Part 2: Determining the level of need

2.1
In this Part, we describe:

• the Ministry's framework for supporting students with special needs; and
• how the Ministry determines how many students need the highest level of support.

Summary of our findings

2.2
The Ministry considers its support for students with high special educational needs to be part of a continuum of support. The Ministry set its level of support for students with high special educational needs in 1997. Since then, the Ministry has used different sources to monitor whether this proportion is still appropriate to use. The Ministry was aware of increases in the level of need for the Severe Behaviour and Speech Language Initiatives.

2.3
The Ministry's referral data for the Severe Behaviour and Speech Language Initiatives was not reliable at the time of our audit, so the Ministry may not have an accurate and complete picture of the overall level of need. The Ministry is working to improve the integrity of its referral data.

2.4
We have made one recommendation in this Part, for the Ministry to further improve, analyse, and report information about the overall level of need for its support. The Ministry needs to use its monitoring information to help identify all students with high special educational needs who are eligible for support.

Framework for supporting students with special needs

2.5
The level and type of support the Ministry provides to students is based on an assessment of their needs. The Ministry provides support to:

• children up to school-entry age³ whose needs are assessed as moderate to very high (referred to within the Ministry as "early intervention" support);
• students whose needs are assessed as moderate to high (referred to as "moderate needs"); and
• students whose needs are assessed as high to very high (referred to as "high needs").

2.6
Figure 2 sets out the different types of support that the Ministry provides, and how they fit into its framework for supporting students with special needs.

Figure 2
The Ministry of Education's framework for supporting students with special educational needs

2.7
The Ministry's early intervention support is provided to about 12,000 children whom it assesses as having moderate to very high needs. These children are generally under the age of five, and the support is provided either at their home or in an early childhood education centre.

2.8
For students whose needs are assessed as moderate (about 50,000 to 70,000 students), the Ministry provides individually allocated and school-based resources that include:

• Supplementary Learning Support, which includes similar services to those provided through ORRS;
• regional health hospital schools, for students who are in hospital or at home because of a long-term illness or to recover from an injury;
• day and residential special schools, for students with moderate and high physical, sensory, behavioural, and learning needs;
• specialist support for students with moderate sensory and physical disabilities;
• Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour (RTLBs), who are school-based teachers who work with students and provide advice to classroom teachers;
• the Enhanced Programme Fund, for selected schools to provide particular programmes for students with special needs; and
• the Special Education Grant, provided to all schools as part of their operational funding, to provide extra assistance for students with all levels of special educational needs.

2.9
Through the four initiatives, the Ministry supports up to about 20,500 students whose needs are assessed as high. It also provides:

• assistive technology, for students who need equipment such as wheelchairs, communication aids, or modified computers;
• property modifications (for example, ramps to allow wheelchair access, lifts, rails, or modified bathrooms); and
• transport assistance, a travel subsidy, or a travel allowance for students who need this assistance for safety or mobility reasons.

Determining how many students need the highest level of support

The Ministry has reviewed and monitored the level of need for the four main initiatives, but there is a risk that some students with high special educational needs are not identified by the Ministry.

All four initiatives

2.10
The Ministry generally relies on application and referral data to assess the level of need for support. It also relies on information gathered from its staff working with schools and RTLBs. The Ministry told us that the needs of students eligible for support through ORRS, the School High Health Needs Fund, and the Speech Language Initiative are usually very apparent. The Ministry considers it unlikely that such students would not have already come to its attention or be accessing Ministry support.

2.11
The Ministry is gathering data from the Ministry of Health's programme to test the hearing of newborn babies and its B4 School Check programme (which checks for any health, behavioural, social, or developmental concerns before a child starts school). The Ministry believes that information from these programmes will help identify students who will need support (including those with high special educational needs), and provide useful data with which to forecast demand.

2.12
We agree that these programmes could be useful ways of collecting this information but note that, at the time of our audit, the Ministry of Health was reviewing the B4 School Check programme. If the outcome of the review shows the programme has patchy or poor coverage, or leads to the programme being discontinued, the Ministry will need to find other mechanisms to supplement or gather the information it needs. The Ministry intended to develop a screening tool for behaviour that does not rely on these programmes as part of its action plan for 2008/09.⁴

Ongoing and Reviewable Resourcing Schemes

2.13
The ORRS were established in 1998, after the Ministry trialled an Ongoing Resourcing Scheme in 1997. After the trial, the Ministry provided advice (which informed a recommendation to Cabinet) that the scheme include enough funding for up to 1% of the national student population.

2.14
A survey in 2008 – the 2008 resourcing survey⁵ – indicated that 1.1% of the national student population would be eligible for ORRS support. Budget 2009 increased the ORRS funding to support this many students.

2.15
The Ministry told us that it knows how many students are likely to be eligible for support through ORRS, because most children with high needs are identified at a young age through health professionals and early childhood centres. Our analysis of application data provided by the Ministry shows that ORRS support is being provided to about 1% of the national student population.

School High Health Needs Fund

2.16
The Ministry set up the School High Health Needs Fund in 2001, in response to a recommendation in the Wylie report.⁶ The Wylie report reviewed the implementation of the Special Education 2000 policy, and noted that there were about 300 students with high health-related needs who could not safely attend school without additional support. The School High Health Needs Fund was funded to provide support to this many students.

2.17
The Ministry has noted a marked increase in the number of applications from students with severe allergies and Type 1 diabetes. The Ministry told us that, in the past, it has responded to the higher demand by seeking additional funds through the Budget process or drawing funds from other sources. Budget 2008 increased the number of students able to access the School High Health Needs Fund by about 250 students, to a total of 550 students. Budget 2009 maintained this level of funding.

