National Assembly for Wales

I would like to welcome all members of the committee here this morning. The public items of this meeting are being broadcast live on Senedd.tv and a Record of Proceedings will be published as usual. The meeting is bilingual and simultaneous translation is available from Welsh to English. Buffy Williams has sent apologies for the whole meeting this morning and Ken Skates has sent his apologies for the first evidence session. And we're really pleased that we have Carolyn Thomas who's joined us this morning, who's kindly substituting for Ken Skates, so you're very welcome here this morning, Carolyn. Are there any declarations of interest from Members? I see no declarations of interest.

So, we'll move on to one of the main items on our agenda this morning, which is the sixth evidence session of our inquiry, which is, 'Do disabled children and young people have equal access to education and childcare?'

A warm welcome to our witnesses who've joined us in the room this morning as well. Thank you for taking time out to give evidence here. We very much appreciate your time. We have Dr Gwenllian Lansdown Davies who's chief executive of Mudiad Meithrin. We have Claire Protheroe, head of contracts and projects, Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years Cymru. We have Sarah Coates, national operations manager for Wales, the National Day Nurseries Association, and we have Andrea Wright, lead manager, Early Years Wales, and Jane O'Toole, chief executive officer of Clybiau Plant Cymru.

So, again, thank you very much for joining us. I just want to also thank all witnesses for your written evidence. And I'd particularly like to thank Early Years Wales for your feedback in your paper on the language used in the consultation and for the time to discuss these issues in more detail with our clerk. I will take account of the feedback as we continue through our inquiry, so, diolch yn fawr.

Okay. So, we'll make a start and we've got a number of questions to ask you this morning, and I'll start with perhaps a general question around the extent of the issue. We've heard in our inquiry so far, when we've been discussing this, about the lack of childcare for children with additional learning needs. Is this true in your experience and are there differences between different types of childcare, for example, pre-school provision, child minders or after-school clubs? I realise there's a number of you here, so I'll check to see who wants to make a start and please raise your hands if you want to come in, but don't feel you need to all say anything at the same time. Gwenllian.

Thank you. Does anybody else want to come in? No. Okay. I'll move on.

To what extent do you think the childcare offer currently meets the needs of children with additional needs, and what do you think the impact will be of the plans to expand it to two-year-olds? Claire.

I think for those who are eligible for the childcare offer, there are positives there. There's parental choice around the childcare that they choose, whether that is through a child minder, a day nursery or a playgroup setting. So, that element of parental choice is really important. And there's additional support that can be put in place because there are grants for funding that are attached to the childcare offer to support children with ALN as well, and those applications then go to grant panel meetings at a local authority level. So, the positives are there in relation to some of that. We know that there are still issues, obviously, for parents being aware of what's available to them and being able to access that. 

I think where we start to see some of the barriers is the issues around children that are not eligible for the support—so, children whose parents aren’t working, and children before they reach the childcare offer eligibility age, and after they’ve pulled out of the childcare offer as well. We’ve also seen issues where children are accessing childcare in more than one setting, so again, what we’re down to is that the support and the funding for resources, potentially, and potentially extra hands to support the children, are following the funded programme rather than following the child. So, it will be available in the setting where they’re accessing the childcare offer, but it’s not available, potentially, in the services providing the wraparound care around that funded place. Then that leads to inequity of access to support in both settings, and obviously then has an impact as well on development outcomes for the children. That particularly seems to be the case where the parents are paying privately for a childcare arrangement, where you would think still that there would be some form of continuity of support.

And then, when you come to the impact of the plans to expand it to two-year-olds, we’re obviously hugely aware, I’m sure like you all are, that Flying Start is being used as a mechanism for the expansion rather than the childcare offer criteria being used for the expansion. This has a knock-on effect, because if the childcare offer is used, it’s universally available to all registered settings to deliver. If Flying Start is used, it becomes a local authority decision—which settings they will fund for Flying Start, how that support will be given. Therefore, there are barriers to all settings being able to deliver the expanded Flying Start. There are issues around tendering and procurement, especially for smaller settings and for child minders, and needing to meet additional criteria. That then impacts on the continuity of care for children that are using services in the early years, because in theory they’re then having to move to follow the funding rather than being able to stay somewhere that supports their needs. It also impacts, obviously, on parental choice of childcare, and also then has a sustainability effect on the childcare settings that aren’t able to deliver Flying Start and other funded programmes. Then what we have is displacement of childcare, and an unnecessary move, in our opinion.

As an aside as well, we've also heard from a very small number—and it is quite a niche market in Wales—of nannies in Wales. At the moment, it's not an option for them to register, so they can't deliver the childcare offer for Wales and the funded programmes. And in Wales, nannies are used in a very non-traditional nanny model compared to what we would normally think of it being. It's not about high earners, but it can be about those who are working shifts, have got multiple siblings, for example, or again have children with additional learning needs. We've heard from a nanny in particular in the north who cares in a sort of respite way, going in and supporting families in their own home. Obviously, the impact of provision moving to the funded programmes and the expansion of the childcare offer and Flying Start is having an impact as well, because she's not able then to provide that same service, and children are being moved again from one service to another. I'm not sure if Andrea as well has got anything to add to that one.

Yes, I had a few extra things. The expansion into Flying Start really questions whether the amount of hours available are going to really cover the working day, and with a child with additional needs, particularly, lots of the schemes are only covering a fraction of the time that they're there, but obviously a child has additional needs for all the time, and the funding seems to be only covering some of the time. So, if you're expanding, I think that's just going to exacerbate that situation further. And as Claire said, it's the movement between different settings to try and get all the funding to match up together and that joined-up thinking and those transitions between settings. If you think a child could be in one setting for nought to two, another setting for two to three, another setting for three to four, and then they could be in after-school club and holiday club, and education, that's an awful lot to take on. So, there needs to be more thought about how a child can stay in one place and the funding would stay with that child for the entirety of their needs, not just for patches.

Brilliant, thank you. That's really helpful. Just around the extent of the availability of accessible childcare across Wales, to what extent is there any continuity or consistency across Wales? How about the accessibility of people to access childcare in rural areas in particular?

Yes, I'm sure those issues will come up. Do you think there's a particular issue around accessing childcare in the school holidays? And also, to what extent are children with additional needs able to take part in all types of activities offered in non-specialist childcare settings? Jane.

Thanks. As Clybiau Plant Cymru Kids' Clubs, we support after-school, breakfast and holiday clubs. Some of the evidence that we've had from the clubs is around the cost implication for accessing additional staff, maybe one-to-one staff, to support a child with additional needs in a club. It puts a strain on the clubs. They're already struggling to survive, in many instances not sustainable. There's the availability of CIW-registered holiday clubs as well. There's competition from clubs that run through the exceptions Order—the holiday activity clubs—who then don't have to register. Parents are juggling their childcare more after school and in the holidays, which then impacts the ability of clubs to remain sustainable. We've had significant club closures, especially during the holidays. So, everything has a knock-on impact. Additionally, suitably qualified staff to work in the holidays. Many clubs run from school premises. Often, teaching assistants may work in those clubs after school. Potentially, they don't then also want to work during the holidays as well as an extra hand or a one-to-one support for children. So, there are issues. We've heard from parents when we did a parent survey throughout COVID about the ability for them to access childcare during the holidays to allow them to go to work. So, we do know of issues. Clubs want to supply places for all children and make it accessible, but there are definitely different factors that can affect it actually being able to run in the first place.

Carolyn.

I'd like to ask a question regarding funding following a child, and, then, affordability of the setting, if that's okay. I remember when my children went to playgroup, I was on a playgroup committee, worried about funding for early years provision. The sustainability of provision was such a big issue because they didn't receive core funding, and it wasn't statutory. So, is it concerning as we're facing cuts going forward again? Do they still receive any funding from local authorities now, these settings? I'm a bit behind with it all. And where do they get funding from—is it just from that funding per child? And if it just followed the child, as suggested, would that then make the settings no longer viable, so they would end up closing? And, then, are there certain years—? Because I remember that there used to be funding for places at the playgroup if it was attached to the school or the early years setting, but then, there was no room at reception, so that made an issue as well regarding the continuity. There are quite a few questions there.

Who wants to—? Gwenllian. 

Jane, and then Claire.

Thanks. I think that the way that the funding follows children from early years to out-of-school is also quite a significant barrier. Often, a child can be funded a childcare offer, three to four, with an extra hand, so somebody there to support them in that setting. And then when they move to an after school club, which will allow their parents to continue to work—also, you've got to remember the benefit for the children accessing play opportunities after school as well—that childcare offer funding then, or the extra hand, doesn't necessarily—. It isn't available in all local authorities. Some local authorities do. As an organisation, we administer grant pots from the CCG fund for two local authorities that will fund an extra hand for children across the county for the whole of the school year—after school, breakfast and holiday club. But that's two of the local authorities, and, as Gwenllian said—22 different ways of doing it; it's really difficult.

