Category: SEND Review

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DfE Minister for Children, Families and Wellbeing SEND AP Implementation Board. SEND Review

Government announces more support for children with SEND

  • Over a thousand new special school places confirmed, as additional seven special free schools to be built
  • Local authorities in every region selected to be at the forefront of delivering transformational reform set out in the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities and Alternative Provision (SEND and AP) Improvement Plan
  • Reforms backed by £70 million to test what works to ensure children and young people get the best possible services

Over a thousand more children and young people with SEND are set to benefit from access to high-quality specialised learning, with seven new special free schools in Cambridgeshire, Kent, Merton and Norfolk selected to be built alongside the existing 83 already committed to opening, located across England from Devon to Darlington.

Once complete, this investment will almost double the number of special free school places available across the country – from around 8,500 to 19,000 – ensuring all children receive a quality education, tailored to their needs.

Today, local authorities across the country have been selected to deliver a ground-breaking new programme to test and refine the reforms to services for young people and families.

Backed by £70 million, the local authorities will help inform the development of new national standards to improve the consistency of provision across the country.  

Each area will also bring together education and health services, as well as parents and families to develop an inclusion plan that sets out how they will deliver local services in a co-ordinated way – for example making sure a child with special educational needs who is behind in reading is quickly assessed and given the right support. This addresses feedback from families that the current system is often fragmented with agencies not working together.  

This follows recent confirmation that high needs funding is increasing by a further £440 million for 24/25, bringing total funding to £10.5 billion – an increase of over 60% since 2019-20.

Minister for Children, Families and Wellbeing, Claire Coutinho said: “Making sure children with special educational needs and disabilities get a superb education is a priority.

Earlier this year our Improvement Plan set out systemic reforms to make sure every child and young person gets consistently high-quality support, no matter where in the country they live. “

Today we’re making sure that those reforms are informed by the experiences of real families, up and down the country, and creating the thousands of new places at specialist schools and in staff training courses that are needed to make sure our plan is a success.”

The Government is also confirming today an expansion in training for early years staff, adding an extra 2,000 training places for early years special educational needs co-ordinators on top of the 5,000 already announced. 

Measures confirmed in the Improvement Plan included:

  • a new leadership level National Professional Qualification for Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators (NPQ for SENCOs), ensuring SENCOs have the training they need to provide the right support to children. The NPQ will replace the NASENCO from September 2024 and will start in Autumn 2024. Further information on the transition to the new NPQ can be found here: Transition to national professional qualification for special educational needs co-ordinators – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
  • a new approach to AP will focus on preparing children to return to mainstream or prepare for adulthood. AP will act as an intervention within mainstream education, as well as high-quality standalone provision, in an approach that meets children’s needs earlier and helps prevent escalation.
  • an extension until March 2025  to the AP Specialist Taskforces, which work directly with young people in AP to offer intensive support from teams made up of experts, including mental health professionals, family workers, and speech and language therapists, backed by an additional £7 million investment.
  • a doubling of the number of supported internship places by 2025, from around 2,500 to around 5,000, backed with £18 million of funding to help young people make the transition into adulthood.
  • £30 million to go towards developing innovative approaches for short breaks for children, young people and their families, providing crucial respite for families of children with complex needs – the programme funds local areas to test new services including play, sports, arts and independent living activities, allowing parents time to themselves, while their child enjoys learning new skills. 13 local authorities are taking part in the second year of the programme.

 

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Department for Education Government NNPCF NNPCF work SEND Review SENDAP

Special Educational Needs and Disability and Alternative Provision (SENDAP) Improvement Plan published

Today, the government has published its long awaited response to the SEND Green Paper, the SENDAP Improvement Plan.

The plan outlines the steps that the government will be taking over the next few years to address the problems in the SEND system that have resulted in poor experiences for many children, young people (CYP) and families. The plan follows the SEND Green Paper and the subsequent consultation conducted by the Department for Education (DfE) in 2022. Our NNPCF co-chairs Tina Emery and Mrunal Sisodia were part of the steering group that advised on and reviewed the Green Paper and drafts of this plan.

On its publication, NNPCF Co-chairs, Tina Emery and Mrunal Sisodia said,

”There is much to welcome in the SENDAP Implementation Plan, in particular, we are pleased to see that national standards will form the basis of ordinarily available provision, have such a prominent role. The NNPCF argued for the need for national standards during the SEND review and 90% of respondents to our survey agreed that they were needed. If implemented well, national standards will form the basis of early intervention and clearly identify who is responsible for providing and paying for services.

