SEN0529

Written evidence submitted by Potential Plus UK

As the leading UK experts in Dual and Multiple Exceptionality (DME) and the only organisation supporting the parents and carers of DME young people in the country, Potential Plus UK contacts you to offer its extensive expertise and experience in your pursuit of better solutions for effective support of SEND young people.

It can offer solutions to:

• Support parents of young people with DME and their schools to work in effective partnership
• A well-established educational Assessment Service to offer rapid screening and strategies which can be implemented immediately, including at the EYFS stage for early intervention
• Advice Services for parents of young people with DME to support, educate and empower
• Training and consultation for schools and teachers in DME

It would need to be supported by:

• DfE endorsing its services
• Funding, if these services were to be delivered for free or at a subsidised level

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Potential Plus UK (the operating name of the National Association for Gifted Children) is a small, national membership charity supporting young people with ‘high learning potential (HLP)’ (also referred to as ‘high ability’, ‘highly able’, ‘gifted’, ‘talented’ or similar) and their families. These young people are exceptional in terms of their cognitive abilities or development of skill, often able to absorb intricate information rapidly, solve problems in more creative or unique ways, and seeing the world through a different lens. Their differences in learning can leave them misunderstood, isolated and at odds with the education system and their peer group, but they are often overlooked for support and their needs poorly recognised. Potential Plus UK aspires to ensuring that these young people all thrive through appropriate support and development, delivered through its services and products or through partnerships with schools and other organisations. Potential Plus UK has a commitment to equity, accessibility, continuous improvement, evidence-based practices and being responsive to the rights and needs of individuals. With over 55 years of experience, we offer a trusted community where families find the support, understanding and guidance they need.

Families approach Potential Plus UK for support because their children are struggling, usually socially and emotionally, as young people with HLP or DME.

A subset of HLP young people can be termed as having DME “…..those who are intellectually very able or who have a talent and in addition to this, have a special educational need or disability” Montgomery (2015).

DME is defined as having High Learning Potential alongside:

•          Neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism, attention deficit disorders, sensory processing disorder and dyspraxia

•          Learning differences such as dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia

•          Sensory and speech impairments

•          Mental health issues

•          Physical disabilities

Potential Plus UK are the only organisation in the UK providing support for DME young people and their families. We have worked in collaboration with nasen to create the DME Trust, a centre of excellence in the UK that has drawn together a knowledge base and expertise on DME. Potential Plus UK support this initiative by providing expert assessment and advice services for DME children and their families and schools.

The DME Trust

Our Mission is to improve the lives and education of young people with dual or multiple exceptionality (SEND with high learning potential).

Our Vision is to work to advance the understanding of dual or multiple exceptionality and to realise the rights of appropriate education for individuals with DME to help them fulfil their potential.

Potential Plus UK’s Assessment Service provides educational assessments to support parents with an objective and holistic understanding of a child’s skills, strengths and areas for development, aiming to provide parents with comprehensive information and advice to support their child in achieving their academic potential whilst enhancing their well-being and life skills.

Background information from parents and school are used alongside respected norm-referenced tests to assess:

• Cognitive ability or intelligence (IQ test)
• Comparative current academic achievement in reading, writing and mathematics
• Working memory
• Verbal processing speed

A dyslexia screener and a sensory processing differences screener are also used.

The assessment process provides a detailed understanding of a child’s cognitive abilities and achievement levels and identifies a unique development profile. Parents receive brief verbal feedback shortly after the assessment followed by a detailed, comprehensive report with action recommendations including advice and resources for:

• Parenting for highly able children
• Supporting the child’s socio-emotional and academic development at home
• Next steps in reading, writing, and maths

Additional support is available through the Information and Advice Service.

Optional additional reports are also available, including a School Advice Pack with detailed educational needs and support recommendations.

Parents come to Potential Plus UK for assessment because their child is experiencing difficulty in one way or another.

Common reasons are:

• Rapid and sustained intellectual development, not in line with peers
• Differences in performance or work between school and home
• Significant strengths alongside areas needing substantial support
• Behavioural issues linked to boredom or lack of stimulation
• Specific concerns such as school refusal, reluctance to write, or difficulties with peer integration.