We've got a parent who, just before or during the summer, contacted us. She's just qualified as a newly qualified teacher, got a position starting in September, her child has had funding for an extra hand through the childcare offer, starting school in September; we've got a setting that's able to facilitate the abilities of the child, offer play opportunities, but the county doesn't fund an extra hand for that child to attend. So, what happens to that mum as a newly qualified teacher with a position starting in September? An opportunity missed for the child as well.

Yes, absolutely. Claire, did you want to come in?

Yes. It's just to note the decline in child minders, which obviously has an impact then on the services that are available. So, this has been significant in recent years, and it's what prompted the independent review of child minding that was published by Welsh Government in June. So, as child minder settings decrease, it has a knock-on on the whole accessibility of childcare, and I think, in particular, when you look at the reasons behind this, the reasons that child minders are leaving is because, often, they're not financially sustainable, as you say; they're not able to deliver the full raft of programme opportunities because of some of the issues we've talked about, local authority decision making driving some of that, or the barriers around tendering and commissioning and not being able to have the experience to have a successful outcome on that side of things. So, what they end up doing then, like we've already talked about, is that the children are getting displaced; they're moving from where they potentially have been settled into somewhere where they can access the funded provision, and that just doesn't seem in the best interests of the children and the family.

Absolutely. Thank you, Carolyn. To what extent does the age of the children in childcare present additional issues, for example very young children who may have emerging issues?

Some of the most difficult times for a parent is when they start in childcare, because they might not have ever identified any issues with their child until they've actually gone into a childcare setting, and it's at that point that they're noticing that there is something that's not quite as they would have expected. So, it's these emerging diagnoses, emerging needs, that are happening around this age; very rarely are you getting any diagnosis before that age for autism or that kind of thing. And, if that happens in a setting, then you have to react really quickly to it. You never know what you're going to find with the child; every child is so different at this age, and, even with emerging needs, you never know what kind of support they're going to need until they're there. So, there needs to be a way of reacting very quickly to that, and systems in place, and funding in place to ensure that support can be put in, interventions can be put in, and also that there is access to all the additional services that are available, like speech and language, communication, whether there's physio needed or all those other things, and they are easily available in Flying Start, for example, but they're not available in a private day nursery that's not accessing Flying Start. So, there's a real mismatch for children and parents of getting support for their children very early on; it is the childcare providers that are often identifying the needs, and it's where do they go from there if they're not funded by Flying Start. And to find that support is really difficult—and, again, 22 different local authorities with 22 different systems of doing that. And for us as organisations, it's very difficult for us to know the ins and outs of all 22, when people come to us for support. So, I think there needs to be some thought about how that can be evened out a bit.

And the funding is then very sketchy. For example, we run a scheme that funds five hours a week, but a child could be attending for 25 hours a week, as I said earlier. So, the child's needs are not always being met to the extent that they need. It's very complicated. A two-year-old is a very complicated child, potentially—as they all can be—but this is the time when the parents need the most support and where the childcare setting is the one quite often identifying the needs. And I think they need to have that support and funding available to them in a much more even way.

Thank you. We've got some questions now from Heledd Fychan. Heledd.

Heledd.

Yes. I wasn't sure if anybody else wanted to come in.

I think, since we've had the transformation with the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018 and the ALN code, the training across local authorities has been much improved, and there is a lot more available towards ALN. What the difficulty can be is that, to get people on to training, it costs money. You have to pay them to be on the training, but you also have to pay to backfill the spaces that they're vacating to go on that training. And again, it is so uneven. You've got Flying Start and you've got non-maintained funded as well. They'll get in-service training days, they'll get training days, and they'll get funding for their staff to do this. For the private sector or voluntary sector, there aren't backfill payments and there aren't staffing payments for that either. So, it's often very difficult to release staff to do more targeted training when there's simply no funding for them to do it. And you're asking these businesses to take on that cost, and they can't always do that.

The other thing that's important to note is that you can have good, general, solid training in ALN, but, like I said before, you don't know what you're going to get until the child arrives; you don't know exactly what that training is going to be, but, if you identify it quickly, you will need specific training. For example, we've had a child who is hearing impaired. Now, is that child using Makaton, Signalong or British Sign Language? You can't possibly train for all those three, or even for any, if you've never had a child in your setting with that. So, it's about that reactive, quick, solid training that needs to happen, but it's the early intervention, and you're only going to get that if you react quickly to the needs of that child at that age, and this is what we need. And there isn't funding. Is there enough funding? No, there's not enough funding, and it is very patchy, again, across Wales. General funding has improved greatly, so we have to be very positive about that, but there is still a big gap in the ability to access the funding for the training that's needed. 

I'll just bring Laura Jones in at this point. Laura. 

Thank you. Shwmae? Thank you for coming in today. It's lovely to have you here. We're learning a lot from what you've said already. I just wanted to ask you, on that, do you think it would make sense to incorporate a standard level of learning about how to deal with additional learning needs within all teacher training, nursery nurse training, across the board—anyone that has access to and gains a qualification to work with children has to have a level of ALN training? 

[Inaudible.]—qualifications in childcare now. Some of them are modules. They're probably not as thorough as they could be. But I think the issue is that you don't know what you're training for, to a certain extent, because the behaviours are emerging, the diagnosis is emerging. But, yes, there could be a stronger element of mandatory training within ALN, that's for sure, but you have to consider the funding element of that. It's fine to say it. But, yes, I don't know if anybody else has got—.

I think as well there have been steps taken to ensure that there is a universal programme. Again, it's slightly up to a bit of a local authority interpretation. So, there is additional training that's been put in since the Additional Learning Needs and Education Tribunal (Wales) Act 2018 and the code came in, which, again, is positive. I think we've talked about some of the issues in accessing that. For those that we support, specifically child minders, where they're needing to attend potentially multiple days of training, it has an impact. They can't use a backfill system, so they're not able to attend in the week, which means they're having to give up evenings and weekends to attend often quite a significant number of training hours. And for child minders in particular, they will not only be the ALN lead, potentially, within the setting—they'll be the safeguarding lead, they'll be the person that's trained in first aid, because there is nobody else to do those roles.

So, whereas in some larger group settings, in particular, you may have one person focusing on the ALN and leading on that and attending the training, somebody else doing safeguarding, in a child minding setting, they're wearing all the hats. So, they're having to attend all the training, and there's a lot in the climate at at the moment that has changed. We've had changes to ALN, we've got changes to safeguarding training coming through, and changes to first aid, which will all have an impact. We've already talked about the declining child minding numbers. Again, another reason is the bureaucratic processes and requirements, which, again, is likely to have a further knock-on effect.  

Thank you. Heledd. 

Thanks. So, based on the responses from the SASS—. So, the self-assessment of service run annually by Care Inspectorate Wales hasn't yet been published; it's due to be published in November. There are different types of childcare for children with additional needs, and it's based on the needs of the child and if the childcare provision can actually best meet those needs. We've got some anecdotal evidence of a club from a small village—extremely hard to find, as I mentioned previously, the qualified staff willing to work towards a qualification to work in a CIW-registered club, and then that want to work in an after school club, potentially for only a couple of hours after school. So, a large qualification. We welcome the qualifications and qualified staff to deliver the quality. 

Also, children are not normally statemented before the age of five, and there should potentially be more funding available to support the children that are accessing this. There’s a really good opportunity. One local authority funds a club that is CIW registered to offer, during the summer holidays, 80 children with additional needs—some with severe additional needs—to have play opportunities. It’s not childcare, parents don’t pay; it’s respite. It’s two weeks in the summer holidays for 80 children to access play opportunities, and one local authority funds that through the all-Wales play opportunity grant. It’s the way that different local authorities look at their funding and the opportunities to provide provisions that are really welcoming, offering holiday childcare or opportunities. I just think it’s so different. We’ve said it, and we’ll probably say it in many more answers today: there are 22 different ways of doing things, but there is some really good practice out there as well.

Gwenllian, sorry.

Diolch, Heledd. Questions now from Carolyn Thomas.

You've previously mentioned the impact on children if they're not able to access the various types of childcare at an early age, and how it impacts on their development, progress and well-being. So, would you like to elaborate on that further, anybody?

And the impact on the families and siblings as well for children with additional learning needs. So—.

Yes, it can be enormous, the effect on the family, because of the stress and the pressures and the worry of having a child that needs extra support and not being able to access it. But we have come across lots of copy-and-paste issues with siblings, for example, where you might get twins or you might get children a year apart, and there will be an associated need that goes with the younger sibling because the older sibling has it. And we do see that occasionally, particularly with twins; that has been something I have come across many times. And it's ALN by association, rather than by behaviours, and it's really important that each child is treated as a complete individual and the families are given the support for that. Quite often, a sibling can be not given the amount of attention that a child with ALN has, and that has an impact as well.