Similarly, we are pleased to see local inclusion partnerships and plans being taken forward. Linked to the new Ofsted / CQC local area inspection framework that includes an annual review of inclusion plans, these will drive the joined up working and commissioning that has so often been missing.

Some of the proposals that the NNPCF disagreed with, notably the tailored list of settings, mandatory mediation and bandings and tariffs remain in the plan. However, we are pleased that these areas are being reviewed and piloted before implementation decisions are made.

Unfortunately, in some areas, the plan does not go as far as we would want. In the absence of legislation, the accountability regime, the mix of responsibilities, powers and regulation between schools, multi-academy trusts, local authorities and the DfE Regions Group – remains unclear.

We urge the ongoing Academies Regulation and Commissioning Review to address these gaps. In addition, we remain concerned about the pace of change. It will be 2030 before this plan is fully implemented and this is literally a childhood since the original SEND reforms in the Children and Families Act 2014.

We, the NNPCF, will continue work with government and NHSE to ensure that urgency to address the problems in the SEND system remains a priority.”

There are many things in the Implementation Plan that the NNPCF welcome:

National standards to form the basis of ordinarily available provision. Properly implemented, national standards will drive early intervention and form the foundation of what families can expect from services, what services can expect from each other as well as who is responsible for delivering and paying. In our survey 90% of respondents were in favour of national standards. We have received assurances from ministers that national standards will not be a list prescribed or allowed services for a list of diagnoses. Also, national standards will not form a cap on what can be provided to meet needs, individual needs must still be met.

SEND and AP partnerships and local inclusion plans will require local areas to have a clear and shared understanding of the needs of the local population and work together to address them. We are pleased that these will be reviewed annually as a part of the Ofsted / CQC local area inspection regime. In our survey, respondents were clear that education, health and care services needed to work together more actively and comply with national standards

The sections on the development of the SEND workforce, both inside and outside of schools are very welcome.  In our survey, 97% of respondents said that teaching staff needed better training on SEND.

We called for better data on SEND to drive inclusion and incentivise local areas to identify needs and provide early help. The inclusion dashboards proposed will do this if properly designed.

The proposed Adjustments Passport to support disabled young people into work is something that the NNPCF has been asking for over the last five years

We are pleased that some of the lessons of 2014 have been learnt. There will be a properly constituted change programme to systemically implement the plan with meaningful review and accountability through regional expert partnerships and a new National SENDAP Implementation Board.

However, there are some areas included in the plan that we continue to have reservations about. We have noted that these areas are going to be piloted and tested through the regional expert partnerships:

  • The tailored list of settings remains in the plan despite being supported by only 20% of respondents in our survey.
  • Mandatory mediation has very mixed support – we have expressed concern about the mechanism for mandatory mediation and the risk that this denies or delays access to redress via the tribunal.
  • Similarly, our survey showed no clear support for bandings and tariffs with only 47% or responses in favour.

Unfortunately, there are many areas that remain very worrying for the NNPCF, where more clarity is required:

The accountability regime remains ambiguous. The division of powers, responsibilities, regulation and enforcement between schools, multi-academy trusts, local authorities and the DfE Regions Group remain unclear. We hear too often about schools that do not make reasonable adjustments or promote inclusion. Parents and local authorities are powerless to hold them to account. The ongoing Academies Regulation and Commissioning Review must close these gaps to ensure that schools, local authorities and Integrated Care Systems meet needs.

When the SENDAP Green Paper and Schools White Paper were launched in March 2022 , the intention was to support both with legislation. Now, this will not happen. Without legislation, we are concerned that some of the measures critical to success can no longer be made mandatory (e.g. national standards and greater accountability for schools).

Finally, the pace of change must not lose urgency. There are many areas of the plan that require further development and definition. We welcome the intention to coproduce key elements and we look to supporting partners to achieve this in the most expedient way. We must collectively ensure that this work is given the priority our SEND families deserve.

The SEND system is in crisis now and we need urgent progress and action.

