If they have not done so already, governors should look at how they must report back to parents on the additional help provided for children with learning difficulties. New legal requirements hold governors accountable for the way they look after the interests of such children. And what the annual report must now contain is a clear pointer to what the new code of practice on special needs means when it says, “the governing body must do their best to secure that the necessary provision is made for any pupil who has special educational needs”.

The regulations require four kinds of information (see checklist 1). The requirement to report on significant changes in the governors’ special needs policy is probably the most straightforward, calling for a summary of the main points of the policy at the end of the year in which the governors agree it and thereafter a concise note on any changes.

It is the requirement to comment on the success or otherwise of that policy which begins to spell out the heavy responsibility the new code of practice places on governors. The code proposes governors should comment on the effectiveness of four aspects of the school’s arrangements (see checklist 2).

If they are to comment on the success of the policy, some means of defining or measuring effective performance is needed. Only then can the extent to which pupils have been successfully identified, assessed and helped to overcome their difficulties be monitored.

Fortunately, effective school managers - the head and the special needs co-ordinator - also need such feedback. And they need it long before the governors have to report. So, rather than trying to overlay their own research or information needs on to the work of the school, the governing body should ensure that the information needed for effective monitoring and management is clearly provided for in the special needs policy agreed with the school.

The policy, then, needs to include not only general aims for identification and assessment but specific objectives, success criteria or the measures and indicators that are going to be used to judge its effectiveness. The policy should spell out not only how children who need special help will be identified but who is responsible for doing so and who is to make an overall assessment of the efficiency of that process and report on it to the head and governors.

There are no suggestions in the code about how the school should judge how comprehensively it identifies and assesses needs, the effectiveness of any special help, or exactly how the progress of children with special needs is to be monitored, recorded and reported on.

The best way of approaching these tasks may well be different in different schools. But governors may find relevant information hard to come by for several reasons.

By definition, it is difficult for a school to know how many children with special needs it has failed to pick up or properly assess. Also there is little agreement on, or experience of, objective monitoring of learning difficulties. And where assessments are made they are likely to give rise to some hard questions about resources and expectations.

What level of progress is to be reasonably expected of children with learning difficulties? Many such children have reading ages well below their chronological age. So could their special help be judged effective if that difference got even worse over the year - if, say, a child with a reading age of 7 at age 8 has only a reading age of 7.5 at age 9? And at what point should more or different help be called in?

Such an example highlights the potential minefield that surrounds the requirement to report “on how resources have been allocated to and amongst children with special educational needs over the year”.

Governors must do their best to ensure the “necessary provision” is made for children with learning difficulties but what constitutes “necessary provision”?

And what priority over the obligation to meet the needs of all other children is implied by “doing their best”, as the code of practice puts it?

Again, the headteacher is going to need some kind of policy or principle on which to base the decisions about conflicting demands he or she is bound to be faced with. Ultimately someone will have to make a reasonable judgment balancing resources against conflicting needs and priorities and, like it or not, that is what the governors are there for. But the time to be thinking about those priorities is not at the end of the year, when it comes to writing the annual report. It is earlier on when agreeing the SEN policy.

Checklist 1: reporting on special needs Governors’ annual reports to parents must include: * any significant changes made to the special needs policy * information on the effectiveness of the policy * how resources have been allocated to special needs * consultations with the LEA or Funding Agency for Schools Checklist 2: effectiveness of the policy Reports should comment on the success of the policy in: * identifying pupils with learning difficulties * assessing their special needs * providing additional help * monitoring and recording progress * making use of support services We want to hear from you Has your governing body faced up to these issues and developed ways of judging the effectiveness of your special needs policy? If so, The TES would like to hear from you. Write to Bob Doe, The TES, 66-68 East Smithfield, London E1 9XY.

* Entries for this year’s TES Annual Report Award must be submitted by December 31. To enter your 1995 report send four copies to The TES Annual Report Award at the address above. Prizes of up to Pounds 1,000 for the best entries.