SCN0136
Written evidence from Mrs Penny Earl
This submission represents my personal views and are not necessarily those of my organisation.
Executive Summary
Introduction
1.1 The system for assessing children with SLCN in Hampshire who may need resource provision placement is unclear and there is disparity within different areas of the County. In Basingstoke, children are identified at pre-school age and filtered directly by the NHS Speech and Language Therapy Services. In the Winchester and Eastleigh Area this does not happen. Children with SLCN in pre-schools are not necessarily identified at an early stage and there is variable signposting for parents to relevant services.
1.2 The Hampshire Admissions Criteria for SLCN Resource Provisions (http://documents.hants.gov.uk/childrens-services/sen-resourced-provision-slcn.pdf) is unclear. The NHS pathways only allow therapists to work with Language Disordered (LD) children. Definitions of SLCN make it clear that whilst all LD children have SLCN, not all children with SLCN are LD. The scope of the resourced provisions is to provide for children with severe and complex SLCN – not all of whom may have LD. However, the document states that all children in resourced provisions for SLCN have access to NHS therapists. This causes misunderstanding and conflict and results in inequity in the way children are accepted or rejected from resource provisions. There is a committee – The County Advisory Group (CAG) for SLCN, which has discussed and acknowledged this issue. However, the committee does not feedback to key decision makers. A recent restructuring of Hampshire SEND services and accompanying redundancies means that key personnel who have been involved in discussions to address the issue are now no longer in post and so the possibility of moving forward in resolving it has been negated.
1.3 Parent Voice is key in Hampshire and sometimes ‘trumps’ all professional opinion, particularly when Tribunal is threatened.
1.4 All of the above factors mean that children may be placed within a resource provision when they do not need to be, or not placed within the provision when they do need to be. In the last case, one personal example resulted in a child who could have made good progress with resource provision support continually ‘failing’ to meet criteria (using subjective judgement based on the unclear nature of the guidance document). In the end, the child’s parents became so frustrated that they turned to litigation. Because the child had been inappropriately placed within a mainstream class for several years, the gap between him and his peers was so great by the time the case was heard that the County agreed to place the child in a special school. My professional opinion was that this was an inappropriate placement that could have been avoided. The child’s needs could have been better met within a resource provision at less long term cost. As well as not meeting a child’s needs, this case resulted in wasteful use of public money.
2.1. When I first started as a resource provision teacher (20 years ago), the model used in Hampshire involved children spending some time within the resource classroom and some time within a mainstream classroom. The complexity of needs of children within resource provisions at that time was less than at present and it became apparent that they may achieve better outcomes if they were immersed within the mainstream environment for greater periods of time. This was called Inclusion. The outcomes, within my experience, were better and over time the model moved to a state where resource provision children were ‘included’ in mainstream classes for the whole or very large part of their week. Support was provided in class.
2.2. The needs of children placed within resourced provisions have, in my experience, become very much more complex and the profile of some children now matches that of children who, 20 years ago, would have been placed in special schools. The model of ‘Physical Inclusion’, however, has become entrenched as the ‘correct’ method. The result of this is that there are children within my resource who are making no academic progress within a mainstream class and who have increasing levels of anxiety and social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs as the disparity between themselves and their chronological peers becomes ever greater and more noticeable.
2.3. There is more than one model of Inclusion. My view is that, for some children, a more effective way of accessing education is through a ‘Social’ and/or ‘Academic’ model of Inclusion. In my previous setting I helped lead a pilot mixed-age class dedicated to children with severe and complex needs. This class allowed a much higher ratio of adults to children and followed the principles of the findings of the Deployment an Impact of Support Staff (DISS) Project. It was a fully participating part of the mainstream school but the children were based within the class and not split between a resource room and a class base (as in the original resource model 20 years ago). This created a sense of identity, gave the class a peer group within which the children felt valued and respected and also gave us a much higher ratio gain of progress compared with the time this group had spent physically included in mainstream classes. All the children and parents of children within this class were happy. The class ceased after 2 years as I obtained another post, my colleague became ill with cancer and the school federated with an executive head teacher who did not agree with the model of Inclusion which we were promoting. The children were dispersed back into mainstream classes and their rate of progress has reverted back to previous low levels.
