SEN0787

Written evidence submitted by Nisai Learning

About Nisai Learning

Nisai Learning is focused on ensuring learners with learning differences have a continuity of learning that ensures; smooth transition into a mainstream environment where possible, additional support when learners are in school or require longer term options because mainstream school is not conducive to their way of learning.

The Nisai Virtual Academy, run by Nisai Learning, provides a blended, personalised and supported learning experience which can be accessed from a wide variety of locations, where the learners fee safe. 99% of the learners the Nisai Virtual Academy supports have barriers to learning which have impacted on their educational journey.

The Academy provides a range of qualifications from Functional Skills through to A Levels so we can support learners irrespective of their current academic ability.  With these programmes, learners also gain access to the Wellbeing Centre and Social areas of the Nisai Virtual Academy.  This allows learners to take part in the clubs and societies, the student magazine and also become a Student Ambassador, developing their social skills alongside their academic progress.

Our Passport to Work programme creates an environment where learners can look ahead to their futures by blending Online Academic Study with a vocational module.  Preparation to Adulthood is a key element of this to ensure that all the students are provided with the skills they need to have a happy and fulfilled life.

Executive Summary

Only through releasing the potential of people with learning differences through educational equity – providing the skills, tools and experiences for them to grow and flourish - can we also make good on our commitments to the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (UNCEDAW), the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and the UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 – quality education for all.

The way to realise those social and economic outcomes is through ensuring equity in education for all students, regardless of learning need, background or socio-economic status. We will also need to provide relevance, ensuring that everyone is equipped with relevant skills and knowledge for the future workforce. And we should want every individual to be empowered so that they can become informed citizens, critical thinkers, and problem-solvers, capable of shaping a better future for themselves and their communities.

As a start point there are Five Actions that we know will begin that process of creating a Fair, Just and Equitable system for young people with learning differences and other barriers to learning.

These are:

Action 1 - Early Support: family Hubs and the Start for Life programme to be a nationally available universal service offer and to include access to early assessment.

Action 2 - A Plan for Every Child: a clear, universal, protocol to ensure that no child ‘slips through the net’.

Action 3 - Consistent Regulation: holding education providers to account to the same standards, for all children, all of the time

Action 4 - Fair Access to Qualifications: ensuring that all young people are able to take public examinations, no matter where they live and whether or not they are on a school roll.

Action 5 - Pathways into Employment: mandatory guidance on managing effective transitions into the workforce for young people with learning differences.

Question Responses

How SEN support in mainstream schools and early years settings should be provided?

What is the current quality of SEN support in mainstream schools and early years settings

There are a lot of concerns surrounding the provision of specialist support for children and young people with SEND within mainstream school.

The number of pupils needing SEND support has increased by 4.7% from 2023 to 2024, and by a total of 24.9% since 2016 and access to funding and support has become increasingly challenging. This is having a profound effect on how children with learning differences are experiencing education.

In addition, a report by Special Needs Jungle showed that students with SEND have had a drastically reduced level of support post Covid. Fewer than one in five parents are sure that all provision in their child's EHCP had been restored and only 8% of parents with children on SEND Support are receiving the same level of SEND provision they had before spring lockdown in 2020[1].

It is therefore no surprise that even now, less than half of autistic children say they are happy in school, with many more likely to exit the education system completely. This will make it hard to move into further stages of education or work as they have not had help at crucial times in their development.

Add to this the cost-of-living crisis and many students now have crippling anxiety driven by issues at home, which is affecting their ability to learn and impacting their educational development and prospects.

How can inclusivity and expertise be improved

Only by releasing the potential of people with learning differences through educational equity – providing the skills, tools and experiences for them to grow and flourish – can we also make good on our commitments to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and the UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 – quality education for all.

To do this we need ensure that everyone is equipped with relevant skills and knowledge so that they can become informed citizens, critical thinkers, and problem-solvers, capable of shaping a better future for themselves and their communities.

Diagnosis improves outcomes. A delay in diagnosis is associated with a multitude of negative consequences in later life as well as an indirect increased financial burden to families and the person themselves as they are often unable to secure employment[2]. A lack of diagnosis means that the proper support can’t be put in place to help a young person develop and get the education they need to move into the world of work.