Severe Behaviour Initiative and Speech Language Initiative

2.18
The Ministry set up the Severe Behaviour Initiative in 1999 after having set up the Speech Language Initiative in 1998. A 1997 Cabinet paper proposing the two initiatives referred to research suggesting that the numbers of students with behavioural difficulties was increasing, and national and international studies estimating that 2–6% of students had behavioural difficulties.

2.19
The Cabinet paper proposed three levels of support, with the most intensive support (the Severe Behaviour Initiative) being available to a maximum of up to 1% of the national student population. For the Severe Behaviour Initiative, the Ministry told us that the shorter-term interventions proposed in the 1997 Cabinet paper, and a subsequent Cabinet paper, were not effective enough if spread across the full target number of students. The Ministry told us that it now uses the Severe Behaviour Initiative to greater effect by providing longer-term support to fewer students (about 0.7% of the population of students at school).

2.20
The 1997 Cabinet paper proposed that the level of support through the Speech Language Initiative be increased for each student each year, especially for those students in their early school years. This increase was proposed for the number of students receiving support for speech language difficulties at that time. The Ministry's figures show that Speech Language Initiative support is provided to about 1% of the national student population.

2.21
The Ministry has reviewed and monitored the Severe Behaviour and Speech Language Initiatives since it set them up. The reviews and monitoring have indicated that the level of need for support from these initiatives is higher than 1% of the national student population. During our audit, Ministry staff and educators noted an increasing number of referrals and requests for support for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder and students with severe behavioural difficulties. Ministry staff and educators also noted an increase in the intensity, complexity, and numbers of severe and complex behaviour cases. The Ministry is aware that there are students who could be eligible for Severe Behaviour Initiative support who have not come to its attention.

2.22
After we finished our audit fieldwork, the Ministry worked with national educator organisations to prepare a behaviour and learning plan (called Positive Behaviour and Learning). Through this plan, the Ministry and other agencies will seek to address issues of challenging and disruptive behaviour in schools and early childhood education centres.

2.23
Educators also told us that many students the Ministry assessed as having moderate needs were displaying needs that were increasingly severe at school, particularly those with behavioural difficulties. Educators told us that this placed significantly more pressure on teaching staff and school communities, and on staff and services providing support for those students. This had the flow-on effect that resources such as RTLBs and the Special Education Grant were used to support students with high needs, leaving some students with more moderate needs (such as those with delayed reading ability) with less or no support.

2.24
The Ministry told us that it unsuccessfully sought increased funding on several occasions for both the Severe Behaviour Initiative and the Speech Language Initiative, based on evidence gathered from the work the Ministry has commissioned and from other sources.⁷

2.25
After we finished our audit fieldwork, the Ministry implemented monthly monitoring and reporting of application and referral data for the Severe Behaviour Initiative and Speech Language Initiative. This reporting includes fortnightly updates to the Minister of Education: Special Education, which should help inform policy decisions about planning and prioritising support.

Further work to do in monitoring, reviewing, and reporting

2.26
In our view, for ORRS, the School High Health Needs Fund, and the Speech Language Initiative, there is still a risk that some students who would be eligible for support do not apply, or are not referred for Ministry support. This risk arises because the Ministry relies mainly on applications and referrals for its high-level support as the main indicator of the level of need for all four initiatives. However, at the time of our audit, referral data for the Severe Behaviour and Speech Language Initiatives was unreliable (see paragraphs 4.36–4.42 where we discuss this further, and paragraphs 5.22-5.23 describing work that has been done in 2009 to improve the reliability of referral data). Also, several Ministry staff we spoke to expressed a concern that, in areas with high numbers of Māori and Pasifika students, potentially eligible students were not accessing services.

2.27
While acknowledging the work that the Ministry is doing to monitor the level of need for ORRS, School High Health Needs Fund, Severe Behaviour Initiative, and Speech Language Initiative support, we encourage the Ministry to be vigilant and review the overall level of need in a systematic, focused, and ongoing manner. We also encourage the Ministry to routinely analyse and report the information it has to inform policy decisions about the resourcing need for the four initiatives. Unless this information is used routinely, there is a risk that policy decisions about resourcing are not based on rigorous information on the overall level of need. This could mean that students with high special educational needs may not all have access to appropriate support.

3 Children are not legally required to attend school until they turn six years old, so they can receive Early Intervention support up until the age of six. Children who start school at the age of five can continue to receive Early Intervention support for up to six months after they start.

4: Ministry of Education (2008), Setting Boundaries – a plan of action for addressing behaviour issues in schools and early childhood centres, Version Two, Wellington.

5: Cognition Consulting Ltd (2008), Survey of Special Education Resourcing, Ministry of Education, Wellington.

6: Wylie, C (2000), Picking up the Pieces: Review of Special Education 2000, New Zealand Council for Educational Research, Wellington. Referred to as the “Wylie report”, this analysis of Special Education 2000 was commissioned by the Ministry for the High Court judicial review of the policy in 2000.

7: These sources include the “Church Report” – Church, J (2003), The definition, diagnosis and treatment of children and youth with severe behaviour difficulties, Ministry of Education, Wellington – and Gillon, G, Moriarty, B, and Schwarz, I (2006), An International Literature Review of Best Practices in Speech and Language Therapy: Assessment and Intervention Practices, University of Canterbury, Christchurch.