Next Steps: a summary of
proposed DfE changes in SEND
provision and the wider context;
especially implications for SENCos
by
Christopher Robertson
& Gareth D Morewood
2nd July 2012
Page 1
Ideological change
Inclusive education policy
Broader education policy and the concept of
autonomous schools (e.g. Beccles)
Curriculum (‘dissent’) and assessment (‘sheep and
goats’)
Parents as choice makers and ‘in control’
‘Front-line’ services
Economic change
Page 2
A Radical Overhaul?
‘Our proposed reforms respond to the
frustrations of children and young people
and the professionals who work with
them. We want to put in place a radically
different system to support better life
outcomes for young people; give parents
confidence by giving them more control;
and transfer power to professionals on the
front line and to local communities.’
Support and Aspiration (DfE, 2011, p.4, para 4)
Page 3
Next Steps…
• Training and Development
• Single School Category
• Single Assessment – EHCP
• Widening access to provision
• Local Offer – LA but schools as well?
• Parents/Carers – giving greater
control – controversial?
• Personal Budgets
• School Funding reform
• Preparation for adulthood –
independence
• SEN Pathfinders
Page 4
Training and ITT…
• ITT is changing
• Lamb materials & SALT materials
• Teaching Agency Expert Reference Group
• Review of ITT SEND questionnaires
• Placements in Special Provision
• Impairment specific training
• Training Schools – up to 100 placements each year!
• National Scholarship Scheme
• Open market sources of CPD at a variety of levels (e.g.
Autism Education Trust CPD programme)
• Continuation of SENCo training (+ teachers in PRUs) BUT
with a new ‘DfE-mediated’ ‘first-come, first served’ application
process and a reduction in the number of funded places
(1000)
• Whole school approaches to achieving access, participation
and achievement (nasen and Schools Network – involving
lead SENCos; Achievement for All)
Page 5
Single School Category
• Workshop attended earlier this
month
• Replacement of SA and SAP with
single stage – or ‘category’
• Focus on outcomes not process
• This will then be followed by revised
CoP
• Focus on ‘early identification’ and
ensuring young people are not
‘missed’
Page 6
Single Assessment & EHCP
• ECHP plan designed to be quicker,
better integrated and clearer;
especially with regard to provision and
support
• Is this really going to be the case?
• Statutory safeguards same as for
Statement but extended to 25 for those
still being ‘taught’ (for debate?)
• By 2014 …
• How will Health and Social Care be
accountable?
• Pathfinders still working through trials
Page 7
Widening Provision
• Special Schools can become
Academies … 28 to date (June)
• 3 Special Free Schools from
September 2012
• Is this really widening
opportunities, or further segregating
and fragmenting provision?
• Removing the bias towards
inclusion in action?
Page 8
The Local Offer
• Local Authorities to work with
schools re: Local Offer …
• However at odds with the Academy
policy and segregation of provision?
• This ‘offer’ should cover
services/provision from 0 – 25, in
line with EHCPs
• This ‘offer’ should also include
complaints procedures and what to
do when things go wrong
Page 9
• Clear ‘local offer’ for families with
local services, including schools,
outlining what is available
• This will be set out in law as a
broad national framework (balancing
consistency requirements with local
policy, provision and practice)
• Simpler school SEND policies
(curriculum, teaching, assessment,
pastoral support) developed with
parents
Page 10
Parents Control
• Although the DfE states that new
EHCPs will ‘…allow parents a
preference to any state funded
school…’ recent issues re: Academy
admissions indicate significant ‘gaps’
with regard to this vision and funding
agreements of ‘new schools’
• Personal Budgets are to go ahead,
however they will not be a wideranging as initially perceived
Page 11
Page 12
Strengthening Parental Rights?
• To choose the school they want for their child
(‘removing the bias towards inclusion’ not
referred to)
• To access timely integrated education, health
and care support (‘solving the bureaucracy
problem’)
• To have concerns about assessment,
placement and provision addressed through
mediation before recourse to more formal
complaints (‘early dispute resolution’)
• Introducing a right of appeal for children if they
are unhappy with their support (subject to pilot
findings)
Page 13
School Funding Reforms
• Aim is to make the funding more
transparent
• Specifically with reform of funding for
students with ‘high needs’
• A lot of confusion and
misunderstanding here
• Still to see what reality means here…
Page 14
Preparing for Adulthood
• The DfE state that by 2015 young
people with SEND will have:
• early integrated support from 0 – 25
• a single assessment
• access to better quality vocational
provision, especially post-16
• job support opportunities (conflict here
with demise of specific schemes?)