This must then be followed on by support. If teachers had mandatory training in SEND (as opposed to it being a bolt-in as it is now) then schools would be able to ensure students are on a supported pathway all through school and into work so that all those at school now can have happy and fulfilled working lives.

Whether SEN support should be put on a statutory footing and what this would look like in practice

Yes, SEND Support must be put on a statutory footing. Funding for SEND services is a discretionary part of a local councils budget, with a wide range of support depending on the council.

This clearly means that there is not only a postcode lottery for children between areas but that local councils can arbitrarily cut funding if they find themselves with a deficit elsewhere. This is not fair on students whose needs do not change year on year and must therefore have the guaranteed support they need. Placing SEND support on a statutory footing would solve this problem.

How outcomes for SEND children can be improved

Five key actions will begin the process of creating a fair, just and equitable system for young people with learning differences and other barriers to learning. These are:

Action 1 - Early Support Family Hubs and the Start for Life programme to be a nationally available universal service offer and to include access to early assessment.

Action 2 - A Plan for Every Child . A clear, universal, protocol to ensure that no child ‘slips through the net’.

Action 3 - Consistent Regulation. Holding education providers to account to the same standards, for all children, all of the time

Action 4 - Fair Access to Qualifications. Ensuring that all young people are able to take public examinations, no matter where they live and whether or not they are on a school roll.

Action 5 - Pathways into Employment. Mandatory guidance on managing effective transitions into the workforce for young people with learning differences.

What issues face teachers, SENCOs, specialists, early years practitioners and all those who work with children with SEND when providing SEND education

To assess a young person with SEND, several agencies need to be involved. For example, for an autistic diagnosis there needs to be input from the GP, SENCO, psychiatrist, psychologist, speech & language therapist, behavioural support team paediatrician and health worker [3].

There is a postcode lottery that drives how quickly this assessment happens and the following provision that is supplied. For example, in some areas there is a massive delay in EHCP assessment, with 27% of families having to wait for more than 6 months even though the legal deadline is 20 weeks[4]. Fifteen LAs produce fewer than 25% of their plans within 20 weeks with Hampshire only producing 1.5% of their plans within the legal deadline[5].

Though we understand that EHCP’s need to be personalised and that all local councils need autonomy regarding how provision (not outcomes) is undertaken, an element of standardisation within an EHCP would help. For example, a fixed short executive summary that covered all key aspects of the young person’s needs and necessary provision could be submitted to the school more quickly and ensure that initial plans can be put in place. Such a summary may need to be adjusted slightly once the full plan has been developed but the strength of the earlier provision would more than outweigh this downside. At the Virtual Academy every child with an EHCP has an executive summary developed in this manner to ensure that support is not delayed [6].

What training is needed to improve knowledge of SEND and pedagogical approaches to teaching SEND Children to increase their inclusion in schools?

Currently local authority-employed specialists are thin on the ground and teacher training does not routinely upskill teachers to ensure they can identify SEND markers. Instead, SEND is seen as a specialist area – a bolt on rather than a built in.

This is even after autistic pupils identified training in autism for teachers as the single biggest change that would improve their experience of school.[7] At the moment only 39% of primary school teachers have just more than half a day’s training in autism. For secondary school, this drops to just 14%.[8]

By ensuring all teaching staff receive training, we can ensure that young people get the education they deserve. It would mean that assessments would be driven by observations of real-world scenarios from trusted staff invested in the children. It would also mean that a child’s education can be assessed from the beginning to ensure that where milestones are not met help can be put in place. And it would mean fewer children struggling to get by in school and instead, getting the support they need rather than being labelled difficult or disruptive.

What role and capacity should specialist schools, independent schools and Alternative Provision have in SEND education

The percentage of persistently absent pupils is currently 21.2% or around 1.6m students [9]. Of these students, only 11.3% of severely absent pupils achieved grades 9-4 in English and maths (compared to 67.6% of all pupils) which severely impacts their entire lives. It is therefore vital that these students are given the support they need through specialist alternative provision like the Nisai Virtual Academy (NVA)[10].

By enrolling children into online learning facilities, like the NVA, these children are not only be brought “back into the system,” but also enabled to re-engage in learning, ensure that safeguarding is in place and reduce the chance of becoming involved in gang and criminal behaviour.