To go back to the previous point as well, we were talking about the impact of COVID and the first 1,000 days, and we were reflecting this week on the children that lived almost their first 1,000 days all through COVID, and we are now seeing those children coming through and we're seeing the impact it's had on them. And it might not be in the traditional diagnosis of autism or things, but it is in speech, language and communication, behaviour and emotional and physical literacy, for example, and we are really now seeing that impact, and I think we really need to take action now to make sure that these children are given every access and support to help overcome a very difficult start for their first 1,000 days. But it was quite a reflective day we had yesterday, in fact, talking about that 1,000 days, and those children have had that for the entirety of their 1,000 days.

Very difficult. Thank you. What has been the impact of the new ALN framework for all different types of childcare?

Sarah.

Just in terms of the settings that we support—day nursery settings—I don't think you're going to be surprised when I say that the feedback that we have is, again, different depending upon which local authority the setting can reside in. Because in terms of that impact of the framework, it's very dependent on how that framework is being delivered and cascaded on the ground on a local authority basis to the childcare providers there. So, within some areas, we hear that the framework's working really well in terms of the additional support that childcare providers are getting—additional support from local authorities, from external professionals within that particular area, support in terms of funding, depending upon which childcare funding they're accessing. But, again, that can also look very different in some local authority areas as well. And one thing that we are hearing is, there's a lot of confusion from some childcare settings in terms of what is required from them. All childcare providers want to be able to provide childcare to all children—that's primarily their aim, that's what they're in the business of. The difficulty is that some providers are in a position whereby they're unable to provide that, because they haven't got the resources, they haven't got the funding or support that they need to be able to provide that childcare. And I think the difficulty we're seeing is, within our feedback from members, the answer to that question is, it's dependent on where they reside and how the local authority is looking at that framework.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Carolyn. Just to touch on another point: I know you covered an example with a newly qualified teacher and just the opportunities perhaps to go back to work or to go into work, are there any other points or any other examples around the impact on families' ability to work that you'd like to raise?

We have scheme that we run in Newport, a referral scheme, and a Newport child wanted to access childcare in Torfaen to enable that parent to work, but the support was only five hours a week and the parent needed to work for 30 hours a week. Also, the child was hearing impaired, and it was the child who needed British Sign Language in this case. How do you find a setting, first, that can offer that, because that can be quite difficult? There was no cross-county funding, so because the child lived in one county, it couldn't be funded to attend childcare in another county.

The childcare offer allows for transfer between counties, but before that age there is—. You know, within the private and voluntary sector, there isn't that opportunity to go cross-county, often, and that needs to be something—. This parent was, therefore, unable to take up a position in work because of a whole list of things. But that was just one parent's experience, and we get very similar stories across the board, I think, and after-school clubs—.

Yes, and then there are other counties that do actually do that cross-border funding. It can be based on where they live and, sometimes, where they work. There are so many different variations, and as five support organisations, some of us who have grant funding, it's about knowing and determining what those differences are. So, if we get a club that comes to us, or a setting, sorry, that comes to us and says, 'Look, we've got this child; what funding is available?', we've got to try to find, through the myriad different opportunities in different areas, 'Well, you could maybe get this one and you could—.' We've tried to collate it on many occasions, but it changes year to year, depending on budgets. So, as support organisations that—. You know, we have parents coming to us and we have clubs, settings, cylchoedd coming to us, and it's those 22 different ways of doing it. One county will fund it and one county won't, and it's—.

And then it could change, like you say, another year.

Yes, and the budgets change. You've got the childcare grant and some counties give significant funding—you know, £30,000 or £40,000-worth of that grant—to fund extra hands, and then the county next door, absolutely nothing, as in the case of the parent who's a newly qualified teacher. We say, 'Well, look, this county does', but it's so difficult.

I think the other thing is that we're reliant on people coming to us and asking for our advice and support. What we don't know is how many people are just almost giving up or thinking, 'Well, there's no support available', and not challenging it. I think one of the major issues as well is: how much of this is going on under the radar that's having an impact that we're not able to see? We only hear about the ones that come to us and the issues that get raised with us. 

I think that's a really good point, because there are so many parents who just don't know where to go, and if they're dealing with this without having your expertise, it's really worrying for them. We've got questions now from Laura Jones. Laura.

Would you mind, Chair, if I just asked a question on the back of that last point?

You can ask any question you'd like, Laura, so there isn't a problem, and if you'd like to go into—you can ask all of your questions now.

Diolch. I just want to follow up on what you were just talking about, and just expand on what you were saying about, obviously, the differences between the 22 local authorities being a major problem and that it's a postcode lottery, as Heledd referred to earlier, on a number of issues here, it seems. What is the cross-county, cross-local-authority collaboration like? You've mentioned some of the barriers there about the different levels of funding and things, but, generally, do LAs work together to find the solutions for that, or is it always a problem?

Also, I wanted to know about whether you're aware of how many specialist staff we have to deal with things like British Sign Language. Do you think that the Government could do something better to attract people into being specialists in certain fields of additional learning needs? And do you think a better programme of being able to share that across LAs, which would be on a national strategy, that that would be a good idea? Thanks.

Some local authorities work really well together, cross-county, I have to say. I also want to say that each local authority does their very best and believes that their way is the best way, and there can be some issues over that, but they all really want to do their very best. But some councils do not share and they don't collaborate very well across county. I think there's an appetite for it, but the funding structures are not set up for it, so if the funding is attached to the address of the child, then it won't travel across into the county. It's really complicated, and that's what we keep saying, really—it's really complicated, and it takes a lot of digging down.

In terms of your question about more specialist training or people, again, who would fund that? I don't think I have an answer for that. I'd have to think about that a bit more.

Gwenllian.

I think, as well, just to add on to what Gwenllian said, it's challenging for the local authority teams. We would all agree that they're trying to do their best. The childcare team that's within a local authority may have a way of working and they can be bound by the procurement tendering requirements set by their legal/finance teams as well, which, again, can vary from local authority to local authority. So, quite often, you see some frustrations, even within local authority teams, I think, and there are barriers there to be overcome.

Yes, okay. Thank you. Something for us definitely to look into, then. Just going back, you've already mentioned a lot the issues that affect the choices that families have in accessing suitable childcare, be it that the parents are working, their jobs, affordability, specialist staff, equipment, funding, et cetera, but I'd just like to go a bit further into the rurality and transport issues of getting these children, perhaps from rural areas, particularly to the right settings. What barriers are you seeing around there? Thanks.

Jane.

I think, with rural settings, the ability, with small, rural schools that are often quite old, of children to access them can be an issue if it's a physical disability. There's less availability in rural areas. On transport, I'm not sure of any funding that's available for transporting to more urban areas, or larger towns, to supply childcare for children there. So, I'm not really sure it's—

You've got some charitable funders—let's say the National Lottery, for instance—that might fund a specialist bus, but that's not particularly strategic.

No. And I suppose, then, it's dependent on the setting trying to access that funding, putting in applications. If they're a not-for-profit setting, they could access lottery funding, but, obviously, if they're a private provider, then they wouldn't be able to. So, I'm not really aware of any funding for transport from rural areas.

Do you see that as a barrier, then? That, to me, seems an obvious barrier to those people who can't afford to have a car or can't afford to travel long distances to get to that right setting because something's not available on their doorstep.

Yes, it's definitely a barrier.

The schemes that we fund for ALN don't have a transport element to that funding in them. The other issue we've come across is that you might have an older sibling that is going to a full-time school placement, but the child in childcare is going to suitable childcare that is in the opposite direction, and the poor parent has got to be in two places at once and can't, and there isn't a way to get both children into the right place at the right time. That is a huge barrier, actually, and, again, if they have no car, they're relying on public transport with a child with ALN as well on top of that. That is really significant for some families.

We know from our last parent survey—it was in 2021, so slightly out of date—that location is one of the biggest predictors of choice of childcare, and then add ALN into the mix as well. Sixty-five per cent of parents said that location was their biggest predictor of childcare. So, it is definitely a barrier.

I think as well, just on the child-minder front, they've obviously been seen as being the solution in rural areas, because they're caring for smaller numbers of children where it might not be financially viable to set up a larger setting. We've talked about the decline in child minders already, which is obviously having an impact on all areas of Wales and that parental choice and access to smaller scale childcare. It's like we just said there, you know, that if you add in the requirement around ALN, that's another hoop to jump through, whether you can find a provider in your area and find a provider with ALN, and then, potentially, even, adding in the Welsh-medium element, you're left with this massive long list of asks that, in theory, isn't going to be achievable as things stand at the moment.

Yes, I completely agree with you. Unfortunately, I know a case like the one that was just outlined, which is really harrowing. Also, there's the suitability of transport, which I'd just like to throw in for our committee's records to put down, because, obviously, there's an issue around that, because there are limited taxis that can deal with different needs, let's put it that way, especially specialist needs.