• better transition from children’s to adult
services – a significant issue currently in
mental health for example.
Page 15
SEND Pathfinders …
• a single education, health and care plan (EHCP) from birth to
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25 years old (to improve outcomes)
personal budgets for parents of disabled children and those with
SEN so they can choose which services best suit the needs of
their children
the role of Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations
and parents in coordinating a new assessment and bringing
greater independence to the process
strong partnership between all local services and agencies
working together (pooled and aligned budgets)
improved commissioning, particularly through links to health
reforms (health and well-being boards)
the cost of reform (value for money)
mediation for parents
transferability of support across area boundaries.
Page 16
Pathfinder ‘options’
a national funding framework to see if this would
help parents understand what level of funding is
available to support their child’s needs
better support to help parents the assessment
process
support to vulnerable children through the new
assessment process
the impact of reforms on children in the early years
and young people aged from 16 to 25
Note: Much of the Pathfinder development work is targeted at
the 2.8% of the school population with statements of SEN
(224,210 pupils) rather than the 17.8% of pupils with SEN but
without statements (1,449, 685 pupils)
Page 17
Emerging Issues …
• How to ensure that changes being tested are genuinely
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child/young person centred
How to determine who is eligible for the single assessment
process and how this is linked to the local offer (in local
authorities) and the work of schools
What outcome focused EHCPs should include and look like
(e.g. how child/young friendly should the format and content be)
The timescale for completing single assessments, what review
schedule is appropriate and who should be involved
Accountability procedures that ‘bite’ across the range of
services in the EHCP
How to ensure personal budgets give families more control
through the use of personal budgets across education, health
and care services
School involvement and knowledge of pathfinders?
Page 18
Independent evaluation (SQW):
Early findings (June 2012)
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Better support system – a risk that the introduction of a
key worker and summary assessment may actually
increase bureaucracy (additions to current
roles/documentation)
More choice, control & better outcomes – projects
‘seeking to achieve’ .... types of outcomes not yet been
well defined
Greater independence into the assessment system
using the voluntary sector (VCS) – not been a focus of
projects, the focus has been on the key worker instead
Value for money – cost of change significant (even for a
small number of families), cost of key worker role an
addition to the system, unclear how new approaches
could be scaled up and resourced
Page 19
Fundamental Review of Needs:
‘key’ reform (1)
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Addressing the over identification of needs concern
without setting a target number (Sarah Teather, R4
Today Programme, 15th May) – but through the
introduction of a new single school based category
(no change the way resources are allocated)
Other commentators have referred to ‘as many as
450,000 children’ being taken out of the category of
SEN altogether (Harris, 2012)
Conceptualising high-incidence needs (already being
referred to as ‘low-cost’ needs) and boundaries at
both ends of this new category (‘low attainers’ and
‘borderline’ ‘low incidence’ needs)
Page 20
Fundamental Review of Needs:
‘key’ reform (2)
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Less emphasis on BESD/SEBD and more on ‘better
discipline’ and ‘better teaching’, with access to
appropriate multidisciplinary support (e.g. to address
emotional and mental health needs), but no reference
to MLD
Recognition of the importance of PRUs and the high
number (79%) of pupils attending PRUs with a special
educational need (Charlie Taylor report 2012)
The development of statutory and non-statutory advice
and guidance that addresses concerns, is helpful and
does not exacerbate problems for children, parents
and teachers/schools is crucial (Code of Practice Mk3)
Page 21
The Front Line…
‘To transfer power to professionals on the
front line and to communities we will: strip
away unnecessary bureaucracy so that
professionals can innovate and use their
judgement; establish a clearer system so that
professionals from different services and the
voluntary and community sector can work
together; and give parents and communities
much more influence over local services’.
Support and Aspiration (2011, p.5, para 7)
Page 22
Specialist Provision: a positive
& preferred choice
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Enhanced role (teaching and training providers) new models to meet demand (resourced
mainstream, academies, free schools) based on
expertise and specialist knowledge
Integrity of provision valued (i.e. not having to be
linked to outreach activity)
Greater autonomy to innovate and pioneer new
education pathways and curricula
Better continuity of provision (e.g. school >
college; local > regional)
SENCo role?
Page 23
Support Services
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Cinderella is not invited to the ball even though she is
wanted (Ellis et al, 2012; NUT 2012)
Struggling to manage budget cuts at a time when
they are needed (Gross, 2011; NUT 2012) (valued
‘front line services’?)
