SEND - children’s needs to be reassessed from year 6 2029?

[missbish]

Are they taking the piss? After the struggles parents have trying to secure support for their child, they’re then going to threaten to take it away once they’re due to go to secondary? Ds goes to secondary this year so I don’t think it will effect him but I am so angry for those it does effect.

My son had an SEN teacher. He's 37 now so this was a long time ago.
When he went to secondary school he got no help. Every time I tried to get things in place it was like talking to a brick wall. I was then told son had to ask in class for help . As if !
He left school with no qualifications but did well in art college. He's now doing a degree in his own time. He's a clever lad but lacks confidence in his abilities

I think it's a good idea. However currently LAs use every review (when they can be bothered to do them) to remove support for no reason and with no evidence, pushing parents to sit in a lengthy tribunal process to get it back and this can happen repeatedly. So people are rightly and understandably concerned about how it will work in practice.

DS2 already had an ECHP but had a bespoke package for internet school where I was unpaid LSA. The structure at mainstream could not support his needs as high capability but low achieving due to ASD/ADHD. Specialist school would have been inappropriate. He ended up with 11 GCSESs and then went to brick 6th form with his EHCP and got two A stars and one A for maths, physics and futher maths and is now studying for MEng at local uni. We wouldn’t be where we are now without the existing structure - it’s imperfect but we had to use it and the legal fallbacks it provides. Without these, DS2 would undoubtedly not where he is today with a chance of becoming one of the minority of people with his needs with a real chance of employment as an adult in employment - but more than that achieving a high paying role in line with his abilities.

Appreciate it’s not the point of your post and a bit of a derail
but
you get Redbrick Unis
but not brick sixth forms or was that a typo ?

Brick sixth form, as opposed to online sixth form, is how I read it. Brick as in a building!

Misread!

It just means he went to an in-person tuition college.

I wish the gov would actually listen to parents of children with SEN or at least listen to the teachers that have all ready done there best to give there all to a lot of sen children!
Who are going to be the ones to implement all this!
A lot of teachers are barely getting by now! They are having to pay for equipment out of there own money!
There mental health are under strain, a lot of schools have no TA in upper primary classes as it is now.
So the little money they will be getting will be to employ one extra TA (if that) that will do absolutely nothing in terms of the help they are going to need!

All children will suffer, and a lot of staff will not want to work there! That is not being horrible (as my child has significant sen) it is being realistic!

We need more sen schools that are maintained by the gov and not independent!
A lot of money is in the private sector! A lot of money is thrown away at tribunal!
The government/LA is putting money in the wrongs things and then blaming the sen children!

I had a good look at my LA’s accounts, budget and SEND strategy for this thread. By their own admission, they are short of 350 special school places; and it’s their long term strategy to create 1,150 more special school places. It’s no wonder the SEN transport expenditure is so high, when the ideology of inclusion (propagated imo by people with no conception of the reality of learning disabilities) has stopped LAs from building more local special schools.

Many posters also do not seem to realise that there are non maintained specialist schools, run by charities. They charge LAs for just the costs. There is no profit in a charity. I knew of one, where the organisation agreed to put more of its own money into the school, running below capacity (and therefore making a loss), because they recognised the good work, it was doing.

We have a few charity ones here, but most are free schools or independent (especially for secondary).

APs that cost over £100 for an hour, I was shocked actually.

I just think money could be better spent on the LAs actually owning these schools and APs rather then like the NHS a lot of it is going private because there filling the gap.

I know it will never be 100% maintained but atm in my area it is mostly independent or free schools.

@Changeusername1989 sometimes AP will cost more than £100ph whoever delivers it. Private for profit company, CIC, charity, LA, self-employed individuals, directly employed staff via DPs…

Some DC requiring AP are incredibly complex. I have 2 DC for whom it would cost more than £100ph regardless of who provided it.

@BlueandWhitePorcelain I mentioned NMSS earlier in the thread. I am surprised more aren’t focusing on them since some people object to the large amount of money spent on DC with SEN and some NMSS cost far more than some independent SS.

Thanks Lougle and @BoobsOnTheMoon that makes sense now

I know some children will absolutely need that, but some costly ones are on line.

I don't know what the answer is really, but this white paper is going back not forward.

I don’t think being online changes my point. It isn’t suitable for my DC but it is for some, including some with complex needs. Some online AP can still be very expensive.

I know my child has online AP, he is complex.
It is expensive for what it is , private tutor and online gaming.
But thats what it costs 🤷 Just think some companies (not all) do take the piss.

Yes, some charge a lot. But if LAs could meet their obligations with a cheaper provider/internally, they would. Just like schools, some are better than others, not always linked to the price tag.

However, I think sometimes the cost of providing AP is underestimated. Not by you in particular, but in general.

It isn’t just the direct hours of provision that need to be considered. There are many other elements to consider. For example:
Insurances
Training (sometimes accounted for separately in F, but nowhere near all the time)
Admin such as policies, risk assessments, payroll (unless their staff are self-employed when there is other paperwork associated with that), holiday/sick pay for employed staff, HMRC, bidding, and for those who want to be on LAs approved provider lists/in catalogues/on frameworks, the never ending hoops to jump through.
Equipment/resources (sometimes accounted for separately in F, but nowhere near all the time and regularly not the full cost)
Qualification costs for those APs offering qualifications.
VAT for those situations where it is applicable.
Overheads such as website, social media presence, fielding enquiries. For those in person, there is also premises, utilities, transport for some, etc.
Although it should be, many APs don’t have separate time allocated for oversight, planning, paperwork, liaison with professionals/parents/LA, etc. so that 1hr can easily turn in 1.5hrs or more.

A lot of red tape isnt it, and then you get TAs that do so much that get paid nothing in comparison.