NVA provides various qualifications ranging from Functional Skills through to A-Levels in order to support all learners irrespective of current academic ability. Alternative provision like NVA also ensures that students have access to a Wellbeing Centre, social areas and mentors that help students with their mental health and anxiety.

This type of learning ensures that SEND learners have a continuity of education that provides them with a smooth transition into a mainstream environment. Then additional appropriate support can be provided when learners are in school or longer term options provided when mainstream school is not conducive to their way of learning. It also helps with best practice as online learning providers often work with several different local authorities and can therefore share best practice increasing understanding and standards overall.

Online learning provided in this manner can accessed from a wide variety of locations, where the learners feel safe. It also means that students previously learning in isolation with a home tutor are able to receive an experience comparable to a mainstream school with quality teaching whilst saving the Government money. The Nisai Virtual Academy, operated by Nisai Learning for example, can bring together students into a class group of no more than 10, based on ability. This not only eliminates travel time and expense for home tutors but also provides learners with access to a much broader curriculum and as importantly, an online community of other learners and activities to interact with. This increases their chances of re-engaging with education. In addition, as the number of pupils eligible for free school transport has increased by 120% in the same period from 58,000 to 129,000 [11], using online learning will allow these students to be taught from home helping the Local Authority to significantly reduce this type of expenditure (not to mention CO2 emissions).

Finally, the computer skills needed to use the Nisai Virtual Academy, alongside the writing skills needed to contribute to extra-curricular activities such as the school magazine, ensure that young people are provided with the essential skills required in a working environment. Learners are actively encouraged to set up interest groups to share with other students, helping them to develop leadership and team-working skills as well as an understanding of responsibility and accountability.

How can waiting times be improved for EHCP’s

As we have said previously, it is shocking that in many areas there is a massive delay in EHCP assessment, with 27% of families having to wait for more than six months even though the legal deadline is 20 weeks[12].

If EHCP’s were digitalised through a joined up and integrated technology system, this would allow a young person’s educational journey to be documented from their early years and mean that any information and reports submitted to tutors and teachers could be kept in once place. It would take less time for parents to put together all the information they need to submit to a local council to guarantee support and ensure that local councils are turning round the documentation within the expected timeframe. Thus, when a child has an issue, the results could be compared to a roadmap which would outline what support that child might get depending on their scores.

Finally, support can be easily reviewed to ensure that it continues to suit the young person’s needs. A young person with SEND and their parents could be reassured that the education provided is comprehensive, and that progress would be tracked from diagnosis through all educational settings they attend [13]. Indeed, eventually it could mean that reports could be rolled out as a standardised document that replace an EHCP.

How can parents be supported in the process of requesting an EHCP

Changes made in the 2014 Children and Families Act were designed to reduce the cost of assessments for parents. It was also supposed to allow parents and carers to have a greater role in decisions about the provision a child would receive with “the engagement and participation of young people and families”[14]. However, this did not happen in practice with many parents having to take local councils to tribunal. This has destroyed trust in the system for parents and needs to be resolved.

The SEND code of practice therefore needs further revision. This includes who assesses and writes plans; the need for support for parents when gathering information and collaboration between local authorities; and to ensure that there is an understanding of best practice about what the most pertinent information needs to be included. Parents will know that the plan will be based on a decent framework and that once the plan has been put together it is fit for purpose.

What alternatives to EHCP’s that work for kids with SEND

Nisai Learning believes that there are sound reasons to roll-out the principle of accountability for securing the right provision for every child and that it is not just about the process of parents requested an EHCP. Of those approved for support through an EHCP some 15,000 children are still waiting to receive the provision specified in their plan[15]. In addition, only 4% of young people with EHCP’s end up with jobs, which indicates that they are not improving outcomes for those with SEND[16].

Therefore, we believe that every child should have a single ‘Child’s Plan’ setting out what, if any, additional support they need this would help to ensure that the child’s education was personalised to meet their needs. For many children this would simply detail the school or early education provision they attend, and the routine health checks or immunisations they will need. However, for others that need an EHCP this could be form the basis of their education support, their health support, or their social care support, and for some a combination.

Parents and practitioners would have greater clarity about who is needed to support that child and allow all professionals to work from the same plan and share information accordingly. In addition, every parent or carer could then access this plan, which could also include deadlines and information relevant to their child’s age and stage of development, through a portal which would ensure that there was support along the line.

