Introduction

This section outlines the provision available for Telford and Wrekin pupils with emotional and/or behavioural difficulties. Children with emotional and/or behavioural difficulties are not a homogenous group and their difficulties range from the relatively minor and temporary to the complex and long lasting. Consequently, they present the same range of challenges to teachers and this in turn has required the Authority to develop provision to meet these needs and in a small number of cases to purchase provision outside of the Authority. The one thing that is common to all these children is that they are from Telford and Wrekin and therefore the Authority has a legal duty to provide education for them.

The Authority already has an existing commitment to promoting social inclusion through meeting the needs of pupils with special educational needs, (including emotional and/or behavioural difficulties), within their local school. This commitment has been strengthened after the extensive consultation on the Authority's inclusion strategy. This commitment is balanced by the duty to meet the needs of all pupils and to make efficient use of resources.

There is a statutory requirement that all schools should have a behaviour policy which is determined and approved by each schools governing body.(School Standard and Framework Act 1998) A key part of any behaviour policy is to set out the stage based model of assessment and intervention for working with pupils who have emotional and behavioural difficulties. Since Local Government Reorganisation school ofsted reports indicate that the majority of schools have effective systems for managing behaviour and that behaviour is good. (See figure 1).

Figure 1

Ofsted Reports - Summary of Descriptors as at January 2001

The table shows the number of schools, which achieved each of the descriptors listed. Every Ofsted report has been included so some schools may appear more than once in the statistics.

However there are a small group of pupils whose difficulties cannot be managed without the need for extra support outside of the resources normally available to the school. This may mean that their needs require a statement of special educational needs and the additional support that is attached to the statement. This support will usually be in the form of additional staffing with guidance from the Behaviour Support and Educational Psychology Services.

Further information on the role of these services and other services/agencies who can support children with behavioural difficulties together with examples of good practice in this area can be found in section 3 (Services/Agencies/Support & Good Practice). Link to section

This section now outlines the support for pupils in the following settings:

• Pre-school
• Primary
• Secondary (Key Stage 3)
• Secondary (Key Stage 4)
• Special Schools
• Education Other than at school
• Permanently excluded pupils

There are links in each section to other support that is available and also to examples of good practice. The examples of good practice are taken from all stages of education and reflect how individual schools have developed provision to meet the needs of their pupils.