Special Educational Needs

Nadine Dorries

To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many children with emotional, behavioural and social difficulties there are in (a) Mid-Bedfordshire constituency, (b) the East of England and (c) England. (302919)

The requested information is shown in the table.

*Maintained primary*¹*, state-funded secondary*^{1, 2} *and special schools*³*: Number of pupils*⁴ *with behaviour, emotional and social difficulties*⁵*. In Mid-Bedfordshire constituency, East of England Government office region and England—January 2009*
	Mid-Bedfordshire	East of England	England
	Maintained primary	State funded secondary	All special	Maintained primary	State funded secondary	All special	Maintained primary	State funded secondary	All special
2009	60	170	0	6,550	9,210	990	58,930	82,270	13,240
¹ Includes middle schools as deemed. ² Includes City Technology Colleges and Academies. ³ Includes maintained and non-maintained special schools. Excludes general hospital schools. ⁴ Headcount of solely registered pupils only. ⁵ Pupils at School Action Plus and those pupils with a statement of Special Educational Needs provided information on their primary need and, if appropriate, their secondary need. Information on primary need only is given here. Note: Pupil numbers have been rounded to the nearest 10. Source: School Census

To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families which maintained special schools he has visited since his appointment; and on what date each visit took place. (303587)

My right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State has visited the following maintained special schools since his appointment:

Date	Schools visited
3 April 2008	Michael Tippett school, London
23 October 2008	Lyndale cchool, Wirral
11 May 2009	Two Rivers high school, Tamworth
10 September 2009	Jack Tizard school, London

In addition, the Secretary of State has visited the Treehouse school in Haringey, a non-maintained special school specialising in providing education and support for children with autism.

The Secretary of State has also visited special schools in his capacity as constituency MP. In addition some of the mainstream schools he has visited also had excellent specialist units to support children with special educational needs.

Volume 501: debated on Wednesday 2 December 2009