If I can just move on, do you think that families are given reliable, accessible information about the choices that they have in childcare, and how do you think that could be made better? So, before they start this process, the information that they're getting, do you think it's good or bad, and who should be responsible for providing that information to parents? Thanks.

So, on the back of that, do you think that the family information service is a bit too confusing for people, or not streamlined enough or personal enough, going, again, on the needs of the individual child? Is it too broad?

I think it’s even difficult to find the family information service websites, going through council websites. I spoke to a clerk about it earlier in the week. You could pick four or five different authorities, and just putting yourself in the place of a parent with a child and trying to find the information that you need, and you can count how many clicks it’s going to take before you actually get to anything remotely like what you think you need, and it can be up to 10 clicks, which I think is excessive, to try and get to even the family information website. I don’t think that putting in the right words necessarily, because they might put in ‘childcare', but it won’t bring up ‘family information service’ if you put in ‘childcare’. And that’s across the board on all local authority websites.

The other thing I don’t think we’re doing well enough is raising enough awareness of the CIW website, because that has got all registered provision on it there, and all the inspection reports. I don’t think parents are aware enough that they can access that kind of detailed information as well. So, I think there is work to be done in finding a more coherent, easy way for parents to access information. There is information on the websites, but you try and find it and it gets very frustrating very quickly, and there isn’t really a central point. We have improved a lot with the ALN code, and you’ve got the early years lead officers in each local authority now, and that is certainly a step towards having better information, or at least a contact point, but it’s not consistent across the board, and it’s still very frustrating to find the information.

And I think that's for us and our teams, as professionals, who know what we’re looking for, to go to those websites and actually find the information. Andrea mentioned CIW registration. When we surveyed parents, 30 per cent of parents didn’t even know about CIW registration, which indicates that there’s not enough information out there to know about the benefits of CIW registration, especially in the holidays; parents can see that there’s a club—and this isn’t necessarily just about ALN, but about accessing information—being run in a school, on a school premises, or a local authority-run leisure centre, and they think, ‘Oh, that’s safe’, because they don’t understand the benefits of the actual registered childcare. That’s definitely something that needs to be looked at, as well as finding a more coherent way for parents to find out information, on a single website, maybe. I mean, Dewis starts to go there, doesn’t it?

I think, for me, it’s not so much about knowing where to go. If it was one way of working, we could promote Dewis, we could promote FIS. I think the problem is, as we’ve talked already, how fragmented it is, about the support past that. So, even if you've found a family information website, because the support is through different funded programmes and parents try to work out their entitlement to eligibility within different funded programmes, or even tax benefits and things like that that potentially can support with the cost of childcare, the issue is that it’s so fragmented and so complex, even for those of us who are working in the sector, let alone somebody who doesn’t know how it all works. I mean, I had a call, really interestingly, yesterday evening from a parent looking desperately for childcare. She is a single-parent nurse of twins who are two and a half, and an eight-year-old, so she needs something that is going to support her needs. She didn’t have awareness of CIW, didn’t have awareness of childcare offer, and was saying that she didn’t live in a Flying Start area but wasn’t aware of the expansion, and trying to work out where she potentially would drop in and out of support and funding in one phone call for one person was extremely complex. So, I can understand it’s very challenging trying to display that on a website, until we change the model of the programmes of delivery and the complexities of those, I think.

I completely concur with that. I think the biggest feedback that we’ve had is the complexity of it all for parents, and how confusing it all is, and it’s confusing enough for a parent of a child without additional learning needs. I just don’t know where you’d start if you have children, and especially two children doing different things at the same time.

But, anyway, the last question I want to ask you is how can the availability of accessible childcare be improved. You’ve touched on a few things already, but I just want to hear what you would do if you were in the Government's position, and who can make those improvements. Who do you think is responsible?

I think, as you've said there, we've touched on all of the things that we think that we need to be able to support that availability of accessible childcare. So, just to look back over those, it is putting that child at the centre, it's looking at the child as an individual and what they need, and how can we then support childcare providers to be able to offer that support that they need. So, there are a number of different things, aren't there, just in terms of general clarity—clear guidance on the expectations on that childcare provider. That's something that childcare providers still don't have in terms of, when you look at the ALN code, what does it mean in terms of supporting the local authorities for them to meet their statutory duties. There needs to be clarity in terms of what that looks like.

On funding, again, we've mentioned the extra hands funding and needing additional funding for a childcare setting. It's very difficult because we have lots of settings that use their own reserves, if you will, in order to support children with additional learning needs within their childcare setting. And that can be because they're not receiving any funding at all, or it can be that the funding that they receive for a one-to-one doesn't actually cover the cost of that one-to-one. So, they're still then paying for national insurance, holiday pay and all the other contributions. And that's just not sustainable for every childcare provider, because we know of the variance of these childcare providers, the size, the way that they are and how they're able to sustain their business. So, there's definitely a need to look at that funding support.

And additional training, as we've said. There are lots of childcare providers that might, at the moment, say, 'We've provided care to children with additional learning needs; we are providing care', but they will actually also come back and say, as we noticed in our survey responses, 'We don't think that we are ready to accept a child with additional learning needs', even though they may currently have them or they have in the past. And that's because, just as Andrea mentioned, they don't know what this child looks like until they access that setting.

So, in terms of training, it's not just the generic training that needs to be available, but it's being able to access that reactive training, depending upon that child that they have at that time. And also, as well as training, it's additional support in terms of external professionals, looking at what strategies the childcare setting can use to support that child. Because, ultimately, it's about the childcare setting wanting to meet the child's individual needs. That's what they want to do—that's what they're required to do from CIW. But all of the barriers that we've talked about sometimes stop them from being able to do that. 

And the last thing is to look, again, at equity in terms of, generally, that equity of support, equity that's out there for the children of all programmes that they're accessing, even if it's non-funded, or if it's funded through Flying Start or childcare offer. So, there needs to be that equity.

And in terms of who can make those improvements, I think it's something that we all need to be doing together, but it needs to start from the funding and the clear messages and guidance that need to come from the Welsh Government so that then local authorities are able to cascade those clear messages. All childcare providers want to be able to support their settings to be able to offer this care and to ultimately support the children and families, because that's their main aim.

Thank you. That's really helpful. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Laura. Just finally, is there anything else you wanted to say? We've got a couple of minutes if there are any last points you want to make. Sarah covered most of them there, I think, but just if there was something that we didn't ask you that you'd like to put on the record. Claire.

Just to add on to what Sarah said. I think we're working with a system and trying to slot developments into an existing system that's been there historically and has grown and developed over time. I'm sure we'd all agree that if we were starting with a blank piece of paper and redesigning the approach and the service and everything else that goes around that, it would look very, very different, and maybe we do need to be brave and make some strong decisions there.

Diolch yn fawr. Thank you very much for coming in this morning and for the evidence that you've given. We really do appreciate it. You've given us some good pointers today as well, so thank you very much. You will receive a transcript to check for factual accuracies in the next few weeks, so please do so. And once again, thank you for joining us this morning. Diolch yn fawr.

We're going to have a short break now. I ask Members if they can be back by 11:10, just so that we can bring our next witnesses in. We'll go into private session.

Welcome back. Croeso nôl. We're back onto our seventh evidence session, which is, 'Do disabled children and young people have equal access to education and childcare?' I'd like to welcome our next witness today who has joined us, Professor Jonathan Rix, professor of participation and learning support at the Open University. Thank you for joining us; you're very welcome here this morning. 

We've got a number of questions that Members will want to put to you. So, let's perhaps see if I can start with quite a general question around the extent of the issue. To what extent do you think that children's rights to an education are being denied due to their additional needs? And to what extent can parents access childcare or early years provision?

My background is I'm a parent of a child with learning disabilities. I've been a teacher in schools in England, and I've done research in 50-odd or 60-odd countries. I teach in Norway on a regular basis. I can say almost categorically that in every single country, in every single system, children are marginalised and excluded for a huge variety of reasons, and one of those is around notions of ability, disability and so forth. In Finland, which everyone says is a fabulous country for education, you will still have 4 per cent of children out of the class the whole time. In Italy, which closed all its special schools 30 or 40 years ago, you still have 5 per cent of children out of class the whole time. I was reading a report the other day in France. The problem is, it was in French, so I need to translate it, because I'm about to misquote it, but it was an incredibly high percentage of disabled children who weren't having access to school. In England, special school numbers have just gone up since the introduction of inclusion. So, the experience of disabled children is that they are not being included in mainstream schools. The question is, 'What do you mean by inclusion?' and there are a lot of complications around that because people have rooms that they put children into in isolation and then they call them 'inclusion units'. So, you have these fundamental contradictions, but all around the world, the problem has pretty much stayed constant as long as records have been kept. This group of children are kept on the margins of schools.

