Changes to SEN funding having a ‘devastating’ effect on historic college, say leaders
Tue 9 Apr 2019 06.00 BST
The historic Royal National College for the Blind (RNC), which counts the former education secretary David Blunkett among its alumni, has sold off part of its campus in an effort to survive a funding crisis that is engulfing special educational needs (SEN) provision across England.
The RNC, which is based in Hereford and has been training and educating visually impaired young people for almost 150 years, has seen student numbers decline to unsustainable levels in recent years as a result of SEN funding reforms that have coincided with deep cuts to local authority budgets.
Senior leaders at the RNC are calling on the government to address the crisis, which they say is having a “devastating” impact on educational provision for post-16 students with visual impairment (VI).
The college has sold off its southern campus to Herefordshire council and cut staff to secure its immediate future, but its leaders are demanding urgent reform to the commissioning and funding system, which they say is creating barriers for young people with VI.
Two decades ago the RNC had 150 students. The numbers dropped away as provision in mainstream schooling improved, and changes in 2014 that handed SEN funding to cash-strapped councils led to a further decline. Now the college struggles to get 75 students.
According to the RNC, not only do the changes jeopardise the future survival of the college, they also mean young people with VI are losing out because they cannot access the specialist teaching and training the college offers. The Royal National Institute for the Blind estimates there are 10,000 young people in England aged between 16 and 25 with a VI severe enough to require specialist support.
According to the college principal, Mark Fisher, VI is a neglected area of SEN because it is a low-incidence, high-impact disability and at the bottom of the pile for influence and funding.
“We do understand the pressures on local authorities. We know the number of young people requiring specialist support is increasing. But we are finding people with sensory impairment are the last on the list to be considered,” he said. “Often we find local authorities think they can meet the need within the local mainstream provision, but there’s a significant difference between specialist and mainstream provision.”
The residential college, which costs about £45,000 a year to attend, offers not just an academic education but also skills and training for life for students with VI, and supports them to live independently and access work.
“What we exist for is to ensure there’s true equality for people with VI. That’s what we are fighting for,” said Fisher. “This is not just about the survival of the college. It’s about what the survival of the college means for people with VI.”
Lord Blunkett was a pupil at the RNC in the 1960s, when it was based in Shrewsbury before moving to Hereford. He remembers it as a very different institution from the one it is today. There were no academic qualifications on offer as there are now – he had to go to night school to gain those – but he learned valuable mobility and life skills, as well as enjoying the camaraderie and participation in sports such as cricket, football and cycling.
“For me it was a very different college to the one now. It’s changed enormously. Now they do A-levels, they do technical qualifications; it’s offering a wide range of opportunities,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of sympathy with local authorities. But the bottom line is what this is doing to young people and their future, and that has to be paramount.
“I want young people and their families to have genuine choice, to have a placement in a residential setting where it’s appropriate for that particular young person with their particular needs at a particular moment in time. It would be a massive loss of choice [if the college did not survive]. Once you lose it, it’s extremely difficult to get back.”
Laura Hughes’s daughter Tiri, who has ocularmotor palsy and nystagmus, is now at Oxford University studying medicine after getting four A*s at A-level at RNC. After a positive experience at her mainstream primary school, Tiri began to struggle at her secondary school, which did not meet her needs.
Her experience at RNC was life-changing, her mother said. “It was the absolute making of her. It enabled her to fulfil her potential in a way she had never been able to before. It would be a tragic loss [if the RNC became unsustainable]. Without the school we would be turning out a generation of young visually impaired people who do not reach their academic or personal potential.”
Professor Tamar Thompson, the chair of the board of governors, said: “The decision to sell part of our campus has not been made lightly and we wouldn’t be going ahead if we were not certain that it is in the best interests of our current and future students, staff and parents or guardians.
“The RNC board is passionate about the college and its students, and we are confident that this step can help secure the RNC’s future for the next generation of young people with visual impairments.”
The Department for Education said: “Our ambition for children with special educational needs and disabilities is exactly the same for every other child – to achieve well in education, go on to college or university, and to live happy and fulfilled lives.
“The high needs budget is over £6bn this year, but we recognise the strain on local authorities’ budgets, which is why in December we announced an additional £250m up to 2020 which will go some way to helping councils manage their high needs cost pressures.”
