Mr. Adam Harris:

I will pick up on a few of the points made. Not reinventing the wheel is particularly important because schools are getting so many new initiatives at the moment. In the resources we have developed, which I referenced, we have used the Middletown framework, the Autism Education Trust framework and all of the relevant departmental policies so there is not something new. It is just making everything a bit more cohesive. The point regarding accreditation is interesting. AsIAm accredits many organisations such as universities, shops and other businesses in respect of being autism friendly. We have been reluctant to do that for schools. There is a reason for our reluctance. We would very much like to do it. We must look, however, at a pattern that is occurring and which is worrying. Sometimes in a geographical area one school will step forward, state that it wants to be inclusive and that it will do the right thing by opening a special class. What tends to happen then is that every time one school steps forward all of the other schools take two steps backwards. We are hopeful that the Education (Admission to Schools) Act 2018 will address this issue with the ability to designate areas for autism classes.

We are concerned that some ghettoisation is happening. In other words, one school ends up taking all of the children with special needs. That school is then mandated as the school that is good at that instead of there being a recognition that every school has a role to play. It is worth stating in this context that league tables and media reporting of league tables have a negative impact on outcomes for autistic students. Those league tables define that the only good school is one which does well in the league tables as opposed to one that works for everybody. I would love to do accreditation but the worry is that it would designate a school as the only school that does this.