How do you think Wales compares to the rest of the world on those examples that you've given?

I'm not an expert in the Welsh situation, but my knowledge of Wales is that you are doing no better or no worse in terms of that experience. The person before was talking about the 22 different ways of doing things. It really depends where you are, who you are, who your class teacher is, who your headteacher is, who your parents are, what your local authority is, who the other kids are in the class. There are so many variables. I asked my son the other day about what was his favourite schooling experience, and he told me a student's name who was in a class with him for three years. That was his best memory of school. It's about one person.

I think where Wales has done really well in the last couple of years is by setting up the new curriculum, by seeing teachers as people who need to be researchers. I think these are really positive steps. I think there are still plenty of things that you can do. In many ways, you've put yourself in a better position to overcome the barriers and the hurdles, but those barriers and hurdles are still there.

Thank you. What do you think the evidence base tells us about whether children and young people with a disability are able to access all areas of education, including those extracurricular activities, which we know are so important? Do you think there are any gaps in our knowledge?

There are two things. One is relatively easy to control—as absurd as this is going to sound on the basis of the last answer I gave—which is schools. Schools are relatively easy to control, whereas what happens in the community is actually slightly harder to control, because, as you were saying, things are disparate, things are spread around, rurality becomes an issue, it's about parents' knowledge and so forth. But there is no question that it is very difficult, as a parent of a disabled child, to get your child into mainstream provision. I cannot get my child cycling proficiency. I just can't do it. I can cycle on a road with him, but I can't get him through the training because in his school, he wasn't there when they did that, and they didn't do it in one of the types of schools that he went to. So, he's missed it, and I can't find anywhere in the community to do that. Some Scout groups are fantastic and will welcome a person with learning disabilities; others will really struggle to do it. You'd struggle to go to a mainstream swimming club, but you could go to a special swimming club. Again, it will depend where you are locally. My son swims butterfly, but in the swimming club that I was in that wasn't considered a stroke, so he had to swim against people who were swimming crawl, because it wasn't seen that people with learning disabilities could learn butterfly. So, there are these absurd anomalies that go alongside the fundamental problems of finances and resources that were being raised in the last session that you heard from.

Thank you. We've got some more specific questions now from Members. The first questions are from Heledd Fychan—Heledd.

I'll be speaking in Welsh.

There are some barriers that seem to be endemic. One of the things—. I've just finished writing a book where what I was trying to look at was what all of the problems are, on the basis of research that I've looked at over the years, and what the solutions are. The solutions to the problems seem to be scattered all around the world, but no-one's put them all together. The solutions seem to be around trying to work with uncertainty and work with the chaos that was just described—the postcode lotteries. It's about trying to recognise that the outcomes are never what you're hoping they're quite going to be. It's that the training won't deliver what you're hoping the training will deliver. The courses—the curriculum—won't deliver what the curriculum designers anticipate it to be. The interventions designed by behaviourists won't produce the results that the behaviourists wish those interventions to produce; they will for some children in some situations, but not across the board.

So, you have this problem that we have systems that are seeking certainty; we have funding that follows, 'What is the disability? What's the label?', then we apply the funding—'What are the needs?', we apply the funding. We have subject areas where—'This is what you're going to be examined in'. So, even if you open the curriculum up, you still have to do a structured exam. Those things are understood locally, so you have a different exam system in Finland than in England than in Scotland—you have a different curriculum. But, the aim behind all of them is to create neat boxes that you can attach funding to or you can identify a problem and solve the problem within that box. The problem is that no-one is actually in the box; everybody's outside the box. So, to solve the problem we actually have to have systems that embrace that uncertainty. And there are—. They're there, and your curriculum is a start in the right direction. Part of your problem for your curriculum is that you're still going to have exams at the end of it.

In Sweden, at the turn of the century, they gave 25 per cent of—. My statistics—. It might be 24 per cent or it might be 26 per cent, but they gave a percentage of settings complete control over the way that they set things up and ran things, and what the students learnt and so forth. What they discovered fairly quickly was that very similar children, but not the same children, started to be marginalised in the system, and they started to have to have different notions of what 'special' was. The reason for that was that they still had exams at the end, and because they still had exams at the end, even though they opened up everything else, the exams drove where people pointed towards, and increasingly it drove people towards that.

So, that's something that's locally understood in a Welsh context and is locally understood in a UK context; there are different exams in Scotland and in the UK. But you also have problems that arise—. I talk about how there's a problem in terms of the exams that one's doing, but it's also about fundamental structures that we use within education. So, I read an article last week about some research where it said that over half of children and young people in the UK don't like reading books, and everyone threw up their arms and went, 'Oh, this is terrible. We've got to get children reading books.' And why? If you look at the stats globally—they don't like collecting these stats; it's interesting—but the last time they looked at functional linguistics, between 40 per cent and 60 per cent of people in different countries—and the stats are a bit questionable on this—struggle to read more than functional linguistics; it would be the equivalent of reading a tabloid newspaper. So, they would struggle, 40 per cent of the population are going to struggle, to do the kind of writing and reading that's required for an awful lot of workplaces, that's required for legal documents, that's required for financial documents, that's required for virtually everything to do with school education. And what percentage of people fail GCSE? Well, it's going to be your 30 per cent. What percentage of people come out of school without the qualifications they need? It's the same percentage, roughly, as we're talking about with literacy. Is this a Welsh problem? Well, yes. But is it an English problem? Yes. It's a world problem; it's a belief that literacy is the way to overcome the problem of education. So, what we do is we say, 'You struggle to read and write, so we're going to give you more reading and writing, to get better at the thing you can't do.' So, we could take the same thing and do it about dance, and say, 'All the children who can't dance, we're putting you on the other side of the room and we're going to teach you to dance. That's all you're going to do. You're just going to learn to dance. When you can dance, then you can start doing maths.' There are so many stories like this, which are just silly. When you think of them, they're silly, yet we put all this into literacy.

So, the question would then be, 'Why are you getting the person to read? What is the value of reading?' Well, what's the value of education? Well, it's what do we want them to learn. Well, we don't quite know because it's going to depend on who they are and where they are—the uncertainty comes in. This is where your curriculum opens up possibilities. You close it back down if you start saying, 'But you need these skills to get through our curriculum', 'You need these skills to come out of our school system as a respected adult.' Then you start to have the problems. I don't know if I've answered your question, but hopefully you can see what I'm trying to say about this tension.

Certainly, and I think, in terms of education more generally, your points are extremely interesting. Looking specifically in terms of this inquiry, I understand the concept you were explaining now in terms of when you box children and young people into these rigid structures, but, in terms of barriers, some of the things we've heard already have been about children and young people not even being able to make it to school or parents having to home educate. I wonder if there are some fundamental barriers or examples internationally where that may also be a problem, or how people have overcome that in order that children and young people, whatever their background, and whatever challenges they experience, are still able to access education.

So, I mentioned France. In France, they've seen a huge growth in home schooling as a response. COVID has seen an increase in home schooling as a response. Home schooling has a very disparate set of beliefs and practices and ways of organising it. The Scandinavian countries have—and they're not all the same, by any means—but Norway in particular, Denmark, they have vernepleier and social pedagogs who are there to support the young people, and they support the young people. So, a vernepleier will support the young person in school and out of school. The problem is that a vernepleier comes with a medical training, and so comes from health, and that doesn't necessarily fit perfectly in education—well, that's one of the issues that's been suggested to me. But that seems like a useful way of building links between what you were asking earlier, which is about the social outside school and the experiences inside school.

One of the—. I talked about finding answers that are rooted in uncertainty, and one of the key answers that's rooted in uncertainty—theoretically based, but is now understood and respected around the world—is sociocultural approaches to teaching. And that's what underpins your curriculum, it underpins the Scottish curriculum now; it does not underpin the English curriculum. It's the notion that we learn through participation in experiences. A simple way of—. I'm sure you know about Vygotskij and Rogoff and people like that, and I won't go on about it, but what that allows you to do is that it allows you to be building through relationships, learning through relationships, and our school systems don't focus on relationships. We don't focus on children building connections with other children. It's not part of our planning. You might have a little bit on group work, you might have a little bit on an individual child who's identified to have a problem, so you put in a social intervention. You might give a child social stories to try and overcome behaviours that we see as negative. But our system doesn't—. Sorry. So, our system doesn't support the relationship building. A notion of somebody like a vernepleier—slightly different—is in a place to do that, if you then put in place the processes in the schools to build on that. Those processes aren't available in schools currently, I would suggest, and that comes around—. It might come back to professional development, but I'm sure I'll come back to that later.

Thank you. I'm happy to move on, Chair.

Diolch, Heledd. Questions now from Ken Skates.

