Written evidence submitted by The Children and Young People programme National Development Team for Inclusion
(SFC0075)
NDTi response to the call for evidence from the Public Accounts Committee regarding Support for children and young people with special educational needs
The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) system is integral to ensuring that children and young people with Special Educational Needs (SEN) and disabilities receive the appropriate support, education, and care. Over the years, various reports and consultations have highlighted challenges facing this system, ranging from funding constraints to inconsistencies in the delivery of services, to a culture that doesn’t value and respect parent/carers and doesn’t put young people and their families at the centre of both individual and strategic planning. This response from NDTi aims to provide an overview of the current performance of the SEND system, particularly in relation to the support available and the outcomes achieved for those with SEN, as well as the government's actions to create a sustainable system and restore public confidence.
The SEND system in England is designed to provide tailored educational and support services for children and young people with SEN and disabilities. This support can include:
Specialist Provision: Schools, colleges, and Alternative Provision that cater to children with specific educational needs. This includes mainstream schools with SEN support, independent schools and colleges and special schools.
Health and Social Care Services: Access to a wide range of healthcare services, including speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, psychology, early support and social care support provided either through the Child in Need route or as part of a safeguarding plan. Mental health support is also available either through statutory provision or via the third sector and is essential for the holistic development of children with SEND.
Funding: Funding for SEND provision is allocated through the government’s High Needs funding formula. However, many schools and local authorities report that funding levels are insufficient to meet the growing demand for SEND services. Funding is enhanced when a child or young person has an Education Health and Care Plan which has contributed to the dramatic increase in plans requested and offered across the country. There is a vast inconsistency in both how local areas administer their high needs budget and in the number of EHC plans issued.
Inconsistencies in Support: Support services can be inconsistent, particularly between local authorities. Access to the necessary resources and specialists can vary widely, leading to disparities in educational experiences for children with SEND across different regions.
Delayed Assessments and EHC Plans: The process of obtaining an Education, Health, and Care (EHC) plan, which is crucial for tailoring education and support to the specific needs of the child, can be slow. Long waiting times for assessments and a backlog of applications have been reported. Most local authorities do not meet their statutory timeline of 20 weeks for an assessment.
Lack of Early Intervention: There is growing concern over the lack of early intervention for children with SEND, particularly for those whose needs are not immediately obvious. Delays in identifying and addressing needs can lead to difficulties in the child’s development, impacting their educational progress.
Alongside this a lack of will across the country for mainstream providers to include children and young people with SEND, and a lack of challenge and accountability when it comes to the Equality Act and the Rights of Children and Young People.
NDTi believes there has been a lot of focus on systems, processes, and structures as part of the SEND reforms and throughout the SEND AP improvement plan, but less focus on culture, inclusion, and values.
We believe the following areas need to be addressed to improve outcomes for children and young people with SEND.
• A national inclusive education strategy focusing on mainstream schools being able to meet the needs of the children in their local community. This strategy needs to be cross sector with regional teams to support its implementation. Inclusion was defined in the 1970’s followed by the UN Convention but still we are not following this. Children and young people have a right to live and learn together. A national inclusive education strategy needs to focus on supporting schools to use evidence-based practice and pedagogy.
• An amendment to the term “special needs” to “additional needs” as many young people and their families have told us they find this term ableist. We need to strengthen the social model of disability so that children, young people, and their families are not made to feel that they are the problem. We don’t ask often enough “what would it take?”
• Ensuring an upholding the legal entitlement for children and young people, to access mainstream education, with reasonable adjustments made to enable their inclusion. in mainstream nurseries and schools, children should be able to take part in all activities that are part of the school offer. Young people tell us that so often they are unable to go on school trips or take part in after school activities because the right adjustments are not made.
• For schools and Post 16 provision there needs to be more connection between what is ordinarily available and the graduated approach to providing the right support.
• A requirement to shift culture and ethos –creating an inclusive, values-based approach where children and young people feel they belong.
• More emphasis on a person-centred approach rather than an assessment approach to children and young people’s support needs. So often the system asks the question “what’s the matter with you?” rather than “what matters to you?”
• Greater emphasis for schools and Post 16 providers to be able support children and young people with a balanced curriculum that doesn’t only focus on competition, achievement, and attainment, and a review of what we understand to be good teaching and learning.
• Revisit and strengthen the role of local authorities in holding schools in their local area to account that schools and colleges have to local areas. LAs have lost confidence in challenging schools. This is especially true of academies.
