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Parental Participation in Schools
 

Parental involvement in the education of children with special educational needs

Scotland

Austria

Belgium
(Flemish Community)

France

Italy

Netherlands

Portugal
A child with complex special educational needs may have a Record of Needs opened. This legal document entitles parents to:
  • participate in the assessment process of their child’s progress and future needs;
  • help in deciding on the most suitable school; and
  • be involved in the review of the Record of Needs.

Initiatives by education providers and schools to help parents become closely involved in meeting their child’s needs include:

  • helping to draw up an Individualised Educational Programme;
  • improving communications through using home-school diaries;
  • meeting regularly with educational psychologists, social workers, careers officers, etc;
  • providing information and advice for parents on the choice of schools with specialist provision; and
  • encouraging parents to raise matters of concern quickly with the school.
 A child can be formally recorded as having special educational needs at the request of the parents or headteacher and following a formal report by a specialist.

Children with special educational needs have the right to attend a special school or class. Recent educational policy has allowed disabled pupils to be integrated into mainstream classes of general schools and to follow an individualised curriculum. Parents of children with special educational needs form a network. The legal guarantee of integration into mainstream classes followed successful campaign activities by this network.

 There is some particular parental involvement which builds on the initiatives in Belgium (Flemish Community) outlined above. Parents’ associations are represented in the committee responsible for placing pupils within the structure for meeting special educational needs. The discussion of each case is conducted in the presence of the parents concerned. Children with special educational needs are integrated into mainstream classes. Class teachers are supported by extra teachers, most of whom have undertaken specific training.

An individual educational plan for each child with special educational needs is drawn up by class teachers, support teachers and professional staff such as psychologists. Parents are consulted fully and also take part in the evaluation process. They attend regular meetings with class teachers, support teachers and professional staff.

In some schools, parents are involved in a committee which oversees the school’s policy on inclusion.

Representatives of parents’ organisations are members of committees set up at the Local Authority level for improving the inclusion policy and standard of service.

Parents can be involved in various stages of the formal structure which includes:
  • formal testing;
  • an action plan to meet the child’s needs;
  • rucksack funding where the funds to meet the specified needs follow the child throughout his or her education;
  • participation councils; and
  • national policy to prevent the growth of schools for special education.

Schools have developed a wide range of approaches to consulting with and advising parents.

 Parents of children who have learning difficulties at school are directly involved when special assessment procedures are required or it is recommended that their child repeats a grade rather than be promoted to the next grade. Cases of children with special educational needs are individually examined by schools, social workers and educational psychologists.

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