Will Gatti & Daniel Finn

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Needs Must

Needs Must

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I tip my hat to  Michael Rosen, because not only is he that great thing, a poet, but he is also Mr Total Common Sense when it comes to writing about schools and the bumbling of some politicians who, when put in charge of the Department of Education would prefer to do … not very much at all.

Michael’s open letter in yesterday’s paper was, (think battle ships for a moment), a shot across the bows of our Minister for Education. He rumbled against the minister who, when confronted by a crisis, ‘pootled’ (my word) by only offering ‘a fresh look’ at funding for students with special needs. That’s just like offering them fresh air!

So, this politician is ‘pootling’ because special needs doesn’t need ‘a fresh look’! Schools don’t have the money to pay for the support their students need …. because it has been taken away from them!

‘Children with ‘special needs’ are not a separate category,’ Michael writes. ‘They aren’t a problem…. They aren’t even ‘they’. They are us.’

They are indeed.

So, Mr Education Minister, whoever you are, (because their might be a new by the time I have finished writing this), ‘reason not the need’ and just get on with putting back what you and your predecessors have taken away.

All children need appropriate support and there’s an end of it.

Now you can go on a Bear Hunt!