12% of special needs pupils ‘never like school’.

Children with learning disabilities have a much more negative experience of school than pupils who have no special needs, according to the first comparative research into this area.

The pupils’ low levels of school engagement are largely explained by a low academic outlook and poor relations with their classmates and teachers.

Around one-in-seven of the 8,578 nine-year-olds involved in the study were identified by their teachers as having at least one special need. These included physical or sensory disabilities, speech impairment, learning disabilities, emotional behavioural difficulties (EBD) such as attention deficit disorder, or multiple disabilities.