The reintroduction of family hubs in a number of local authority areas would also be a simple way in which professionals can be brought together to ensure that children and their families get the support they need, and each child is seen holistically. Hubs provide a swift signpost to multidisciplinary assessments and support services that ensure children who present with additional needs, behavioural difficulties or other barriers have the adjustments they need over their educational career.

An expansion of the supported internship programme to allow access by those with SEND but without EHCP would provide affected young people with an opportunity for work. Educational needs lie on a spectrum, and whilst it is right that those most badly affected are given as much support as possible, those who are more mildly affected, or have “a hidden disability” also benefit from support and intervention.

How has SEND need changed over the ten years since 2014 and how will it continue to change over the next ten years?

A total of 18.4% of children in England have some kind of special educational need- up from 17.3% in 2023. This represents an increase of over 100,000 from 2023. Within this, there has been a 7.1% increase in the number of children on SEN Support [17].

In a question put down by Baroness Ritchie [18], it was disclosed that the mainstream allocation for children with SEND was £4.316bn. The Government’s own figures show that each student will be allocated less than £4,000[19] and this is falling due to the increased number of young people diagnosed.

This is of course a reminder of the pressure that councils are under but whilst the funding they supply remains discretionary the problem will only get worse for those with SEND. There must be a change of mindset to match this change in need to ensure that SEND funding is ringfenced to cope with future need.

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

As stated above, training for teachers is key. Without this training, students will not get the support they need.

Current and future model of SEND provision

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

There is a postcode lottery drives how quickly assessment of SEND happens and the following provision that is supplied. For example, in some areas there is a massive delay in EHCP assessment, with 27% of families having to wait for more than 6 months even though the legal deadline is 20 weeks[20]. 15 LAs produce fewer than 25% of their plans within 20 weeks with Hampshire only producing 1.5% of their plans within the legal deadline[21].

The SEND code of practice needs further revision including who assesses and writes plans, the need for support for parents when gathering information, and collaboration between local authorities to ensure that there is an understanding of best practice about what the most pertinent information needs to be included. This will ensure that parents know that the plan will be based on a decent framework and that once the plan has been put together it is fit for purpose.

What changes are needed so that local education authorities can effectively plan for SEND school places and to deliver new SEND schools and new SEND school places?

If SEND support was put on a statutory footing with a certain ringfenced budget per child with SEND, as opposed to the current formula which does not take into consideration the full cohort of children with SEND, authorities would have the ability to plan SEND places and support as they would know that the money they received to do the job would match demand.

What can be done to improve the effectiveness of multi-agency and joined up working cross education, health and social care?

Digitalisation would allow the various agencies to submit the information on each young person with SEND safely, knowing that it was all in one place. It would also mean that support can be easily reviewed to ensure that it continues to suit the young person’s needs.

How can specialist provision, especially support for conditions which occur infrequently but give rise to the need to a high level of support and which may be beyond the capacity of individual local authorities, best be provided and commissioned?

Alternative providers like the Nisai Virtual Academy (see above) need to be part of the conversation regarding provision in difficult circumstances as they have the knowledge needed to best address this type of situation.

How can excess profit-making in the independent sector be tackled without endangering current provision?

There is no evidence of excess profit making by the independent sector. Any solution to the problems facing SEND provision will require innovation and investment by the independent sector. Without profit, there will be no incentive for such investment and innovation will become an impossible risk. Given the acknowledged lack of success of provision by the public sector, such an outcome would be a disaster for children and schools alike.

What is working effectively within the current SEND system and how can best practice be sustained or scaled up?

Little is working properly. There needs to be reliable and sustainable support for these children who need it most.

How can innovation be encouraged across the system to address the current pressures and challenges?

Funding like Innovate UK needs to include supporting education programs that are innovative and look forward regarding further skilling the work force.

The portal is currently offering up to £25 million in loans to micro, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that are looking to develop innovative new solutions in net zero, health, manufacturing, energy and the environment. If there were also education programs supported alongside these sector specific projects then improved skilling would ensure that these projects would succeed and grow whilst providing jobs for those that might have otherwise been reliant on the benefits system.

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

No comment.

What has the impact of the 2023 SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan been to date? What needs to be done to ensure further, longer term benefits are achieved?