For more background on the SENDAP implementation plan and the NNPCF input in the Green Paper and consultation please see:

NNPCF response to the SEND Green Paper and Alternative Provision consultation. – National Network of Parent Carer Forums C.I.C

Find out what parent carers have told us about the SEND Green Paper and coproduce the NNPCF consultation – YouTube

SEND-review-results-NNPCF-2022.pdf

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Parent Carer Forums SEND Review

Case studies for the DfE SEND review team

The SEND review team has asked us to collect information from parent carers on the following subjects

The information with be anonymised when submitted to the team.

This is a case study of parental experience if your child has been in residential settings out of their community and you are about to embark or have brought your child back to their local community: https://forms.office.com/r/A3GDjfnXbQ

This case study is if your child doesn’t have an EHCP, and their needs are not being met or they are struggling in their educational setting. https://forms.office.com/r/Kks9BpB9Mx

Please complete this study if your child’s needs are not being met or they are struggling because of covid: https://forms.office.com/r/3Urd5fXLWL

You can complete this study if there are Issues with school transport that is affecting your child’s attendance at school or other educational setting: https://forms.office.com/r/wAMjbuKt4F

We would like to hear from you if you have taken your local authority to tribunal for any placement issues: https://forms.office.com/r/D1JY4dnbsL

Please complete this case study if your child has been admitted to or is at risk of being admitted to hospital because of their poor mental health: https://forms.office.com/r/AKAQFCDsxa

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Department for Education NNPCF SEND Review

Department for Education update

New Minister with responsibilities for SEND announced

The new government continues to formalise ministerial responsibilities and last week, Kelly Tolhurst was announced as the new Minister for Schools and Childhood with responsibility for SEND. Minister Tolhurst is the second most senior minister in the Department for Education behind the Secretary of State Kit Malthouse.

NNPCF co-chairs Tina Emery and Mrunal Sisodia have written to Minister Tolhurst to introduce the NNPCF and ask for a meeting.

What next for the SEND Green Paper

The consultation period for the SEND and AP Green Paper closed before the summer holidays (22 July 2022). The DfE received several thousand responses, many of which came from parent carer forums and individual parent carers. DfE also held 175 engagement events many of which were hosted by or involved parent carer forums.

There were also responses from local authorities, schools (mainstream, special and AP) and health providers amongst others.

The NNPCF have attended several meetings with DfE officials over the last few weeks to discuss the next steps on the green paper and we continue to have input into the next stages of the proposals. Key points from these conversations include:

The DfE will publish a response to the green paper consultation in a National SEND and AP Improvement Plan by the end of the calendar year. This will set out government’s response to the consultation, and the next steps for delivering these reforms.

We have engaged in conversations about the formulation of national standards.

Whilst the contents of these discussions remain confidential, we can share that we have continued to make the following points.

  • National standards must drive and enable early intervention, particularly for those children and young people that do not have an EHCP Standards should be based on the holistic needs of the child and young person, not on diagnoses or conditions
  • Standards should be based on the holistic needs of the child and young person, not on diagnoses or conditions
  • There needs to be a strong link between standards used by practitioners when supporting individual families and standards that are used when planning, designing, and commissioning services.
  • Coproduction must be the core principle throughout all standards

The SEND and AP Green Paper and its progress remain a high priority for the NNPCF and we will continue to keep you updated on progress.

However, we are also very clear that our children and young people cannot wait for new legislation and reforms to improve services- there also need to be programmes of work targeted at improving services now. We are also working with the Department for Education and NHSE to focus on these areas.

We will update you on these over the coming weeks.

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consultations Department for Education NNPCF work SEND Review

NNPCF response to the SEND Green Paper and Alternative Provision consultation.

The NNPCF ‘s consultation response has been submitted today 22 July.

Our response has been extensively coproduced with parent carers:

  • We ran a survey for all parents which received nearly 1300 responses – parents gave us a very strong steer on the key issues. We will publish the results of this survey in full.
  • We ran a webinar on 11 July to share the interim results from the survey with our membership – you can watch this webinar here: Find out what parent carers have told us about the SEND Green Paper and coproduce the NNPCF consulta – YouTube
  • We have hosted many regional events over the last 15 weeks with parent carer forums – some with the DfE team in attendance and some exclusively for parent carer forums.

We focussed our responses on those areas that will directly impact service delivery to families because this was where we got the most and the strongest responses from parent carers. We touch upon those areas that deal more with the structure.

