Pupil involvement in special educational needs disagreement resolution: a parental perspective

Recent international and Governmental policy has identified the need for all public services and professionals involved with children to take into account the children's views, needs and wishes, when making decisions about their care and educational provision. This is of particular importance in the context of special educational needs disagreement resolution. This article reports on a small scale preliminary study carried out in January 2004, focusing upon parental perspectives of pupil involvement in SEN disagreement resolution. Ten parents of children with SEN were interviewed using a semi-structured interview schedule, addressing their experience of the disagreement resolution process and the extent and nature to which their child was involved. Whilst it is acknowledged that the sample in this study was small, and thus may be regarded as tentative and preliminary, a thematic analysis of the content of the interviews indicated that children are not directly involved in informal disagreement resolution meetings. Most notably the parents report that they are unclear about the process and rules about directly involving children. Where children are involved, their views are given indirectly and in most cases their views are only presented by the parents. The authors make several recommendations for enhancing pupil participation in SEN mediation arrangements including, making the overall process more transparent and perhaps having a child advocate who could ensure that the child's views are represented in a way that is suitable to the particular needs of each child.