Where's the research, asks school head

Jan Kennington says the Government doesn't know what the impact of its cuts to school therapists will be. Photo / Dean Purcell

The principal of Wilson School, which is to lose $260,000 in the Government's cuts to school therapists, is concerned that the decision to strip special-needs children of therapy hours cannot be backed by research.

Jan Kennington, who has been at the special school on the North Shore for 11 years, has already seen the number of therapists halved under changes to special-needs funding in 2000.

Wilson School has 60 students and a little more than six full-time equivalent therapists spread over four different sites.

Last year the Government spent about $6 million on a building upgrade, which won the New Zealand Architecture Medal this year.

Mrs Kennington says the loss of $260,000 will force the school to lay off therapists and close one of its classes.

She knows it will have significant consequences on the students' ability to learn. But unfortunately, despite her efforts over the past 10 years, there is no concrete research to show the Government exactly what the impact will be.

Wilson School was highly disadvantaged when special-needs funding moved from being school-based to individual-based, and the Ongoing and reviewable resourcing scheme known as Orrs was introduced.

Before this the school was one of three classified as being for "physical disabilities" and was allocated funding for a higher number of therapists than the 20 schools or units classed as being for "intellectual disabilities".

Under the changes Wilson would have been forced to buy its therapy with each child's Orrs funding, and therefore reduce its four physiotherapists, four occupational therapists and two speech and language therapists to one of each.

The schools protested and consequently all 23 special units and schools received extra money for therapists.

The funding was guaranteed for three years, over which time a group of representatives from the sector was to conduct a review to prove the importance of therapy for students with special needs.

But it was soon decided that it was too difficult to quantify how much therapy children with a physical disability needed so the scoping for the research was set at identifying effective integrated practice instead.

In Mrs Kennington's view, that was the point at which special-needs units and schools "lost the battle".

Parent and board treasurer Paul Deverall knows how much his 19-year-old daughter with complex needs benefited from the therapy she received at Wilson School, but worries that the lack of research means the Government does not.

"The problem as I see it is that the Government has made a decision without any understanding of the implications of it and they now have a problem," he said.

Acting Prime Minister Bill English said yesterday that

the May Budget Orrs funding increase would allow 1000 extra children to receive funding and the Ministry of Education would work with the 23 schools affected by the funding cuts.