Thanks, Chair. Good morning, Professor. Professor, just with regard to what you've been talking about just now, and your specific reference to literacy and the focus on literacy across all education establishments. Do you have a view on how places like Wellington College operate, and specifically the leadership style of people like Sir Anthony Seldon, who I believe was master of that particular institution, where there's a focus not just on one level of intelligence but on several intelligences?

My father-in-law was bursar at Wellington College many years ago and so I got married there. So, I have an opinion on Wellington, which is that it's a very beautiful space, and people who go there are very lucky.

Well, firstly, I'm not a fan of intelligence as a concept. I prefer the idea of multiple intelligences, and I prefer the idea of supporting multiple intelligences. The problem with intelligence is it's a little bit like virtue, and the Greeks spent an awfully long time trying to define virtue, and we spend an awful lot of time trying to define intelligence. You can't measure it; it shifts and it changes. Probably the best way of working out people's outcomes is not to measure intelligence; it's to look at their socioeconomic background, it's to look at the opportunities that are given to them, provided to them. So, does someone have intelligence in relation to musical ability or creative ability? Well, probably, if they're taught, given a guitar when they're younger. They're not going to have that ability, or they're less likely to have that ability, if they're not. So, I think it is much better to think of intelligence as being diverse. But I don't think it's useful to be thinking of particular types of intelligence or particular—another one that was popular for a while was people's learning styles, which has been widely shown to be not true.

Thank you. Just in terms of impact: what are the main impacts on children if they're not able to access education in terms of their educational outcomes and well-being?

Yes. You see, and this is the problem, isn't it, because it's all well and good you saying, 'You don't need literacy', if employers are then saying, 'Well, we're not going to pay you if you can't read this document or do that.' So, I'm not saying you don't teach reading and writing; what I'm saying is that you don't make that the main mode by which you do your teaching and learning, which is what we tend to focus on, and for assessing people. I think if we changed our output, our assessment system—. It's really interesting, because people have started to talk now much more about how we want to have a different assessment system at the end of education. And I don't think, and I alluded to it earlier, we're going to change the experiences of disabled children in school until we do this, and that's absolute. The evidence for that is just completely there. It's widely understood—it's been understood for years. So, then what do you have as an assessment system that recognises the uncertainty of the people who are coming into it and of the experiences they bring with them? Well, you've been using it, I imagine, for years—we all have—which is references, and references are a document that record what it is that we've achieved and done through our lives. So, why do we do this for everybody once they're 18, 19, but we don't do it for people from five to 15? It just seems barking to me. If you need someone to do a maths test, they can still do a maths test. You can still have a score in there, if you want, but everything is situated. And I think if you did that, then that would have a positive impact on the outcomes. 

In the current state of play, young people with learning disabilities, 1 or 2 per cent have jobs. It's the same in most countries—a very low percentage of take-up. Voluntary work is what most people can get to. You lose your benefits if you have more than £6,000-worth of savings in England. In most countries, you have a similar approach, although not everywhere. So, in Italy or Austria, and so forth, you can earn money as a disabled person without losing your benefits. But, yes, there are low levels of employment. Interestingly, in the UK, we are worse than that than other European countries, and other European countries think we are ahead of them. But, actually, there's more employment, for instance, in places like Austria. There are still social enterprises and stuff in Spain and Italy, which have a really negative view in this country because it's basket weaving, and that is understandable, but, at the same time, it's something—it's an employment. 

It's a competence. 

Yes, and it's a reason to get up in the morning. If you value it and other people value it, and there's a shop that sells it and people buy it, that's okay. If it's making mailbags, then—. It's tough, and this is where you come back to that thing about individuals. You can't completely get away from individuals. But if you try and do everything individually, we won't solve the problem. That's another thing, sorry—I bring up another topic. 

Thank you. Just briefly, then, if a child can't get access to suitable childcare or education and they have additional needs, what sort of impact does that have on the wider family, particularly on their siblings? 

I'm working in Nepal at the moment, and Nepal has—. They claim they're way behind everybody. In some ways, they've got aspects of their system that are ahead. But they still have a large percentage of children who just will never go to school, and because they will just never go to school, that is a blight on that person's life because they're being denied the same experiences as everybody else—a nice Vygotskyan sociocultural reference there. And it impacts on the families, because they have a religious view of disability, this model of disability, and so they see it as a punishment, they see it as something that reflects back on them as individuals and as families—not everybody, but a lot of people in the community.

So, if you don't have access to those basic resources, it means that you as an individual don't get access into the community, and it means that your family thereby also is restricted in the access they can get into the community. It's a simple bit of maths, and I know, as a family with a disabled child, you have people respond to you differently—you get invited to different parties, people don't want to have certain conversations with you. These are standard experiences. That doesn't mean people are nasty; it just means often they don't know what to say, or they don't know what to do, or they've got other problems that they're worrying about and they don't want to worry about your problems. Whereas if your child has got a job: 'So, what is Johnny doing?' 'Ah, he's working in a hotel.' 'Oh, what's he doing in a hotel?' 'Oh, he's cleaning the rooms.' 'Oh, that's brilliant. You must be really proud of him.' 'We are proud of him, and he's really proud of himself, too.' That's a different conversation to, 'What's Johnny doing?' 'Oh, we're really struggling to get a bit of care for him and a bit of respite for ourselves.' 'Oh, I'm bored of you now. I don't want to have this conversation. I'm worried about my other problems back home.'

Does that answer your question?

Yes, it does. Absolutely, yes. Thank you. Thanks, Chair.

Thank you, Ken. Questions now from Laura Jones. Laura.

Thank you, Chair. Shwmae? And welcome to our committee. It's nice to have you here today. It's very interesting, what you're saying so far. The committee's been told that Wales really isn't moving in the direction that the UN would recommend. The focus seems to be on providing specialist provision for certain disabilities and conditions and long-term health conditions, rather than what the UN would say would be the right thing to do, which is for the child to have an inclusive education in a mainstream school, properly supported and properly funded. I was just wondering if you could explain where you stand on that—mainstream versus special school education. Which is best?

Well, as a parent, and as a teacher, and as a human being, you have one chance, and if your local school's pants—that's a technical 'pants'—you don't want to go to that local school. If your special school's cool, you want to go to your special school. If they've got all the resources and they've got a cracking headteacher, and your class teacher's great, and a couple of support staff are great, you want to go there. My son has been to a special nursery, a mainstream nursery, a primary school mainstream, a mainstream secondary, special secondary, special college, mainstream college. And he's had, in all of them, terrible experiences. In all of them the people have been really, really good, even the ones who've been giving him terrible experiences. And he's had some really cracking experiences, too. There's been no consistency there. So, the experience of special and mainstream, in the end it comes back down to a postcode lottery, and that's impossible for parents to navigate. So my own personal view is that, given that there's a postcode lottery, and given that we are trying to have a more inclusive society, I would be for the Norwegian and the Italian models of closing the special schools and having children in mainstream schools. But mainstream schools as they currently are are failing disabled children, so they're not the right place for disabled children. So, I'm immediately contradicting myself. And this is a part of the tension, all round the world, and it's disingenuous of the United Nations if they are suggesting it's not like this all round the world. They know it is and they know that all round the world people are being excluded from schools, even in countries where they've shut all the special schools. 

So, the issue, to me, is about how you support the individual. You talked about specialist services, and there was an answer earlier on and they gave an example of a specialist service being British Sign Language. It's not a specialist service; it's a language. It's like saying Welsh is a specialist service or English is a specialist service. It's a language. The vast majority of needs in schools are communication. They don't require a specialist to be working with that individual. So, one of the big barriers that we have in Welsh schools, in English schools and in schools all round the world, even in countries where they say they don't use categories, is categories. Let's take the category of autism. Now, if I say 'autism', you could have a load of experts who could come in here and could tell you about autism. I could also bring you in experts who would tell you that, on the category of autism, there's no robust evidence to say where it starts and where it stops, and, therefore, it is not a useful category for use in schools and so forth.

Plenty of people recognise that our capacity to diagnose and allocate people to the right specialist provision is inadequate. I've got a little chart here because I wanted to remind myself, because when I was talking to researchers on the phone I got my stats wrong. In England, if you go to the local authority that diagnoses most autistic spectrum disorder, 25 per cent of children who have got a statement of special education—or an education, health and care plan—will be diagnosed with autism. In the local authority that does it least, 3.4 per cent of the children are diagnosed with it. And if you take any category, even a visual impairment and a hearing impairment, and if you take the top 10 local authorities that diagnose and the bottom 10 local authorities that diagnose, it's four times. Now, are you telling me that deafness is something that is four times more in one part of the country than in the other? It might be if your dad's in a rock band, or your mother's in a rock band, but it's not—. There are some environmental things that could cause these things. Actually, the problem is the person who's doing the diagnosis, because what they, and, you know, Beckman, who is an eminent psychologist in this field, will tell you that if you have a diagnosis, it is almost as good as tossing a coin. If you have two problems—'problems'—if you have two things to be diagnosed, it is as good as tossing a coin. And parents never agree with the diagnoses that the—when there are two diagnoses—the specialists do, and the children do. Everyone has a different opinion about it. So, then, how do you allocate the person to the right place?

