Dr Neville Brown, principal of Maple Hayes Hall School in Staffordshire, is angry. Local authorities, he says, are breaking the law by trying to insist children with special educational needs (SEN) go to mainstream schools and withholding information from parents.
"Parents are being kept in the dark about their children's rights," says the dyslexia special school head teacher. "We spend a lot of time advising parents on how to get their child a SEN statement, when we should be teaching children."
In his new report, Cheating the children, Brown lists examples of parents forced to take legal action to get their child the SEN provision they need. The report, published last week, notes that even when the government tells councils to follow the law in individual cases, they often fail to comply.
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