The publication of the SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan stated the Government, “will explore opportunities to build teacher expertise through a review of the Initial Teacher Training (ITT) Core Content Framework and Early Career Framework” to “identify how the frameworks can equip new teachers to be more confident in meeting the needs of children and young people.”[22] In addition, as specified in a speech supporting his 10 Minute Rule Bill regarding Mandatory Autism[23], Duncan Baker MP said that the Minister stated that “all initial teacher training courses must be designed so that trainee teachers can demonstrate a clear understanding of the needs of all pupils, including those with SEND” and that “all teachers are teachers of SEND to ensure that pupils with SEND are given the best possible opportunity to achieve at school”. However, the reality has been that the Department for Education have not moved to include mandatory training on SEND in initial teacher training.

In addition, there has been no clarification from this new Government as to how the reforms will work together, how local councils will learn from existing good practice and whether or not they will work with other key stakeholders to ensure that the changes work for those it is supposed to be targeting.

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?

There should not be pressure points. Young people should have a seamless education journey that provides them with the skills they need to have a happy and fulfilled life. A wider scope of educational provision, such as the Nissi Virtual Academy, is tailor made to help relieve pressure points such as this.

What can be done to reduce the disproportionately high exclusion rates for students with SEND?

It is nine times more likely that a child with SEND will be excluded from school [24] because of distressed behaviour, but such behaviour is often because of unmet needs and the right support at the right time could make an enormous difference.

Fragmentation of support has also led to an ever-increasing number of SEND children being home-schooled[25]. Indeed, 48% of the children of home-schooled children are described as having Autistic Spectrum Disorder, and two‐thirds of parents that home-schooled identified ‘push’ factors away from the school as their main reasons for educating their children at home. These include bad experiences with formal provision and the perceived failure of schools to meet their child’s needs adequately. Theoretically, home schooling saves the Treasury money because local authorities do not get provided with any grants to support home schooling [26].

However, it puts much more pressure on parents, especially in subjects that require practical assessments like the sciences that would be more likely to play to the strengths of a child with SEND. Young people may end up missing out on key elements of education they need to succeed, instead costing the Treasury money as they end up on benefits. The economic cost of supporting an adult with ASD without intellectual disability is approximately £0.8m over their lifetime [27].

Even for those in school, when the correct provision is not in place, children deteriorate further and require a more intensive and expensive education provision that falls on the local authority budget creating a cost spiral. Over-reliance on private SEND schools at this point has caused huge budget deficits as councils pay upward of £80,000 per place when local authority schools cost around £15,000 for children with similar needs [28]. Therefore, children need support earlier in order for them to remain in school.

How should the health needs of children with SEND best be met while they are at school or in early years settings and who should fund this?

No comment

What steps should be taken to improve the post-16 landscape for students with SEND? What reforms are needed to ensure that all post-16 qualifications meet the needs of students with SEND?

Pupils with SEND are less likely to be in sustained employment 15 years after Key Stage 4 than their peers [29], and this has got worse post pandemic with the gap regarding employment rate having increased to 28.8%, from 28.1% [30].

This is no surprise. Existing structural inequalities mean that autistic young people are often overlooked due to stigmatisation and unfair characterisation. Indeed, Youth Employment UK [31] has undertaken a survey that makes it clear that in 2023, there is a lack of confidence in young people as well as a feeling of disconnect in their communities. This is even worse for young neurodiverse people who consistently feel they are not judged by the value they could add. However, if an employer allowed an autistic person to utilise their local Disability Employment Advisor (DEA) regarding bedding into the new job then the young person will be able to adjust more easily.

Those on the spectrum are likely to need more help deciding and committing to a career path. Provider Access Legislation specifies schools must provide at least six careers advice opportunities for all their students [32] to help them work out their next steps. However, currently there is no oversight as to whether or not these sessions do truly add value. There needs to be best practice regarding what happens during these sessions to ensure it is personalised, takes neurodiversity into consideration and ensure that it genuinely helps the young person into work.

Apprenticeships are currently ‘one size fits all’ meaning that young people with autism may have struggled in school and, whilst capable, may not have the paper qualifications they need to start the apprenticeships that would be the most suitable. Therefore, there should be high quality pre-employment courses that provide the foundation needed to help a young person transition between academics and work.

