SEN0143
● Short term actions to improve SEN support in mainstream schools and early years settings:
○ Analyse existing data available through school SEN reports, which they publish and refresh annually. This is a huge manual task, because they are often PDF documents uploaded to websites - AI could do some of the legwork in providing a strategic analysis.
○ Mandate PGCE placements in Special schools or CAIRBs for all trainee teachers, with commensurate funding which would guarantee appropriate professional supervision for the PGCE student at the Special School.
○ DfE to create virtual hubs where Special school leaders can advise mainstream leaders on how to support children and young people with SEND, and mainstream leaders can support leaders of schools with SEND students who have the potential to attain at GCSE or A-level. Knowledge exchange, but make it mandatory, because Special Schools are terrible at sharing their expertise, and all schools can be arrogant (“we don’t need help, we do it really well”).
● Long term actions to improve SEN support in mainstream schools and early years settings:
○ Consult on mandating ‘ordinarily available provision’ in every school - this could be alongside curriculum reform - what students learn and how they should be able to learn.
○ Support Local Authorities to provide Education Other Than At School (EOTAS) for children and young people with EHCPs
○ Revolutionise what school is / means - use an Early Years model to develop a curriculum.
○ Consult on and determine a legal definition of inclusivity and its practical application; equality of access, this is bigger than SEND and also incorporates other groups e.g. children in care, young carers and children and young people living in poverty. It’s ambitious but life-changing.
● Education, Health and Care Plans:
○ a pre-EHCP, a simple ‘school passport’ for every student with SEND, just stating need and provision, whether it should be ordinarily available or not - e.g NEED: Jimmy gets very anxious when he doesn’t understand something and will shout out or be rude to avoid work. PROVISION: Adults must develop a trusting relationship with Jimmy and encourage him to use a help card or similar strategy to communicate.
LAs can’t be held accountable for whether or not an EHCP is enacted by a school if the school governance is outside LA control. Maybe it should be a function of the DfE, thus ensuring Academies can be held accountable without going to tribunal.
● Long term:
○ SEND school places: establish a Communication and Interaction Resource Base (CAIRB) in every secondary school.
○ Employ school counsellors and mental health nurses through the NHS that are available in each small Primary school at least one day a week, and each Secondary school every day.
● Education ends up being solely responsible for SEND provision because Social Care and Health services are seen as episodic or emergency services - EHCP needs to be seen as equal status to Child in Care, consequently with appropriate resourcing of Children’s Disability Social Care teams. SEN Support should equal Child in Need in terms of social care involvement. THAT would be revolutionary!
● When schools get it right, they get more children and young people with SEND, but without the commensurate funding - it would be difficult to create parity of funding while avoiding incentivising creating extra SEN support plans. Fairer AWPU including transport for rural areas would be a good long-term plan.
● Curriculum changes: create a curriculum that includes what to teach and how to teach it - a bit like the National Numeracy Strategy and National Literacy Strategy. Use Early-Years style areas of development throughout Primary and map them into subject-specific areas at Secondary, to change the focus to children demonstrating learning, development and understanding rather than regurgitating specific bits of knowledge.
● Health needs: Any health needs that affect learning, development and understanding (see new style curriculum) should have an EHCP and the funding to meet their needs should come from the NHS.
● Reform is needed for funding of SEN support provision in schools, where currently the school is responsible for funding the first £6,000 of provision - this £6,000 cannot currently be ringfenced, as there is not enough funding per child. Also it is an arbitrary figure and doesn’t relate to the capital costs of specialist equipment, furniture or rooms; or the revenue cost of employing extra staff.
● INCLUSION: There needs to be an agreed definition of what inclusion means, this needs to be consulted on, agreed an implemented with case studies, then enforced by Ofsted / DfE. So often, it is about the attitude of school leadership, behaviour policies, and having enough time and adults available to create and sustain genuine caring relationships. We also need a permissive culture, where creative ideas to enable inclusion are encouraged and not punished because they do not fit with a received notion of how children and young people ‘should’ behave.
● LA Powers: the current governance structures in place mean that Academies are outside of LA control and often outside of LA influence. The DfE needs to have overall governance of all schools and centrally mandate what inclusion should look like.
● Joint Inspections: the CQC and Social Care ombudsman should have a bigger voice and more clout following SEND inspections - too frequently, supporting children with SEND and their families is seen as ‘other’ and ‘separate’ to the main jobs of Social Care and Health; and even the joint local area inspections do not seem to have changed this view.
January 2025