ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the issue of choosing between special and mainstream education at pre-school and first school levels. The report acknowledges the complexity of the process of achieving integration and ‘expects an increasing proportion of the children who receive separate special education to be educated in ordinary schools’. Parents of children with cerebral palsy are highly conscious of mobility issues, which explain some of their reservations about special nursery schools. The fifth birthday is an important milestone in the lives of all children. Compulsory School attendance means separation from mother or main carer for seven hours daily; association with peers in an institution focused primarily on education, conducted by teachers and regulated by the National Curriculum. Considerable progress has been achieved in the 80s in adapting mainstream schools, identifying ‘barriers to access to education’ and undertaking research into issues and outcomes.