And, this, then, comes to another problem of special education, and it's in lots of literature—it's in English literature, it's in Irish literature, and I think it might still be in Welsh literature—which is the notion of the continuum, and this notion that you have a continuum of needs and you can have a continuum of provision and you can slot a child into a continuum. And I did a big study on this with colleagues all around the world, and it is absolutely clear that the continuum does not provide the kind of support that your first question was asking about. The continuum is an excuse to say we're doing something and encourage a tick-box response, and to trap people in places.

It's a very long answer to your question, but my answer is I do believe that special schools are better for children than mainstream schools, often because mainstream schools do such a poor job at supporting them, and that's not necessarily their fault. But I do think that the solution isn't increasing the number of special schools, and it's not necessarily increasing the number of specialists working with individual children. That doesn't mean that their expertise isn't valuable.

If you're talking about inclusivity, you immediately think that everyone should go to a mainstream school, but, as you quite rightly pointed out, from the evidence we're seeing, specialist staff, the equipment and everything is not there in the mainstream schools to support children, particularly those with disabilities that are really specialised, as well as those who have a different language, like British Sign Language or whatever, as we saw in the last evidence session. And perhaps mainstream schools don't listen to parents enough—because they're the experts for their individual child. So, we were talking about being child led last time—individual led—and going by the child's individual needs, so maybe more needs to be done around that. How realistic do you think it is that we could get everyone in a mainstream school, and what do you think needs to be done to ensure that?

Three things. Firstly, you mentioned, for instance, BSL benefits in specialist provision, but you can also—. I mean, museums use this for BSL—there's a telephone in there—and you can have services that can provide you with real-time translation, should you need that. Similarly, there are Braille services that are available.

A problem, exactly as you've just said, is that if there are very few people who've got an issue, it's very difficult to get all of them into one place. So, it may be that Cardiff can do this thing for a particular group of people, but that's no good for people in north Wales. Therefore, what do you do for the school? Do you have five of those schools? Then you end up in the Irish system, which has gone from 110—a hundred and whatever it was, the low hundreds—special schools and up to 140, and that's in the attempt to be inclusive. You keep seeing more solutions being 'specialist'.

A lot of parents aren't the experts on their children. Mostly, parents are asking for someone to explain to them. They may be an expert on, 'Look, this makes my son unhappy, this makes my daughter angry, this makes my child smile'—those things. But they're looking for the same sort of support that teachers are. Again, whom are they looking for the support from? Then, our answer is, 'Well, here's an expert', and the expert comes in, and I know absolutely everything about, let's say—I've been talking about autism—diagnosing autism. Now, that means that I know absolutely nothing about that person who's sat there—that person I'm assessing. What I know about is what I've learnt about autism and all of the other people whom I've diagnosed with autism or whom I have met who've been diagnosed with autism whom I've had relationships with—you know, I've spoken to and talked to. So, actually, it's a combination of my experience as well as my training that gives me my position of expertise. But then, when I'm faced with this young person, I still don't know who this young person is.

To make it work for this young person, what I need to be doing is having a conversation with the parents, with the teachers and with the teaching assistants, and then having an ongoing conversation with them about what it is that's working and not working with that individual. Because I have this experience, I will have suggestions and ideas. The problem is that our assessment mechanisms for special educational needs and our systems for funding them don't allow for those kinds of conversations; they allow for once-a-year evaluations, they allow for fixed kinds of reports that then become sacrosanct. And they don't change from year to year. They're like the continuum—they trap people. A lot of educational psychologists loathe the fact that they spend their lives going around writing reports. What they'd like to do is have conversations with people. Have I answered your question?

Yes, it's all helping—it's all one big conversation, isn't it? You were saying that it's a postcode lottery. Again, it's different between all of the 22 local authorities and that's part of the problem, because if it were the same everywhere and they could access the same pot, it'd be much easier, in a way, because it's so different that you can't really—you can't advise one person in Newport and one person in Torfaen, for example, the same thing, which is—[Inaudible.]—really.

In that way, going back to the training side of it and whether people are capable, and having additional learning needs within mainstream education, to what extent do you think teachers and support staff are adequately trained, at the moment, to deal with additional learning needs and to help learners reach their full potential?

I won't run through the list, but I have it here, just in case I felt like it, of what the literature says is effective special educational needs for children in mainstream schools. One of our problems is that we have a belief in evidence-based practice. There's an argument within the theoretical—the academic—world between should we be saying 'evidence based' or should we be saying 'evidence informed'. I would suggest that evidence-based practice in classrooms is impossible, for all of the reasons that we've just been saying—it's different in Newport to Cardiff, or wherever. Different child, different context, different situation—it won't necessarily work. I could go on for hours about that, but I will not.

The problem is that, as a teacher, what you then say is, 'Okay, I only want training', so then, what are you being trained in? Are you going to be trained in this evidence base? Well, the evidence base is fundamentally flawed on virtually every single issue that you focus on. I mean, you take any systematic literature review and it always says that there's not enough research in this area; the research is not good enough. And then, we give it to teachers and say, 'You've got to do this', and they think, 'Well, what do I do? How do I do this? Which bits of this do I do? Which bits of the evidence base do I pick on?' So, training, as is so often done, that is, 'These are the characteristics, these are some of the methods that you should be using or could be using with these people' actually, generally, doesn't work. It might work for a few people, but it doesn't work for everybody.

And there's a flip side, which is that if you say, 'As teachers, what you need is more training', then what that's saying to the teachers is, 'You can't do the job. You need more training', so that means that whenever they're faced with a problem, what they say is, 'I need more training. I can't do this without training. There's someone who can train me.' So, now, we're going, 'Oh, well—.' And then you go, 'Well, I can't look after this child. I haven't got the expertise, someone else can.' And so, the child gets pushed aside. So, the notion of professional development being the means by which you overcome the problems actually makes the problem worse. I'm not the first person to recognise this; it's seen as being a problem.

There's a really interesting study that was done in 2006, funded by the National Union of Teachers, which was looking at teachers' attitudes, and they were saying that there are these three areas, these three worlds of inclusion: there's the world of inclusion of the policy makers; there's the world of inclusion of people like myself, the theorists—well, I'm also a practitioner; and then, there's the world of what goes on in the classroom. And actually, what goes on in the classroom is a political thing; it's about people making political decisions. Teachers are making decisions all the time about who gets the resources, who gets the support, how they get the resources. And there's this tendency to then say, 'Well, I'm not capable of doing it'.

However, if you change professional development into the model that you've got in Wales that you've started, where you want teachers to be researchers, that is a step in the right direction. There's a lovely study going on in Serbia at the moment. It's not a big study, but it's collaborative action research, and it's getting groups of teachers together. They're not getting a Master's and doing it on their own individual work; they're doing it collectively themselves with schools and across schools, and they're researching their practice. That, to me, is professional development that will answer the questions in the way that going off on an external expert training course would probably get in the way. 

I think that if you were to marry that kind of professional development with freeing up educational psychologists and so forth from having to do the paperwork that they currently have to do around funding—and there are other funding mechanisms that one could design—then you can actually start to say, 'Look, we can create these very rich conversations that can be happening on a much more regular basis', not about individual children, but about individual children and the context in which they're learning, so therefore, we're talking about all the children. You're much less likely to lose the child who's struggling with reading because they haven't been identified with dyslexia. You're much less likely to lose the child with Down's syndrome, who's not making friends, because you're seeking abilities to build those connections for them. You're not having the conversation once a year and you are exploring and researching your own practice.

So, you're saying that more flexibility in the curriculum is actually—. You see it as enabling more inclusivity.

Absolutely.

Going back to the training, do you not think, then, that there should be a basic understanding of ALN needs but perhaps that there does need to be some form of reactive training if there is a real specialist area? There should be that general understanding and then there should be other mechanisms to try and work it out, as you said, bringing in teachers and whoever else, instead of any other form of training.

Also, can I just ask you another question on data and information? In the last session, we were talking about the reactive training, and we were also talking about parents not having enough data or information about what schools and what options are available for their children in terms of education. I just wonder if you could talk about that.

If you take someone with Down's syndrome, they may be able to go to university, or they may never be able to string a sentence together. They may ski down a black run, or they may not be able to walk. It's exactly the same as everybody else in society. An autistic person may profoundly struggle with communication and social situations, or it may be that what are seen as their characteristics make them profoundly useful for a high-powered, well-paying job in the computer industry, to use a stereotype or cliché.

