ABSTRACT
The legal right to education for pupils with severe learning difficulties, brought about by the Education Act of 1970, presented a dilemma for the staff of the new special schools. Innovations reflected the general process of social, economic and political change which was influencing the design and development of the curriculum in all sectors of education. Gordon and Lawton provide a useful and detailed study of these influences on the history of curriculum change in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The approach to education taken by the Warnock Committee and others was dependent on a behavioural approach to curriculum planning. It is important to consider the background to assessment for pupils with severe learning difficulties in order to set the implications of the National Curriculum in context. Dynamic assessment is concerned with the assessment of mental processes, rather than mental products, and ways in which these processes may be developed.