2.4. My current head teacher supports the model described above and we will be piloting a new dedicated class from September. I have the support or parents and children but there are reservations amongst some staff. I had support from County but there has now been a restructure and the key people with whom I was working have been redeployed. I will be collating new impact data in order to demonstrate effectiveness across the coming year.
2.5. The findings of the DISS project highlighted difficulties that myself and my colleagues had known to be true for a long time. It had a key positive impact upon my working practices. However, in my experience, the findings of this project have not been absorbed by all schools. In fact, I believe that the new National Curriculum has forced a regression in some cases because of the need to achieve the end of Key Stage outcome of 85% of children meeting age-related expectations (ARE). This benchmark means that 15% of children do not, technically, need to get there. The SEND group within whom I work are frequently referred to as ‘with the best will in the world…’ I don’t believe that anyone within the teaching profession sets out to discriminate in this way against any group of children but, nevertheless, this is happening. It does not always appear to be happening because a huge amount of funding is being dedicated to ‘support’ SEND children – often meaning that Learning Support Assistants (LSAs) are sitting alongside them and inadvertently creating an impression that everything is OK – for reasons highlighted by the DISS project.
2.6. Whilst not within the scope of this submission to discuss the National Curriculum, I feel that it is important to say I have experienced a distortion of the principles of the ‘mastery’ approach which impacts negatively on SEND children. I believe the principles of everyone achieving solid foundations upon which to build further learning is sound pedagogy. However, the developmental benchmarks are too high and we have lapsed into a tendency towards a race towards ‘greater depth’ (much like the ‘ladder’ model of the previous levels). This exacerbates the difficulties.
3.1. In my opinion, this process has been muddled and far too time consuming within Hampshire. The requests for Statutory Assessment greatly increased alongside the reforms and this, along with several county level restructures, has led to a workload which could not be managed within stated timeframes. This has, in turn, led to an increase in Tribunal Requests and, consequently, an increase in inappropriate placements of children and a corresponding decrease in places for children who really need them.
3.2. In an attempt to achieve parity, EHCPs are prepared by non-experts – extrapolating information from professionals in order to construct the final document. This means that the final wording tends to be generic and not representative of the individual children to whom it relates. However, as a legally binding document, it forces schools (who are often non experts) to apply strategies which are frequently inappropriate, unnecessary and, at worst, counter-productive to the child’s development.
4.1. Funding for Resourced Provisions for Children with SLCN in Hampshire has changed but, we are told, remains cost neutral. We were previously funded at £10,000 per child at our Agreed Placement Number (APN). Additional retrospective funding was applied based on the number of children actually attending and their profile of need. From the initial £10,000/child, my resource provision paid for mainstream places within the infant and junior school – amounting to £36,000 per year in the case of my resource. From this academic year my base funding is at £6000 per child on APN. I no longer pay for places within the main schools but, instead, the remaining £4000 per child is paid directly into the main school budget and the main schools pay me back ie the overall figure is cost neutral. Except that the schools cannot afford do this due to pressures on their own budgets. The net result being that my budget has been reduced by £20,000 per year. This equates to the cost of 1.5 LSAs or 0.5 SEN teacher. This could have a significant negative impact on the outcomes for SEND children within my provision
5.1. As stated in 1.1 and 1.2, there are difficulties within my field of SEN ie SLCN, linked to the differences in definitions applied to this type of need and the attendant levels of support defined by education and the NHS. This leads to confusion and dissatisfaction amongst parents.
5.2. EHCPs are often not a true collaboration between health and education sectors. They are managed and driven by education with patchy contributions from health services that appear to be dependent on the priorities or working hours of the linked health care professionals.
5.3. There have been some initiatives which have led to increased information sharing. In Hampshire the Early Help Hub (EHH) system, which brings together a wide range of professionals from health, education and social care in order to support vulnerable families who fall below the threshold for direct Social Services involvement works well in the cases where families are prepared to actively engage. The main NHS department accessed through the EHH (or independently) is the School Nursing Service. This is an effective service. The EHH and School Nursing Services are effective because the referral process is quick and the response and signposting that results is also quick with scheduled follow up.
Recommendations (linked to numbered sections above)
June 2018