The National Union of Teachers called on parents and teachers to back their campaign to boycott Key Stage testing on the day results were published. The Union is campaigning for a national boycott of the National Curriculum Tests (SATs). The Key Stage 2 were results were dubbed ‘useless and totally discredited’ by the Union. Blackburn with Darwen NUT secretary, Simon Jones, said: ‘We are not against testing when it is appropriate and meaningful but SATs don’t serve any useful purpose. The whole testing regime runs counter to inclusive education as schools become more and more reluctant to admit pupils with learning difficulties, social problems or even illnesses that may adversely affect test results’.
Lancashire Evening Telegraph (Blackburn), December 4, 2003.

Stuart Campbell is helping to blaze the trail for Down’s Syndrome children. At 17, he has already attained grades at his local secondary school, Loudon Academy in Galston, Ayrshire, and is now studying part of the time there and partly at Kilmarnock College. He may be exceptional but research to be published today will show children who share Stuart’s condition would do much better if they were educated in mainstream schools. According to the report by education experts, generations of children with Down’s Syndrome may have under achieved at school because too little was expected of them.
The Herald (Glasgow), December 8, 2003.

Governors of a primary school have been ordered to apologise to a six-year-old disabled boy who was left out of the Christmas play and isolated from his classmates by teachers. Jenny Hammond Primary School in Leytonstone, East London, unlawfully discriminated against Lee Buniak because of his disability, a Special Educational Needs Tribunal ruled. Lee, who has a condition called global developmental delay that causes speech and learning difficulties, was the only child in his class excluded from the school’s Christmas play. He was left behind in the classroom with a teaching assistant or his mother while the other children went to the hall for rehearsals. He was also left out of class activities to make scenery for the play and Christmas cards for families. The Tribunal was told that Lee was the only pupil not invited to the school’s Christmas disco last December and was also excluded from a class trip in March. The school failed to notify his mother when a class photograph was taken, with the result that Lee was the only child missing from the picture. The Tribunal was told that he often went to look at the photograph, which was displayed in the classroom and could not understand why he was not on it. Lee had a statement of special educational needs and Waltham Forest education authority provided the school with funding to recruit a full-time learning support assistant for him in class. The Tribunal ruled that the school failed to provide him with appropriate support for a year, allocating a series of inexperienced assistants to take care of him for two hours each day.
The Times, December 15, 2003.

Parents are launching a last-ditch campaign to save a school for children with special needs. They accuse Wandsworth Council of planning to close Chartfield School in Putney because it wants to sell the land. The Council is due to make a final decision next month. Closure would mean many of the children moving to a mainstream school. Chartfield is said to be unique in London, taking children with learning difficulties through to GCSE and beyond. Wandsworth Council says the proposal is part of a review of special schools. Wandsworth had 10 special schools – more than other boroughs – and many parents wanted their children to attend mainstream schools.
Evening Standard (London), December 19, 2003.

A video highlighting the issues young people with disabilities face when moving from school to adult life was due to be launched today. The Edinburgh-based voluntary group Playback has produced the video, ‘Transitions to Adulthood’, as part of the European Year of Disabled People. The video will be sent to all secondary schools for use during personal and social education classes.
Edinburgh Evening News, December 16, 2003.