Satisfaction with educational provision for children with SEN or disabilities: a national postal survey of the views of parents in Great Britain

Abstract

The success and quality of educational provision for children with SEN and/or disabilities is a matter of considerable debate, with wide differences reported by parents. Extant evidence is limited by sampling bias and size, making the true extent of (dis)satisfaction difficult to gauge. This paper reports systematic, comparative evidence from a factor analysis of a large sample of diverse parents (n = 562) in Great Britain, surveyed on key aspects of provision such as choice of school and influence of attitudinal and environmental factors. In contrast to dominant notions of widespread unhappiness amongst parents, a largely positive view of educational provision was found. Parents of children with psychosocial difficulties in mainstream schools were the main exceptions, being the least satisfied with provision. These findings offer a timely and welcome balance in the highly contentious debate on where and how additional support for children and young people with SEN or disabilities takes place.

Keywords:

• parent views
• educational provision
• satisfaction
• disablities
• postal survey
• special educational needs

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to all participating schools for facilitating the distribution of surveys to parents; to parents for their contributions; and to the Disability Rights Commission for funding the research. We also thank Local Authority personnel for agreeing that schools could be approached for inclusion in the research. The project would not have been possible without the considerable administrative efforts of Lin Walsh, Dee Fellows and Julie Foster. Thanks also to Sarah Walters and Ben Clements for their helpful comments on a draft of this paper. The views expressed in this paper are entirely the authors' own.

Notes

1. Note that Great Britain refers to the nations of England, Scotland and Wales; this is distinct from the “United Kingdom”, which also includes Northern Ireland. The research focus on GB was at the request of the funders.

2. The Disability Rights Commission (DRC) closed on 28 September 2007. Its responsibility for helping secure civil rights for disabled people, including the application of these in education, has transferred to the new Equality and Human Rights Commission which opened for business on 1 October 2007.