ABSTRACT
The report of the Warnock Committee1 and the ensuing 1981 Education Act provide the backdrop to the current situation in schools regarding special educational needs (SEN). The Committee recommended that the term ‘children with learning difficulties’ should replace the term ‘educationally sub-normal’ which had been introduced in the 1944 Education Act. The prevalence of such pupils in special school classes alone had increased from 0.27 per cent of the school population representing 15,173 pupils in 1950 to 1.05 per cent representing 79,239 pupils in 1983.2
Furthermore a large-scale study of junior-age, Key Stage 2, classes and SEN in 1981 was replicated in 1998. The authors observe that:
The substantial sample size, the involvement of the same schools and, in particular, the very high response rate from both schools and teachers, provides (sic) a secure base both for a picture of the prevalence of different sorts of SEN and for the change in such prevalence over time.3
