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Special Educational Needs and Individualised Education Programmes: Issues of Parent and Pupil Participation

Recent statute in Scotland (Children (Scotland) Act, 1996; Standards in Scotland’s Schools, etc. Act (Scotland), 2000; Disability Discrimination Act, 1995, as amended) has lent force to attempts to increase the participation of pupils and parents in educational processes, particularly in decision-making. These attempts are apparent in policy recommendations (SOED,1994; SOEID, 1998) and are further evidenced in the field of special educational needs (SEN) in the response to recent proposals for consultation (SEED, 2002) and in the drafting of new legislation with regard to additional support needs. While there is a consensus that such participation is desirable, education professionals are not in agreement about what constitutes participation, nor have schools found easy the development of more participative ways of working with pupils and their parents. This article discusses these issues in relation to the findings of a recent Scottish Executive funded research project Raising the Attainment of Pupils with Special Educational Needs (Banks, et al., 2001)