Apprenticeships often also follow a broad syllabus which does not take the needs of business or individuals into consideration. Allowing an element of flexibility regarding the courses could ensure that the right skills are developed during the apprenticeship to ensure the student is then ready for the world of work. This could also include digital skills which are increasingly important, especially considering a lot of life admin now must be done online.

Businesses would be more likely to actively engage in the apprenticeships program as they would know that it would help young people transition from the world of study to work which would increase loyalty and reduce dropout rates, benefiting everyone. As the Govt have now lifted the cap for small businesses so that they can employ as many apprentices as they want, are paid £1,000 when they take on a 16 to 18-year-old apprentice and cover 100% of smaller employers’ training costs, employers could be encouraged to use this as a way of employing young autistic people who would add value to the company.

Finally, if there was an expansion of the supported internship program[33] so that those with SEND, but without ECHP’s could access it, this would provide these young people with opportunities for work. Educational needs lie on a spectrum, and whilst it is right that those most badly affected are given as much support as possible, those who are more mildly affected, or have “a hidden disability” also benefit from support and intervention.

What steps can local authorities take to ensure funding is in place to meet the transport needs of post-16 students with SEND?

No comment

Issues around funding

What funding is currently provided and what is needed for early identification of SEND, including in Early Years settings?

The Government is supposed to provide those with SEN a notional £6,000 per student without EHCP’s. However, in response to a Parliamentary question[34], it was disclosed that the mainstream allocation for children with SEND but without an EHCP was £4.316bn. Considering the number of children this is supposed to cover, the Government’s own figures show that students will be allocated less than £4,000[35] p/a and falling as more young people are diagnosed.

The other issue is that SEND funding is neither ringfenced, nor a separate budget line. Instead: “The notional SEN budget is not a budget that is separate from a school’s overall budget” [36].”  On average, , local councils just spend 11.3% of their funding [37] , a figure that could easily fall considering the cost-of-living crisis. SEND education will therefore just always at risk of being further squeezed with the problem being blamed on the Government when it’s a Local Authority decision, with the real losers being the students that won’t get the support they need.

What actions or reforms are needed to achieve financial stability and sustainability, both in the short and longer term, across the SEND system?

The Government should simply create a separate budget line for SEND funding that will be given directly to schools, taking out the middleman and ensuring that young people get the support they need. It will mean that the £4.6bn education funding increase [38] will help those most in need and not get lost in the system.

What is the effectiveness of Government's interventions such as the ‘safety valve’ and Delivering better value in SEND programmes

Under a safety valve agreements, the DfE undertakes to “bail out” local authorities (LAs) that have vastly over-spent their high-needs budgets and have found themselves in great financial difficulty. In exchange for this financial assistance, LAs agree to contain their spending on provision for children and young people with SEND, to avoid deficits building up again. 

This means that children would be receiving less support than they should do as, as stated by Kingston Upon Thames in its SEND Futures Plan, “Everything must be considered to make [the authority’s] financial position as strong as possible.”[39].

Finance is therefore being put above the needs of young people who need it most.

How have these programmes impacted local authority finances as well as SEND provision and outcomes?

The law on supporting children and young people with SEND is clear and unchanged with children and young people having the right to special educational provision that meets their individual needs. The safety valve program puts more pressure on local authority finances as it exposes more local authorities to more legal challenges than ever before.

The statutory override is currently due to end in March 2026. What interventions do local authorities need leading up to March 2026 and what would local authorities like to see beyond March 2026 to ensure long term financial sustainability?

Government must ensure that adequate funding is provided for SEND to ensure the override is not needed again as even though this means high needs funding is off the books, it doesn’t mean that the problem isn’t still there.

Is planned capital investment in SEND capacity sufficient and is it best targeted to address need across the country?

No and No

Is reform needed for funding of SEN support provision in schools, where currently the school is responsible for funding the first £6,000 of provision?

Yes. Those with SEND but not an EHCP need to be given the support they need. Educational needs lie on a spectrum, and it is right that those most badly affected are given as much support as possible. After all, those who are more mildly affected, or have a ‘hidden disability’ also benefit from support and intervention. Indeed, according to a recent piece of research on understanding delivery of SEND provision, access to external specialists was challenging without an EHCP meaning that those who were on the SEND register but without an EHCP tended to be supported internally through the school’s SEND support system. However, schools are increasingly unable to cope.

