Many children will have a special learning need at some time during their school career and will need to have some extra support and help to access and keep up with the curriculum. Primary schools are set up to cope with children within a wide band of ability and have a responsibility to integrate all children within their local community. The only children who may have to go to a special school are children with serious mental and physical delay or profound physical difficulties.

All schools are required to have a teacher who acts as a Special Education Co-ordinator. This person is in charge of monitoring all youngsters who have any kind of special need that may affect their ability to access the usual curriculum. This could be a learning difficulty in the area of literacy (dyslexia) or numerary (dyscalculia), hearing or visual impairment, emotional and behavioral difficulties, physical disability, or a wide range of medical or neurological conditions.
(more…)