An Overview of English Special School Provision for Children With Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties

This paper Introduces the work of a University of Birmingham Research Project. An overview Is given of changes and developments in the English EBD field since the last major national investigation carried out by Dawson, Wilson and Evans in the late 1970s. Major pieces of legislation have had an impact while researchers have stressed the Importance of moving away from ‘within‐child’ deficit model thinking. The ‘schools effectiveness’ movement has gathered pace and is reflected in the HMI/Ofsted view of schools for pupils with EBD. The second half of the paper outlines the difficulties encountered in trying to give an accurate picture of numbers of children deemed to have EBD and of numbers of EBD special schools In the maintained, non‐maintained, ‘approved’ and ‘registered’ independent sectors. Finally, figures based on a study of DfE statistics for 1994 are given.