This means that whilst this was understandable from a funding position, those providing SEND support often find this frustrating because they had pupils with SEND who would benefit from specialist support but were viewed as a lower priority[40].

There also needs to be a mechanism by which schools can share best practice regarding the strategies and scaffolding that works to improve trajectories for those with SEND, whether or not they have EHCP’s.

What has been the impact on SEND provision for local education authorities who have issued Section 114 notices?

This needs a detailed analysis – anything else would be conjecture as the outcomes will be absolutely dependent on local factors and operational delivery. Nisai Learning would suggest that this could be an enquiry handled by the Education Select Committee.

Accountability and inspection of SEND provision

What should Ofsted's new 'inclusion' criterion for the inspection of mainstream schools look like?

All services should be held to a consistent standard and are directly accountable to the children, parents and carers that they serve. However. whilst Ofsted should judge a school to ensure that how a school teaches its more challenging students, this does not happen with Ofsted focused more on grades. This is even with the changes in Ofsted frameworks where few judgements are comprehensively made around a school’s SEND provision. The educational journey of SEND children is often not taken into consideration within reporting processes. This must change to encourage schools to level up properly, as opposed to just pay the idea lip service. It would also encourage schools to ensure that education provision is more tailored, as opposed to one size fits all.

In addition, whilst Ofsted inspects each individual school, children’s home, and childminder, some services are uninspected – such as childcare for children over 8, youth centres, and family hubs. There therefore needs to be a rationalised system of inspection, between different inspectorates, that provides a proportionate and consistent assessment of all services accessed by children.  This rationalised system should be easy for all children, parents and carers to use to understand the quality of services in the area that they live in. It would also help ensure best practice and that ways of improving services were more widely known as services would not work in silos.

Finally, Ofsted has found that Councils often don’t make use of the national IT system that identifies children missing from school[41]. This can easily be dealt with by enrolling children into online learning facilities, for example, will mean these children will not only be brought ‘back into the system’, but it will enable them to re-engage in learning, ensure that safeguarding is in place and there is a reduction in the chance of becoming involved in gang and criminal behaviour.

How can Area SEND inspections of local authorities be made more effective?

Inspections should have the Ofsted data  with regard to providers inspections cross referenced against the LA inspection to give a greater level of integration and a more accurate picture of local sector performance.

Any future inspection model should also assess the use of SEND pupil tracking and SEND pupil level performance data within the authority i.e. how is the authority effectively holding providers to account at pupil level – this should become  providers being held to account.

Whether local education authorities need further powers to ensure that all schools in their area contribute to effective local SEND provision?

The key issue here are not whether local authorities need further powers but whether they have the capacity and capability to undertake the actions required under current legislation and guidance.

There are also issues with regard to the level of engagement with, and the holding to account of, MATs operating in LA areas. In a number of authorities, particularly in the secondary phase, the LA does not have the ability to effectively hold academies to account for the programme, performance, exclusion and attendance of SEND pupils.

How best to hold all schools, irrespective of how they are constituted or their governance arrangements, to account for their SEND provision?

Under the proposed revision to school inspection educational inclusion is a separate and specific area for inspection and report - ‘inspectors will look at how well providers support vulnerable and disadvantaged children and learners, including those with SEND, making sure these children are always at the centre of inspection.’

This may well meet the initial requirement to hold individual schools to account but will require the inspectorate to upskill significantly its workforce – in the past there have been examples of under-skilled inspectors evaluating Special Schools and specialist provision. Inspectors will need specific skills in determining:

• whether or not children and young people with SEND are receiving their entitlement with regard to provision and spend
• what high quality SEND delivery actually looks like for children and families

A concern remains with regard to the accountability of Academy Trusts with regard to SEND, especially as local area board structures are variable. Given the current increase in demand and focus on SEND whole MAT evaluation of funding and support for effective inclusion is required as part of the Summary Evaluation – which should become a statutory requirement as is the Area SEND inspection.

The role of other organisations such as the DfE, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman and the Care Quality Commission in the accountability system.

Not sure that this is relevant currently given that getting the inspection system running effectively to ensure the best outcome for SEND pupils should be the priority.  

January 2025