Need to trade services in a system that is ‘opened up’
to include independent providers (a service may have
been privatised), special schools (including
academies and free schools)
Need to work in competition with other services a
school may wish to buy, for example educational
psychology and advisory services including those run
by voluntary and community sector organisations
Page 24
A framework for outreach, inreach & support
• In addition to any frameworks already in use it
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might be worth reviewing and adapting Quality
Standards for SEN Support and Outreach
Services (DCSF, 2008)
The Quality Standards cover 16 dimensions of
support and outreach organised under 2
headings:
– outcomes standards
– service management and delivery standards
The standards are designed to be used as
suggested markers against which services
provided can be evaluated
Page 25
The SENCo may …
• want to consider whether their school or setting has sufficient
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access to services
want to identify how service support and guidance has contributed
to improved outcomes, or how they think it might do so in the
future
wish to reflect on the nature of support, whether they think is
sufficient, and how it impacts on individual learners
challenge and support services to work in ways that they consider
to be most effective in classroom contexts
wish to contribute to discussions about how to disseminate
advice to teachers and teaching assistants and to collate feedback
for services on collaborative support practice
wish to be included in a self-evaluation feedback cycle and to
share their views on specific aspects of it
have important things to say about capacity building and how this
needs to be balanced against work overload and the over
Page 26
delegation of responsibilities.
Ofsted and Inspections
• Half-day notice now ‘settled on’
• Clear focus on ‘age’ and ‘starting
point’ re: progress of groups
(Especially SEND)
• Looking for ‘rapid’ and ‘sustained’
progression
• Still place of specific ‘stories’ and
‘case studies’
• Cannot be ‘outstanding’ without
teaching being judged so; a new
limiting factor
Page 27
The Future of
Inclusive
Support
Page 28
Enhanced Special Provision
• Is outward looking (connected to mainstream
and the work of SENCos).
• Offers in-reach for pupils and staff from partner
schools.
• Maintains its ‘integrity’ (with clear core and
support service roles).
• Supports the professional development of its
own staff, with a particular emphasis on
enhancing skills to support colleagues in
mainstream schools.
• Is reflective and self-critical with regard to both
provision and pedagogy, recognising the
importance of academic and broader educational
outcomes.
Page 29
Enhanced inclusive support
• Takes account of the preferences of parents,
children and young people and values the time
involved in partnership
• Recognises the role that schools and SENCos play
in determining the use of support (and the strengths and
weaknesses of this)
• Recognises that aspects of support to learners,
provided by teaching assistants should focus on
outcomes
• Maintains its ‘integrity’ (with clear core and support
service roles) and operates within an appropriate service
framework that is evaluative
• Supports the professional development of its own
staff, with a particular emphasis on enhancing skills to
support colleagues in schools and other settings.
• Involves working with a range of
Page 30
professionals/organisations
Timescale for change
Summer
2012
Spring
2013
Spring
2014
Page 31
September 2014 (1)
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Expect to be working with a new slimmed down
SEN or SEND Code of Practice that contains
essential advice the professionals need and
reflects changes to the law, including statutory
advice on inclusive schooling
Expect to be using a single assessment
framework and Education and Health Care
Plans (not Statements)
Expect to play a role in the use of personal
budgets and direct payments
Expect to be working with a clear ‘local offer’
that you are part of and will be using to access
services and support
Page 32
September 2014 (2)
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Expect to be working with more parents as
‘decision-makers’ with regard to choosing the
‘right’ school for their child as a ‘right’
Expect to be using a new single school
category of SEN or SEND (Who’s in/out ????)
Expect to be developing more effective ways of
working with children experiencing behavioural,
emotional, social and mental health
difficulties
Expect to be using effective interventions and
approaches to implement these that work for
you (matching provision to needs)
Page 33
September 2014 (3)
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Expect – with time and leadership support – to
innovate (teaching and curriculum provision)
Expect to be taking a lead in providing, facilitating
and choosing training in a more open market
Expect to play a key role in accessing external
advice and support from a range of providers
Expect to know how funding models operate and
how funds are used (without clear ring-fencing)
Expect to have to build, rebuild and sustain SENCo
networks
Expect to clarify – with governors and school
leaders the scope of the SENCo role ....
Page 34
Watch this space…
• However consultations and ‘trials’
go … change is ahead …
• Much of which is very uncertain …
• … and complex …
Questions…
Christopher Robertson and
Gareth D Morewood
2nd July 2012
Page 35
Whatever happens
… enjoy the
Page 36