The publication of the White Paper Schools - Achieving Success by the Department for Education and Skills has important implications for the Special Education Needs and Disability Rights Act 2001 (SENDA) and outlines a new strategy for delivering excellence to all children with special educational needs.

One of the main concerns of teachers and parents is that the SENDA legislation will mean extra demands in dealing with a wider range of needs in the classroom. The White Paper promises that additional support will be available for teaching literacy and numeracy. Further investment in training is promised, together with research in partnership with teachers, therapists and other professionals. The results and good practice will be available online.

Separately, the Government has promised extra guidance on implementing the revised SEN Code of Practice, in the form of an SEN Toolkit, which will be available when the Code of Practice is published in 2002.

The Special Educational Needs Consortium (SEC) had concerns that the new principles enshrined in the Act would be undermined by lack of support for teachers, so these measures are particularly welcome. It is now important to ensure specialist support services are widely available.

The role of OFSTED, already expanded by the SENDA legislation, gets a further boost with the aim of developing a framework to measure the effectiveness of school and LEA programmes in raising standards for children with special needs. This will also allow special and mainstream schools to compare performance. With OFSTED inspections also looking at developing inclusive practice, these measures will bring SEN practice into the mainstream of schools’ standards development and practice, rather than treating it as an add-on.

The failure of agencies involved in SEN provision to work effectively together has been a major criticism of the present arrangements. The Government has begun to acknowledge this. Best-value reviews are to have a greater focus on improving co-ordination and quality of services to children with special needs. Regional partnerships will also focus on linking health and social services, education and the voluntary sector.

Furthermore, the Children’s National Service framework will have to ensure more joined-up working. The DFES has already set up a working group to look at developing guidance on co-ordination of support services for under-two-year-olds across health and social services, which will report early next year.

The strategy is likely to be broadly welcomed by the SEC, but there are concerns about the broader thrust of the White Paper.

Proposals to expand specialist schools could bring selection criteria that disadvantage children with SEN if not handled carefully.

Concerns have also been raised about the effects on specialist support services once more flexibility is built into local working arrangements.

The strategy in the White Paper forms an additional piece of the jigsaw in putting together the SEN framework.

Brian Lamb is chair of theSpecial Education Consortium (Tel: Maria Bremmers,020 7843 1900)and director ofcommunications for the RNID