The identification of special educational needs and the month of birth: differential effects of category of need and level of assessment

Abstract

The processes around the identification of special educational needs (SEN) should mean that those pupils who need most help receive it. However, there are concerns that this process is not working and there is an over-identification of pupils with SEN. Previous international research has shown that summer-born children are more likely to be identified as having SEN. However, these studies tend to treat SEN as a homogenous group. In this paper, we explore the extent to which the month-of-birth effect can be seen in subgroups of SEN. A survey of 450 schools in England was undertaken to explore the levels of provision and categories of SEN for 15,640 pupils. This led to differential month-of-birth effects being noted in category of SEN, with moderate learning difficulties being most susceptible. We hypothesise that teachers may be labelling younger children within the year group on the basis of political aspirations of attainments to be reached by the end of the academic year. When more thorough, multiprofessional assessments are undertaken, the month-of-birth effect is no longer evident. This has clear implications for assessment; identification; allocation of scarce educational resources; for educational policy on monitoring school performance and initial teacher training.

The Extent and Specificity of Relative Age Effects on Mental Health and Functioning in Early Adolescence

“…Although we found that more of the youngest children within cohorts scored above clinical threshold than older children, the present study was not positioned to determine how this translates into higher risk of diagnosis or need of specialist mental health treatment. However, there is evidence that the SDQ is a fairly reliable public health indicator of clinical need [31], and existing research indicates that disproportionately more of the youngest children in a school cohort are likely to be receiving psychology services and intervention [7] and special educational needs assessment [12,32].…”

Qui sont les élèves à besoins éducatifs particuliers ? La part d’aléatoire du signalement pour une mesure d’aide renforcée de pédagogie spécialisée dans un canton suisse

“…La norme incarnée par le groupe-classe constitue un autre facteur-clé influenc ¸ ant l'identification de besoins particuliers chez un élève au cours de sa scolarité, ainsi que l'ont montré précédemment d'autres études (Croll, 2002 ;Hibel et al, 2010 ;Keslair & McNally, 2009 ;Lupton et al, 2010 ;McCoy et al, 2012 ;Squires et al, 2012). Selon Dupanloup (1998), le fait de comparer l'élève à ses pairs constituerait une stratégie mise en place par les enseignants en vue de remédier au flou entourant les critères d'évaluation, mais également un « projet éducatif parfois occulté d'homogénéisation des individus en devenir que sont les enfants » (p. 53).…”

There are too many kids with special educational needs

“…Furthermore, less scrupulous academies engaged in covert selection procedures (Burgess et al, 2017;Rayner, 2017;Department for Education, 2018Liu et al, 2020) and 'off-rolling' became a popular school-improvement tool as growing numbers of Year 11 pupils with social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) difficulties found themselves in alternative provision with only a 10% chance of being reintegrated into mainstream settings (Squires et al, 2012;Department for Education, 2018Timpson, 2019). One Local Authority suggested alternative provision had become a de facto special school as pupils with high-incidence SEN were effectively erased from mainstream settings.…”

“…Ultimately, a divisive 'corporation' (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987) comprising Local Authorities, multi-agency professionals, businesses, voluntary organisations and parents had been established, all of whom had vested interests in SEN diagnosis. Moreover, the most vulnerable pupils were further disadvantaged, as social isolation and feelings of poor self-belief intensified (Squires et al, 2012;Lindsay and Strand, 2016;Rayner, 2017 'haunted' the near future (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987). Together, this highlights how SEN prevalence can be an artefact of complex interactions between and within whole-community agendas, leading to the claim that SEN prevalence increases when resources are linked with SEN diagnosis (Tomlinson, 2010(Tomlinson, , 2012Lindsay, 2018).…”

“…For instance, class sizes in the UK are relatively large due to limited resources, which presents challenges for the teacher in terms of maintaining an effective learning environment (Blatchford and Webster, 2018). Furthermore, schools have been incentivised to 'teach to the test' to raise attainment, resulting in a dry and uninspiring curriculum that is irrelevant to pupils' experiences (Squires et al, 2012;Menzies and Baars, 2015;Kerr and Ainscow, 2017), which causes disengagement from the learning process (Gallant, 2011). This typically manifests as externalising behaviour (e.g., aggression) in boys and internalising behaviour (e.g., anxiety, depression) in girls, which can incentivise schools and teachers to seek SEN diagnosis (Strand, 2014;Galloway, 2019).…”