Construction can refer to the building industry but as far as lawyers are concerned it refers to meaning. For example, consider this statement:
“Sanjay is a keen football fan; he regularly goes to see Hartlepool FC play”
But what does “regularly” mean? Does it mean that Sanjay is a season ticket holder and also watches his team when they travel away from home? Perhaps it means he watches them once a month or even once a year.
Or take this statement:
“The Prime Minister told people not to worry about fuel shortages as the country had a plentiful supply of petroleum”
But what does “plentiful” mean? Does it mean that the country has enough petroleum to last 1 month? Or maybe it is 3 months or 5 years. Clearly the Prime Minister isn’t being specific.
Parents of children with Statements of Special Educational Needs need to be aware that the language used in their child’s Statement should be clear. Take this fictitious example from Part 3 of a Statement:
“Seamus should have access to speech and language therapy”
But what does this mean? The England football team have “access to” winning the world cup in 2010 but this certainly doesn’t mean they are going to win it. Furthermore, who is going to provide the therapy and how much should be provided?
Would it not be better if the Statement said something like this:
“Seamus needs 10 one hour sessions of direct speech and language therapy per term delivered by a qualified speech and language therapist”
Rather than “access to” parents are sometimes asked to accept the use of the term “benefit from” in their child’s Statement. Again, what does this mean? For example, most people would “benefit from” a windfall of £1,000,000; but how does the use of this phrase assist in precisely identifying the special educational provision that must be provided to a child? Clearly it doesn’t!
Given the above, it would be reasonable to suggest that, when parents are presented with documents that purport to both identify their child’s special educational needs and make recommendations as to how these should be met, they should expect that the language used should have a clear meaning to ANYONE who would read the document.