Your problem with a foundational training in additional support needs is if you go down a categorical route, you waste a huge amount of time on that particular issue, then you study it and then you don't get one 'like that' in your class for five years, 10 years, and everything that you've learned, you've forgotten. So, it didn't actually help you. And how big is this book? Because, actually, there are hundreds and hundreds of categories you can focus upon. So, my thought about ASN would be more about attitude that's been shown, experience with. I think spending time with disabled people if you haven't is just a sensible way. Diversity is about being amongst a diverse bunch of people; you respond better.

Then it's about having conversations. The point is that that expert there is not the person you want to speak to about autism, that expert there is. You can use WhatsApp, you can have conversations, you can pay for someone to come to your school and have a conversation, you can bring in that expertise and then they can ask questions. So, I think the training needs to be about researching your practice, researching other people's practice, about having conversations with people and about your attitude to disability. That would seem like sound research, and that should go across education for everybody. There is also—. I'm sorry, it's gone out of my brain. I'll leave that one.

You asked a question about data and information. The best informants for parents are other parents; that's your problem. The local offer is quite useful in England, but it's actually, 'What does it mean? What does it mean when I get into it? I don't understand the diagnosis that you've given to my son or my daughter. I don't understand what you've done. Okay, you're telling me that this is the right place. Okay, I'll go with what you say.' That tends to be what parents do. Some, who are good natural researchers, will go away, explore and campaign, but I don't think that data and information is itself the solution, unless it's done brilliantly

As one of the people said last time, 10 clicks is not brilliant, whereas a WhatsApp group, talking to other parents, is really useful—so, creating networks where people can talk to each other. Part of the problem with these systems is that then what happens—and I don't mean this in any way to insult the parents who often lead on these groups—is that they become bedded down, so the person who's leading the parent group has been doing it for a number of years, they're in that post and their child has moved through. So, now, they're actually no good for the early years in the way that they once were.

There isn't a simple solution to how you provide this, but it comes back to that same thing of conversations, and if you can get away from the formality of the processes we currently have, and increase the chances of people having informal conversations, then you're more likely to share the information. You can still evaluate it; you can still make sure that we're delivering the services we're meant to be delivering; you can still make sure the money is being spent sensibly, but you can do it with a different set of requirements on the system that might improve things like data sharing and knowledge sharing.

It's really interesting what you're saying on data sharing, encouraging—and just parental network groups because, obviously, data sharing within schools is hard. I mean, if you're organising a children's birthday party, it's impossible to get everyone's names. You're not allowed to get them. You have to rely on a four-year-old or whatever. But in that way, we do need something, like a local authority needs to take control of that and provide that networking opportunity. So, that is something that maybe we could look at. But, we could go on all day, so, Chair, thank you very much, and thank you.

Brilliant. Thank you, Laura. We've got a final question from Ken Skates.

Thanks, Chair, and in many ways, you've kind of answered it, but would you be able to point to specific international examples again of childcare and school systems that provide accessible education that we should perhaps learn from and follow?

I'll come back to: it is a postcode lottery. So, Norway is about as good as you get, okay? And I went into a school in Norway and all the children were doing Norwegian folk tales. They had a picture story, a lovely picture story, and the child with Down's syndrome was doing English at the back of the class, because that's what his timetable said. And the special teachers that I spoke to in Norway said that their practice is unchanged from the day that they shut their special school, because the system—. It was said to me by a very wise man, Rune Hausstätter, that, 'The problem with the Norwegian system'—and it's the same with every place in the world that tries to do this—'the problem with the Norwegian system is we took a very conservative system, which was special education, and we tried to stick it into an even more conservative system, which is schools, mainstream schools.' And therefore—and that's 'conservative' with a small c—and therefore, you have the same problems permeating.

I went into another school in Norway. They had this young man, 15, he had profound and multiple behaviour, intellectual issues. He was profound and multiple, with labels in a variety of ways, and he had a vernepleier and he had a support member of staff, and he went off skiing in the winter twice a week, he went cycling, he went walking, he went swimming, and this is a young lad who is in a wheelchair that is being driven electrically. But he's doing all of these things; he's having the most fantastic time. But he's 15, and there's the secondary school, but his base is in the primary school where he went to as a primary school kid, and the reason he's in that place is because that's where they can store his equipment. And I said, 'Okay, well, that's fine. So, what about skiing with the other 15-year-olds? Does he go skiing with the other 15-year-olds?' And they went, 'Oh, no, no, no. They wouldn't want to do that with him.' And you said, 'Really? Have you asked?' And they said, 'No, we know they wouldn't want to do that.' Would you have gone skiing at 15? I would. I'd have killed to go skiing at 15 with a person in a wheelchair. It wouldn't bother me at all. I would have thought it was a great adventure.

So, Norway does so much that's right. They don't have labels in their system. That's one thing I want to say just before I finish: they don't have labels in their system. They don't have—supposedly. But they use labels through the PPT, the advisory group. So, they've got rid of so much, but they've actually kept it all quietly. So, they still have special schools, but there are just very few of them, 'And we don't really talk about them. There are quite a lot around Oslo, if you want to go to one.' Yes? And yet, their attitudes are much more positive. So, I wouldn't beat Wales up. I think your hearts are in the right places, and it's the same problem around the world. Can I just say one last thing?

Absolutely. I was going to say: if you want to say anything finally, or—

The other thing I think that's really sad is: I mentioned earlier, I've mentioned autism, I mentioned Down’s syndrome, but if I say to you, 'This person has got Down's syndrome', it is of absolutely no use to the teacher whatsoever—none. They can go away and they can get the book, they can read down and they can see they might have a hole in the heart, they might have a displaced hip and, 'Well, they're not relevant', but actually, they are in PE. And they may have difficulties communicating or having relationships or whatever; they may have traits that someone else would say are autistic, or they may not have traits that somebody else would say are autistic. And the same thing with an autistic person: which bits of the autistic diagnosis apply to this young person and which bits are just them that's nothing to do with the autism?

And this is widely understood. The American Psychological Association, the British Psychological Association, they recognise that functional diagnosis is not fit for purpose. They release press releases that say, 'We have to get away from individualised assessment and diagnosis'. It is no good; it is of no use in places like schools. So, what do you put in its place? And so, there are people in the States and in Europe and so on who are trying to think of different models. But the one I favour, and this is a term I've used—so, I am banging my own drum here, but I don't think I'm unique in coming up with it—is 'labels of opportunity' instead.

So, what would be better for that child with, let’s say a child with autism, is maybe that the focus is on social relationships and maybe it’s about having a quiet area that they can get into. So, the label that they need to have is of a child who needs to be supported in creating social relationships and a child who needs to be supported with a quiet area. You tell that to a teaching assistant and they know what you’re talking about.

Now, after a year, they’ve got a friend, so they don’t need the same amount of friendship with support groups. So, they may then need a focus on repetitive behaviours; I’m making it up, but that then becomes the label. And the label is locally owned, it comes out of conversations with experts, you can be held to account—are you resolving this label that you’ve identified? But it’s owned by—. It’s an educational concept for an educational space, rather than a health concept being imported into an educational space where it will never work.

And if you do that as part of this conversation around about a class and you attach funding to a class rather than to an individual and you then say, 'We’re going to have these conversations and we’re going to have these kinds of labels about people', lots of kids can have labels. And it could be that one of those labels is that this child goes off to a setting one afternoon a week to get some type of therapeutic intervention. And that’s fine. It doesn’t mean that you exclude specialists; it just means that you invite them in—they become part of the conversation as well. That was my thing about labels of opportunity.

Brilliant. Well, thank you very much. I'm sure if there's anything else, we can perhaps write to you, and if there's anything else that you think you haven't had a chance to say, please let us know.

I have a book—

Well, there you go—[Laughter.]

—coming out in November, and I can send the committee a copy.

Brilliant. And we'll look forward to having a look through that and the research that you've done. But a huge thank you for joining us this morning. We really appreciate that and it's really good to hear about things in a global context really, which is really helpful to our work.

You will be sent a copy of the transcript just to check for factual accuracy, but we really appreciate you taking the time out this morning.

Can I just say one last thing?

Absolutely.

You know I said that Wales shouldn't be beating itself up? That's if you're comparing yourselves to everybody else. If you're considering how to improve yourselves, then it's always worth being self-critical and reflecting, and so it's excellent that you are—it's fab. So, I'm not suggesting that you've reached perfection—

No, no, don't worry—

—and that you don't carry on with your work as a committee.

Well, we'll be sending you a copy of our report as well, so you'll be able to note that as well. 

I will cite it.

But, yes, thank you so much for coming in.

Thank you.

And we'll now move on to the next item on our agenda, which is papers to note. Full details of those papers to note are set out in the agenda and the paper pack. We've got 16 papers. Are Members content to note those papers together? I see that everybody is. That's brilliant.

So, we'll now move on to item 5, which is motion under Standing Order 17.42 that the committee resolves to meet in private for the remainder of this meeting and for the whole of the meeting on 19 October. Are Members content? We will now proceed to meet in private.