Autistic Pupils ‘Let Down By Failures In Mainstream Education Services’

Hundreds of autistic children are being denied a proper education in Scotland’s schools, according to a damning report by education watchdogs. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education (HMIe) found that most teachers in mainstream schools lacked a proper working knowledge of autism.

Programmes for autistic pupils were “frequently deficient”, the report said, while schools were accused of failing to track youngsters’ academic progress.

The Education for Pupils with Autism Spectrum Disorders report, published yesterday, came on the same day a National Autistic Society study revealed that two out of three parents were unhappy with services for their autistic children.

Ministers yesterday announced they were setting up an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) working group to consider the HMIe report’s findings.

According to the NAS, around 46,000 families in Scotland are affected by autism.

Graham Donaldson, HMIe’s chief inspector of schools, said most pupils with ASD were making “good progress” in their individualised educational programmes, which contain academic targets for autistic children.

But he added: “These programmes were frequently deficient in either the attention given to addressing the underlying ASD needs or in addressing achievement across the curriculum.”

He warned that unless improvements were made, there would be “serious consequences” for the education of autistic children in Scotland.

There are around 2,500 pupils with ASD in Scotland’s mainstream schools, and hundreds more in special schools.

Six local authorities were surveyed for the report, with a total of 40 nursery, primary, secondary and special schools, as well as two national centres for autism, visited by inspectors.

The report said: “The majority of teachers and non-teaching staff in mainstream schools did not have a sufficiently good working knowledge of ASD.”

Education authorities were also accused of failing to keep tabs on the number of ASD pupils in their area.

Parents’ dissatisfaction with the service they receive was also laid bare.

“In a small number of authorities, individual parents contacted inspectors to indicate that they were very unhappy about provision for their children and particularly the ways in which the education authority had dealt with decisions affecting their child,” the report said.

The NAS report also criticised the treatment the youngsters receive.

It found that more than a third of autistic children had been bullied at school, 43 per cent of families had to wait more than a year before their child received any support, and just one in three parents was satisfied with the level of understanding of autism at their child’s school.

A spokeswoman for the Executive said: “We appreciate that considerable challenges remain.”

FRESH APPROACH MADE HUGE DIFFERENCE

LOU McGill and her nine-year-old son, Lawrie, have experienced the good and the bad in the quality of education provided for autistic pupils in Scotland.

After moving to Glasgow from England three years ago, Lawrie was enrolled at a school in the city.

An intelligent boy, Lawrie nevertheless had severe social problems which made communicating with fellow pupils difficult.

His mother suspected he might be autistic, but the school did not agree. Over time, the bullying became intolerable for Lawrie, and he refused to go back to school.

“He had gone from being a boy who loved school, to one who hated it,” his mother said. Her pleas for him to be allowed to stay inside during break-times were ignored and Lawrie was eventually excluded from the school because of his behaviour.

Mrs McGill withdrew Lawrie from the school in March this year and three months later he was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism.

He has now been enrolled at another school in Govan, and, according to his mother, the improvement has been dramatic.

She said: “They’ve taken small steps to help him, such as letting him have lunch with a friend away from the dining hall, and they don’t make him go out at playtime.

“He’s enjoying school again.”