In addition to this formal consultation response, we have had regular dialogue with the DfE about the Green Paper proposals where we have continued to make the key points in our consultation response:

  • NNPCF co-chairs, Tina Emery and Mrunal Sisodia continue to be members of the SEND review steering group which has met twice during the consultation period.
  • Senior civil servants from the DfE attended the webinar we held on the 11 July (see link above)
  • We have meetings scheduled over the coming weeks with the DfE to further analyse the results of our survey

We will continue to update you on the progress of the Green Paper as we have more information.

You can download our response here: https://consult.education.gov.uk/send-review-division/send-review-2022/consultation/my_response?user_id=ANON-EXGA-GCYM-N&key=4e7902bd78ecf85c7a57aa2ee04102bde9ae9802

Below you can find the responses we received to our SEND review survey, which informed the response we submitted to the Green Paper consultation.

SEND-review-results-NNPCF-2022Download
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Department for Education NNPCF work parent carer forum guidance Parent Carer Forums SEND Review

Ministerial changes and what’s next for the SEND Green Paper

The last 24 hours of political turmoil have seen changes in the ministerial team responsible for the SEND policy and legislation including the Green Paper. Nadhim Zahawi has been promoted to Chancellor of the Exchequer and Michelle Donelan has replaced him as Secretary of State for Education. Will Quince, Children and Families Minister has resigned his position. At time of writing we have no news of his replacement.

Since 2017, there have been seven Children and Families Ministers (soon to be eight). The NNPCF are well versed in meeting new Ministers and introducing them to the work of parent carer forums. Whilst Ministers change, the challenges faced by our children have deepened and regardless of who is in post, we will continue to represent the views of parent carer forums to the best of our ability and work with officials behind the scenes.

What does this mean for the SEND review and the work of the NNPCF?

At time of writing, the SEND Green Paper remains in place and reform of the SEND system remains government policy. The NNPCF are continuing to meet with Department for Education officials to progress the work of the Green Paper and we will carry this work on until plans formally change. We continue to engage with the continuing consultation process – for example, yesterday NNPCF Co-chair Mrunal Sisodia met with DfE officials to plan a series of “stress test” workshops to look at how the new proposed system will meet the needs of some of the children that have been let down by the current system and today, the NNPCF board are meeting with DfE officials to brainstorm what the new national standards might look like.

Webinar with Minister Quince Monday 11 July

Clearly, Will Quince will no longer be attending the webinar planned for Monday. However, we intend to proceed with the Webinar and are currently in discussion internally and externally (including with the DfE) on alternatives.

We know this time will be especially unsettling for our families but do rest assured we will continue to focus on our priorities and will keep you updated on any developments.

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consultations Department for Education Education NNPCF work Parent Carer Forums SEND Review

NNPCF launch SEND Green Paper consultation survey for all parent carers.

The NNPCF have recently launched their parent carer survey on the SEND and Alternative Provision Green Paper consultation.

They hope to collect as many responses as possible from all parent carers, not just those who are involved in their local parent carer forums.

The responses of the survey will help to inform the NNPCF’s own response to the SEND Green Paper consultation.

Co-chairs Tina Emery and Mrunal Sisodia stated that, “The Green Paper is an opportunity to reset the SEND system after the 2014 reforms failed to deliver the improvements that families of children with SEND so desperately need. It is vital that every parent carer’s voice is heard and so we have launched a short, simple survey to gather parental views that we will use to inform our response to the Green Paper. We will, of course, also publish the survey results.”

You can complete the survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/J63QX22

The survey should take no more than 10-15 minutes to complete and remains open until the 30 June.

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Committee Education Select Committee SEND Review

NNPCF gives evidence to the Education Select Committee

The NNPCF co-chair Mrunal Sisodia gave evidence to the House of Commons Education Select Committee on 24 May, when a session was held on the SEND Green Paper consultation.

Mrunal was joined by IPSEA chief executive Ali Fiddy, Local Government Ombudsman Michael King and Imogen Jolley, Head of Public Law at Simpson Millar.