Our telephone Advice Service offers unique parenting support and guidance for parents with a dedicated appointment to speak to a trained and experienced Potential Plus UK advisor. Parents approach us, usually at crisis point, for:

• support on a wide range of issues related to high learning potential, mostly focussed on the emotional and social problems their child faces (e.g. guidance on bullying, emotional worries, lack of social interaction, perfectionism, stress, anxiety, depression)
• help to deal with problems around underachievement: not producing work to standard expected, deliberately working at lower level, being the class clown, behaviour issues, boredom

• advice on discussing their child’s abilities and support needs with school
• general support on parenting

For 6 years between 2005 and 2011, Potential Plus UK was contracted by the DfE to provide a national helpline for parents and carers with high learning potential children. During this time it dealth with enquiries from around 4000 parents and carers per year.

Over the years, the volume of enquiries to both our Assessment and Advice Services have grown. As the years have passed, and most notably since the pandemic, they are increasingly dominated by enquiries from parents whose children can be considered DME. Some children have been diagnosed with a neurodiversity but the accommodations resulting from these assessments have not proved successful; more significant are the numbers of children whose parents suspect they might be neurodiverse or who display significant signs of an additional need such as ASD, ADHD, dyslexia, etc, etc. Although our assessors and advisors are not able to diagnose, their extensive individual experience and training, alongside the collective knowledge base of the organisation mean that key behavioural indicators can be identified.

Any interaction with Potential Plus UK results in empowerment of parents and contributes to building a detailed and practical profile of a child to aid planning and support for parents to implement at home and to share with school.

Responses to Questions Posed

Defining what inclusivity in mainstream schools and early years settings should mean and look like in practice. How can inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools and early years settings be improved to achieve consistent, high quality SEN support? What is the DfE's role in this?

Potential Plus UK are keen to be part of a discourse on what inclusivity really means. Potential Plus UK are well-placed to provide a programme of teacher training and schools support on DME.

Our parents consistently report that their schools do not recognise DME and either their child’s additional need or their high cognitive ability are ignored. The level of dissatisfaction with and dysfunction of the educational settings in which these children exist demonstrates that inclusivity in those schools does not extend to their DME child. It should be emphasised that inclusivity means the removal of all barriers for all children in order for them to reach their full potential.

Our experience with schools through surveys, consultation and providing training demonstrates that practically no schools or teachers in the UK are familiar with the term DME (even though it was a term introduced by the DfE). Very few understand that high cognitive ability brings with it a greater chance of the child being non-neuro typical to greater or lesser extent. There is widespread belief that having an additional need will limit the child from reaching their potential. There is widespread belief that ‘truly clever’ students will be fine and don’t need support. We find that when we get the chance to work with a school open to learning about DME, the new knowledge has a profound effect on their approach to identifying and supporting these children. Many schools are not so open-minded. Potential Plus UK has the expertise and track record to be able to support the government in teacher training and support, but they do require the DfE to state their commitment to the recognising and supporting DME young people and endorsing Potential Plus UK as the leading experts in the field and collaborators with the DfE.

Outcomes for children and young people with SEND and how these can be improved

Outcomes for young people with DME – in terms of their educational achievements and, more significantly, their social and emotional growth and ongoing well-being - have significant potential for improvement if schools can be more flexible, better trained and prepared, and supported to work more effectively with parents.

Potential Plus UK is acutely aware of the amount of potential that is wasted when DME young people fail to thrive in their education settings. Unfortunately, from our experience in supporting parents, this is a widespread occurrence. A huge number of our young people end up changing schools (many finding that the needs of their young person can only be accommodated in an independent setting), multiple times in some cases, which is disruptive to their progress. A large number find they have no other choice than to home-educate in order to preserve the mental health of their DME child.

We find that schools lack the understanding and willingness to provide flexibility within their curriculum to accommodate DME students. Relationships between the parents and the school can often be fractious and ultimately breakdown. We know that many DME students suffer from high levels of anxiety and this is often school-associated.

What substantive training is needed for teachers, teaching assistants and all those who work with children with SEND to improve knowledge of SEND and pedagogical approaches to teaching SEND Children to increase their inclusion in schools?

Potential Plus UK has found that understanding of DME is virtually non-existent in schools and amongst teachers. We would be able to provide information and training in order to address this.

