Phillip Taylor MBE review. Special Educational Needs and Disability Discrimination in Schools

BOOK REVIEW SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS AND DISABILITY DISCRIMINATION IN SCHOOLS A Legal Handbook By Sarah Hannett, Aileen McColgan and Elizabeth Prochaska ISBN: 978 1 90840 776 4 (book) 978 1 90840 777 1 (ebook) LEGAL ACTION GROUP The access to justice charity Education and Service Trust Limited www.lag.org.uk UNPICKING A TANGLED WEB: AN AUTHORITATIVE, EASY TO READ HANDBOOK FROM LAG ON A DIFFICULT AREA OF LAW An appreciation by Phillip Taylor MBE and Elizabeth Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers Lawyers, teachers and other professionals dealing with children and young people with special educational needs will welcome this latest publication from the highly regarded Legal Action Group (LAG). True to their well-known stated aims, LAG continue to produce authoritative and meticulously researched legal texts and handbooks written by experts who actually insist that such publications should be clearly written and, ideally, understandable to lay readers as well as professionals. This new handbook is no exception. It deals with education law in the wake of the implementation of the Children and Families Act 2014, which, as far as this area of education law is concerned, has created a new legal landscape in which the ‘old’ concept of SEN, “Special Educational Needs”, in place under the Education Act 1996, has been replaced by EHC: education, health and care. Where formerly these three elements of support were dealt with separately -- compartmentalized in effect -- the concept of EHC recognizes that a child’s educational and health needs should be viewed holistically. Writing in the foreword, Tribunal Judge Jane McConnell refers to this conceptual shift as the biggest change in the legislative framework in over thirty years. The aim for local authorities (by 2018 it is hoped) will, in her words, ‘bring the process closer to the original goal of a child or young person being considered as a whole individual.’ As she further explains, the book is not intended as a simple guide to this area of practice. It is a legal handbook offering in-depth legal research and comment provided by three editors who are experts in this field. This is a reliable resource, she adds, which can be relied upon ‘to help you unpick what might be otherwise considered a tangled web of legal rights, policy and practice.’ The editors explain further that this is a book for representatives who appear on behalf of children and young people (to age 25) in the First Tier Tribunal (FTT). It meets an urgent need for a specialist text in this area of law -- one that’s as useful to parents as it is to specialist practitioners. Also note that this handy paperback volume contains a wide range of research resources, including tables of cases, statutes and statutory instruments. There is also a table of European and international legislation and conventions. Almost one third of the book is taken up by the three appendices, which include extracts from both primary and secondary legislation and extracts from the SEND code. For carers, educators and volunteers as well as professionals, and local authority officials, this is the ideal reference book to consult on this often very difficult subject. The law has been stated as at January 2017, although further up-to-date material was added at the proof stage.