With the might of the LEA waged against me, this is a real David and Goliath situation. But then again, David won in the end, didn’t he?
Joan Dalton