Education, Health and Care Plans

• How can waiting times for EHC Plans be improved?
• What can be done to support parents, carers and children or young people before, during and after the EHC Plan process?
• How can the EHC Plan process be made non-adversarial?
• What alternatives are there to the EHC Plan process?

Potential Plus UK is aware from parents who are involved in the process that EHCPs and the process to obtain them cause huge amounts of stress and worry for both parents, students and schools. The process is so long and adversarial that by the time they are achieved, the relationship between school and parents and families and the system are irretrievable and the DME child’s levels of anxiety and distress have reached a point where any implementation of an EHCP is too little too late.

We know that families resort to an EHCP as a last resort when their school has been unwilling to work in effective partnership to provide often very simple accommodations in order to support the child to thrive. Ultimately, many EHCPs should not be necessary were parent-school relationships supported to be collaborative, developmental and flexible.

Potential Plus UK would advocate the profiling of all students who show signs of struggling, in any way and whether that is recognised by school or by home. Rather than rely on ‘official’ diagnoses, schools should be willing to listen to parents and to look at individual, personalised solutions, that might in turn develop classroom practice that may benefit other students.

How has SEND need changed over the ten years since 2014 and how will it continue to change over the next ten years? What are specific projections for future SEND need?

Potential Plus UK has assessed well over 1500 young people over a ten year period. These have only ever been marketed as for identification and support of high learning potential (HLP), but a high proportion of children who are assessed are DME. This has increased rapidly, accelerating hugely since the pandemic. We believe that additional needs are increasing or are at least becoming more noticeable and this seems set to continue to rise. More and more of our work and time is focussed on supporting DME young people (as opposed to our original HLP remit).

What does the DfE need to do to improve their current and future assessment of SEND need?

Many of the families that come to us for an educational assessment admit to having had a suspicion of their child having an additional need. Waiting lists for ASD and ADHD assessments in particular are horrendously long from private suppliers and even longer through the NHS. Families can book an assessment with us within a couple of months and then have a detailed report, including strategies to support the child which can be implemented immediately, within 3 weeks. We know that there are many parents using us as an alternative to formal SEND testing. This is because they just want to know how they can help make life better for their child as soon as possible. Current assessment systems take too long and the negative impact on the years wasted not having a deeper understand of the child and their needs is shocking.

Potential Plus UK assessments could offer a solution to rapid but thorough testing of students who it is suspected have high cognitive ability alongside an additional need. These would not lead to diagnosis but would act as a useful screener (with some children requiring further investigation) and, crucially, would provide strategies to support that child for use by both parents and schools. A DfE endorsed scheme using these assessments would help provide a strong platform for the parents and the school to work effectively together to help the child thrive and progress. As previously noted, Potential Plus UK has evidence of the effectiveness of our assessments from over 1500 assessments delivered over 10 years.

How does SEND provision vary between local areas and what can be done to promote consistency of approach?

Engaging Potential Plus UK, as a national charity, as partners to champion DME provision would provide consistency across the UK.

Changes needed to the curriculum in mainstream schools to enable SEND children to fulfil their potential? If so, what changes are these?

DME students are all individuals, but they are highly likely to require challenge in their areas of strength. Schools should ensure that there is consist and appropriate challenge provided in all lessons. Where necessary, DME students should be able to access tasks or qualifications not traditionally associated with their age group eg. a 14 year old studying an A level course. We advocate a ‘stage not age’ approach. DME students can often have weaknesses in areas such as self-regulation, attention and study skills. They should have access to appropriate support programmes to develop in these areas. DME students very often suffer with anxiety or over-thinking so mental health development programmes should also be made available.

At the points on the education pathway that SEND children are at greater risk of leaving school for long term absences, home schooling or exclusion, what reasonable adjustments and EHCP support would enable them to continue education in mainstream schooling?

The key things here are flexibility and personalisation, along with working closely with their families.

What should Ofsted's new 'inclusion' criterion for the inspection of mainstream schools look like? How can Area SEND inspections of local authorities be made more effective?

Both these inspection frameworks should include explicit reference to HLP and DME and ensure that schools demonstrate a solid understanding of both areas and provide convincing evidence that inclusion of these groups is embedded practice. Potential Plus UK could provide criteria to identify effective provision for HLP and DME students.

January 2025

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