In the evidence session Mrunal spoke to key points on the SEND Green Paper, including:

  • The need for the incentives in the overall education, care and health system to be aligned with the needs of SEND children, young people and their families.
  • The need for improved accountability in the sector to ensure that when needs were not being met issues could be addressed.
  • The need to listen to families and drive early intervention and stop families getting to crisis point before help is given. This increases needs, creates anger, frustration, mistrust, and costs more money.
  • The need for the Green Paper to say more about long term outcomes for young people with SEND beyond education such as employment, community inclusion and independent living.
  • NNPCF support for national standards in SEND provision that, if set properly and implemented effectively, would help to drive greater clarity in what families can expect and what services need to provide.
  • Parental concerns about naming a setting from a suitable list for children with EHCPs.
  • The importance of strong advocacy and independent support for parents, for example through SENDIAS services and keyworking.
  • The role of Ofsted and the desire from parents that no school should be classified as good or outstanding without being good or outstanding for SEND.

You can find a recording of the session here: The Government’s SEND Review – Committees – UK Parliament

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Bills and legislations Department for Education Education NNPCF work Parent Carer Forums SEND Review

The SEND Green Paper: NNPCF briefing

What does it say and what does the NNPCF think about it?

The NNPCF co-chairs, Tina Emery and Mrunal Sisodia held a briefing on the contents of the long-awaited SEND and Alternative Provision Green Paper consultation for parent carer forums on 23 May.

A recording of the session can now be viewed by following the links below:

YouTube recording of the briefing

Slides from the briefing

Mentimeter survey results

The NNPCF have also published their parent carer survey.

They hope to collect as many responses as possible from all parent carers, not just those who are involved in their local parent carer forums.

The responses of the survey will help to inform the NNPCF’s own response to the SEND Green Paper consultation.

Co-chairs Tina Emery and Mrunal Sisodia stated that, “The Green Paper is an opportunity to reset the SEND system after the 2014 reforms failed to deliver the improvements that families of children with SEND so desperately need. It is vital that every parent carer’s voice is heard and so we have launched a short, simple survey to gather parental views that we will use to inform our response to the Green Paper. We will, of course, also publish the survey results.”

You can complete the survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/J63QX22

The survey should take no more than 10-15 minutes to complete and remains open until the 30 June.

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consultations Department for Education Education Minister for children and families Parent Carer Forums SEND Review

SEND Green Paper engagement events with the Department for Education and parent carer forums

The special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and alternative provision (AP) consultation was published at the end of March. The NNPCF have been working with the Green Paper team at the Department for Education (DfE) to organise a series of engagement events for parent carer forums to feedback and discuss the plans outlined in the Green Paper.

There are three different categories of events:

A national webinar hosted by NNPCF co-chairs Tina Emery and Mrunal Sisodia – 12 noon 23 May

At this event Mrunal and Tina will share the initial NNPCF response to the proposals. The session will step through the Green Paper outlining which proposals the NNPCF supports and which we have concerns about. The session will be interactive, and we will be seeking flash feedback from parent carer forums on their views of some of the proposals in the Green Paper. We will also outline the different ways that parent carer forums as well as individual parents can respond to the consultation and have their voices heard.

To sign up for this event please use the following link: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZModeCvrTwoGNUve-OwXisL0SQaUniHSchz

Regional events hosted by the Department for Education for Parent Carer Forums

The DfE Green Paper team will be attending NNPCF regional events to share the thinking behind the Green Paper and to have a discussion with regional parent carer groups about their thoughts on the proposals. In these sessions the DfE team will offer a short presentation of 20-30 minutes and then will take feedback and questions relating to the Green Paper for the rest of the hour. The objective of these sessions is to offer parent carer forums the opportunity to have frank and honest exchanges with the DfE team. The sessions will not be recorded due to confidentiality reasons.

The schedule of events is as follows:

RegionDateTimeVirtual or in person meeting
North East26 May11am – 12.30pmVirtual
North West   
Yorkshire and Humber24 May10amIn person York
West Midlands16 May1pmVirtual
East Midlands8 June10amVirtual
East of England12 May10am-2pmIn person – Cambridge
London
16 May 10am-12.30pmVirtual
South East20 May10am-12noonVirtual
South West10 May12:30pm-2pmVirtual (Teams)
Please note, any gaps to the table will be filled once confirmed by the DfE.
Details of how to join these meetings will be sent out through the usual regional parent carer forum channels.

National SEND review briefing hosted by Minister Will Quince

We are currently working with the DfE to organise a national webinar. This will give parent carer forums the opportunity to discuss and feedback to the DfE on the proposals set out in the Green Paper. Children and Families Minister Will Quince will host this event. Once the dates have been confirmed we will publish the webinar, with more information including how to register for the session.