A PUPIL with dwarfism will appear on Newsround tomorrow (Friday) in a feature on the issues facing children with special needs as they begin senior school.

Daniel Allen, who began his second year at Nobel School in Stevenage this week, is one of three children interviewed in a BBC programme called Up and Away timed to coincide with the Paralympics, which looks at issues pupils with special needs face when beginning secondary education.

The 12-year-old has restricted growth and is just under four feet tall. “At primary school younger children didn’t understand my condition at all,” Daniel said. “They just used to call me nasty names like midget. When I was going to move up to high school I thought it was going to be the same with people making fun of me. I didn’t want to go to school.”

To alleviate his concerns Daniel’s parents wrote to fellow parents at his new school to give them information on his condition - a move that helped Daniel’s transition. He has now gone on to make many new friends, he said.

“I was just thinking how am I going to get through this? This is going to be bad,” Daniel added. “But it was OK in the end.”

The programme airs at 5pm on Children’s BBC.