Educating Disruptive Children: placement and progress in residential special schools for pupils with emotional and behavioural difficulties, By Roger Grimshaw with David Berridge, National Children’s Bureau, Pounds 12.50 non-members, Pounds 8.50 members 1 874579 245

Residential special schooling has been a neglected area for research. Twenty years ago, therapeutic communities were seen as providing troubled children with opportunities to make progress that would be impossible at home or in mainstream schools. In the last few years attention has been elsewhere. The policy emphasis in both education and child care has been on integration of children with special needs into mainstream provision as far as possible. Funding difficulties have reduced placements and forced closures, while scandals at a few schools have cast a cloud of suspicion over the whole sector.

Grimshaw and Berridge’s study is therefore valuable in providing an objective look at four rather different kinds of residential special school and in analysing the factors that appear to make for effectiveness. We must hope that the Department for Education will become as active in commissioning research of this kind, and in disseminating its results, as the Department of Health has been for several years.

The whole process by which children move to such establishments bears examination. If the school’s perception of the problem coincides with that of the parents and the psychologists, then we have “convergent labelling” and the path to assessment and special provision opens up. Alternatively, children’s problems are seen to have environmental origins, and they drift through exclusion or alternative provision until they find themselves in this sector. Neither route gives priority to the child’s needs or much weight to their wishes.

The older, therapeutic model of residential special schooling concentrated on emotional and psychological rather than educational issues.It was also heavily dependent on charismatic leadership, and many of these establishments did not survive the departure of their founders. Some schools in the study have concentrated on integrating education and care, while others concentrated on rewarding educational and behavioural achievements. One even had an elaborate “token economy” whereby recorded achievements led to privileges. One always wonders to what extent approaches such as these are borne out in practice, and Grimshaw and Berridge did check daily life and study interactions between staff and pupils. There was also some hard data to support their perceptions; for example, the token economy school also required homework four nights a week.

The team considered how successful the schools were, considering such things as self-care skills, social presentation and examination entries. Good outcomes for these were linked to school models emphasising disciplined achievements. In contrast to the medical model of treatment, special educational provision is at best a reasonable substitute for ordinary family and school supports. Most pupils improve, and do so more than they would have without this help, but there is nothing mysterious about what helps them.

Indeed, I wonder whether the researchers gave sufficient weight to such factors as attractive buildings, small school size, high staff-pupil ratios and regular meals in achieving reasonable results. Given the background of poverty and deprivation that many of the children came from, these may have made more of a difference than they credit.

There are indications that pressure to provide special education is increasing, and Grimshaw and Berridge suggest some ways forward. National standards and regulation, and local requirements for a co-ordinated approach to each child are among these. With this kind of approach, assessment for special school could become more forward-looking, and concentrate on intended outcomes for the child. Residential special schooling will always be a small sector, but it deserves to be seen as making a distinct contribution and not as a dumping ground for other people’s problems.

Stephen Barber is assistant director (children and families) social services, London Borough of Ealing.