NDTi believe that the overall picture on the support available and outcomes achieved for children and young people with SEND could be improved. Some of these areas have already been covered above but it is difficult to separate out performance of the system and support for children and young people.
Some of the main themes are highlighted below along with our thoughts and recommendations.
Academic Achievement: Students with SEND are less likely to achieve the same academic outcomes as their peers without SEND. We welcome the school’s curriculum review and the opportunity to design an curriculum that works for all children and young people and provides a holistic and rounded approach to teaching and learning. We would like to see the review properly extended into the Post 16 sector in a more robust way.
Preparing for Adulthood: This is an area very close to our hearts and one we have written about and created many resources on since the reforms (and before). A key concern for many parents and advocates is the lack of support for students as they move from school to post-16 education, apprenticeships, supported internships or employment. Many young people with SEND continue to face significant challenges in finding suitable employment, accessing further education, or securing independent living.
Inclusion: Mainstream schools and colleges have made limited progress in creating more inclusive environments for students with SEND. However, there are still concerns about the adequacy of inclusion practices and the extent to which students with SEND are truly integrated into the broader school community. In some cases, children with SEND are segregated from their peers, limiting their social integration and overall educational experience. Our experience is that inclusion works when there is a courageous head and senior leadership team who believe it is the right thing to do rather than schools fulfilling their duties under the Equality Act.
• Strengthen teaching and learning and pedagogy to improve outcomes for children and young people with additional needs. We believe this could happen by:
• Ensuring good quality initial teacher training with a strong focus on pedagogy and an understanding of what works to support children and young people with additional needs.
• Ensuring ongoing sharing of good practice through continuous professional development linked to outcomes for children and young people and under continuous review.
• Appropriate strategic planning at national, regional, and local levels to support inclusive education with funding to support this. This will enable families to be confident that schools will support their child/young person’s needs and address the tsunami of requests for EHC plans.
• Ensure messages from government are consistent regarding inclusion. Currently there is a commitment to inclusive education (Code of Practice 2015 1.26) but there is a huge investment in on building new special school and FE provision.
• A national support offer that is joined up to ensure value for money and a shared vision/approach. Current programmes, i.e. targeted support, universal support, Change Programme, Safety Valve, Delivering Better Value do not work well together. Something that was identified in the recent NAO report.
Good practice around inclusion exists in individual schools where they have strong leadership, a community approach, excellent teaching and learning and a belief that they are a local school for local children/young people. E.g. The Boleyn Trust Newham
• The Introduction of a national master’s award NASENCO will help but this needs to be properly funded and prioritised.
• The Internships Work programme, has helped to grow supported internships across England and has put SI’s on the map. On target to double the number of supported internships to 4,500 by March 2025.
• Preparing for Adulthood is understood across the sector and local areas have implementation strategies.
• Individual Alternative Providers (AP) are doing some great job to support young people in a bespoke way, but this is not consistent across the country.
• AP featuring within the landscape of SEND is beneficial as it brings them into the conversation (It’s a neglected area) and provides some learning around highly personalised solutions.
• Some examples are:
▪ Littlegate Farm in East Sussex
▪ Central Bedfordshire and Bedford College
4. Additional thoughts.
We do not believe the SEND improvement plan is ambitious enough. We have a legal framework that is not being implemented and we need to ensure we use any opportunity to be courageous about changing the system otherwise the opportunity will be missed.
• The current tribunal system not fit for purpose and hasn’t evolved since the SEND reforms. There are now long delays for families (up to a year for a hearing) with unsustainable cost for LAs and families. There needs to be a review of the true cost of tribunal cases to and the proportional spend per LA.
• Ofsted need a better understanding of what good looks like for young people in nurseries, schools and post 16 provision. SEND needs to be a limiting statement for Ofsted to ensure that a school cannot receive a good or outstanding outcome if their SEND offer is poor.
• The current teaching workforce are demoralised and over stretched and are leaving in droves. We know this through speaking to those in the sector and through our recent recruitment where around 80% of the applicants have come from schools.
• There needs to be a proper funding review that captures the actual cost of properly meeting the needs of young people with additional needs and this funding needs to be ring fenced.
• The SEND system has become overly bureaucratic and unwieldy. Education Health and Care plans are not written for children and young people they are written purely to access funds for a place. Any new national template must be from a strength-based perspective with preparing for adulthood outcomes embedded from year 9 at the latest.
• Exclusions have increased over recent years, with a large proportion of those young people having special educational needs. There needs to be transparency about the characteristics of excluded children including their ethnicity and economic status.
November 2024
NDTi response to Public Accounts Committee call for evidence. November 2024