Give a historic and analytical overview of special educational needs Essay

Give a historic and analytical overview of special educational needs (SEN) provision in England 1870 to present - Essay Example Today â€Å"All teachers should expect to teach children with special educational needs and all schools should play their part in educating children from their local community, whatever their background or ability. Training for teachers, appropriate funding for schools and improvements in the way their achievements are judged is vital† (SEN, 2010). Although training is not always equalized, significant progress has been made. In 1870, the Elementary Education Act was established by Liberal MP William Forster started to standardize education, and â€Å"made provision for the elementary education of all children aged 5-13 and established school boards to oversee and complete the network of schools and to bring them all under some form of supervision† (Education, 2010). However, at the time, SEN children were often seen as a blight on society, better isolated in institutions rather than mainstreamed with their peers. Theoretically, there has been a change in terms of how s pecial needs and handicapped children are treated by educational and healthcare systems since. Unfortunately, special education programs are a recent phenomenon and parents, teachers, and other professionals therefore should know that special group programs only began to become widespread in the latter half of the twentieth century, as the public perception of institutions began to change and the government began to shift the parameters used for classifying disabilities. At the beginning of the 20th century, some accountability for SEN children had started to creep into the legislation, albeit not in a very strongly worded way. â€Å"Not surprisingly, therefore, the Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic Children) Act of 1899 empowered - but did not require - school boards to provide for the education of mentally and physically defective and epileptic children† (Education, 2010). As the 20th century progressed, a shift towards group programs became more popular, especi ally for high-functioning disabled student individuals, and special education services became more widespread as well, leading to a decrease in the number of functioning individuals with disabilities being constrained to home or institutional life. This gradually progressive process is spoken of in terms of deinstitutionalization as well as socialization and inclusion. As one thinker notes, â€Å"It is not fully clear who among the deinstitutionalized population would have been the long-stay patients in earlier areas† (Special, 2007). Often the process of institutional facility offered by long-stay programs is impaired by the perception that these programs keep socially maladjusted individuals from encountering problems in a complex outside world that is often defined by the same sense of boundary offered. During the first half of the twentieth century, before more environmentally inclusive programs were offered, many individuals were constrained in adolescence and held well into middle age. In many circles, prevailing wisdom still seems to state that psychotherapy is an appropriate treatment method. But the number of group therapy patients has combined with many private-sector programs which can differ from state to state and region to region, in terms of prevalence. After the first World War, â€Å"Lloyd George set about an ambitious programme of post-war social reform: the national insurance scheme was extended to cover almost all workers, old age pensions were doubled, local authority house building