Its so exhausting 😩 and I'm so fed up of having to explain to others (looking at you Fil) why it does cost so much.

@Changeusername1989 some people will never understand. Some, like some posters on here, don’t want to understand why it costs so much or why it is needed and why basic generic provision can’t be provided.

Most TAs in schools are defintely underpaid.

DS1’s HLTAs and DS3’s LSAs are paid far more than the standard school wage. And there no AP provider or agency involved with them. They are employed directly.

@DrPrunesqualer yes - apologies for the confusion - DS2 transferred from online to in person 6th form in a building.

My point however was that at secondary stage neither mainstream or specialist school could meet his needs in a way that enabled him to meet potential. But due to his having an EHCP, the LA was able to grant bespoke funding (far less than private specialist) for online schooling. Obviously this wouldn’t work for everyone as I had to be physically present and act as unpaid LSA but was a compromise for a child unable to attend mainstream school that meant that I didn’t have to withdraw him from school and HE whilst ensuring continued LA oversight and maintenance of his EHCP for return to the mainstream.

In reality if EHCP is removed at transition to high school from primary there will be parents with no option of a bespoke package that allows return to the mainstream if and when it suits the child who are left unsupported and forced to HE or pay online school fees if transition fails.

In case it is relevant for anyone reading, parents can’t be compelled to facilitate provision by being present &/or acting as a TA/LSA. The LA is responsible for that.

I've name changed to take part in this. I wanted to give real life example of non maintained and an inde local(ish) to where i live.

Ds goes to a non maintained school which has won many awards. It is approx £80,000 per year. They go horse riding, have two hydro pools so go swimming daily, various sensory rooms, music therapy, life skill rooms, on site SaLT and OT, the majority of children have 1:1, some are 2:1 and some are 1:2 so on average each child has 1:1, each class then has a teacher and roughly five children, they have their own transport so can go out whenever they want usually twice per week per class, children/yp can leave class and then return due to the high ratio's as and when needed, they offer qualifications to suit the child so some sit GCSE's if they can, others do life skills, some take a mix. There's more but you get the idea. It is the perfect place for my ds.

My friends ds goes to an inde school for academic kids with autism. They have smaller classes than ms (approx ten kids), one ta in each class, they all sit GCSE's. It costs over £100,000 per child. No onsite therapists, these are provided either by nhs or if specified in section F via additional budgets, no transport etc. These types of provision LA's could copy and provide at a fraction of the cost.

There are savings that could be made but it would require the LA building more schools to meet needs.

It is worth adding our children are vastly different in needs and presentation. My ds is classed as severe autism and her ds would have been classes as Aspergers if the dx still existed (not looking to get into an argument about severity or descriptors, but needed language to describe the kids).

My friends ds goes to an inde school for academic kids with autism. They have smaller classes than ms (approx ten kids), one ta in each class, they all sit GCSE's. It costs over £100,000 per child. No onsite therapists, these are provided either by nhs or if specified in section F via additional budgets, no transport etc. These types of provision LA's could copy and provide at a fraction of the cost.

This is broadly what DS' school is also like (including the cost). There are currently 4 children in his class, but they can go up to 6 in primary. Academic achievements obviously depend on the cohort, but GCSE and A-levels are offered and the school is not geared towards those with LD's.

I had always assumed that the cost to our LA of DS' place was so high because they have so much therapy available and built into the curriculum. DS receives OT, psychology/MH support and support with social interaction several times a week. In the absence of these extras it's difficult to see both how the cost is justified and why the LA's are not running this type of school themselves. I suspect its ideological - inclusion at all costs, even if all the children learn nothing and all the teachers resign.

@ExistingonCoffee thank you for clarifying that. In my case I already had to be at home as DS1’s specialist placement had broken down. I would not give up career/financial independence whilst a viable alternative existed. Unfortunately, without a legally enforceable EHCP I fear it will become harder. I had the support of SOS!SEN to start JR proceedings and get home tuition when specialist school failed. The LA funded a bespoke package when MS failed. Neither would have been possible without an EHCP.

@PocketSand it’s not easy.

There will still be some protection for CSA DC unable to attend school separate to whatever happens to EHCPs. There aren’t proposals to change s19 provision and parents can’t be compelled to facilitate that either. Not as comprehensive as EOTAS/EOTIS packages but still provision the LA cannot rely on parents to deliver or facilitate.

I saw a post by Michael Charles on fbk saying that when reading the send reforms alongside the children's wellbeing bill, parents are losing their right to provide an education with the state being able to step in for the first time and say no even where a suitable education is provided. I'll copy and paste the post below direct from his fbk pagr as mych as i can try i won't be abke to convey what he has put anywhere near as well :-

"THE SEND REFORM AND CHILDREN BILL SEND THE SAME MESSAGE

It is impossible to read the proposed SEND “Specialist Provision Packages” from the Department for Education alongside the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill without seeing a clear pattern emerging.

In both, the state is moving decisively towards telling parents what is “best” for their children even where parents are already meeting the legal threshold.

For over 150 years, English education law has rested on a simple but powerful principle.. parents have the primary duty to educate their children. Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 makes that explicit. Parents must provide efficient, full-time education suitable to the child’s age, ability and any special educational needs either at school or otherwise. Provided that threshold of suitability is met, the state cannot insist on a different route simply because it prefers it.

The Children’s Wellbeing Bill seeks to dilute that foundation for home-educating families by introducing a “best interests” override. Even where education is agreed to be suitable, the local authority will be empowered, in defined circumstances, to say: we think school would be better.

That is a dramatic shift from “good enough” to “we know best”.

At the same time, in the SEND reforms, we see a parallel shift. The Children and Families Act 2014 established a needs-led system. EHCPs are supposed to identify the individual child’s needs and specify the provision required to meet them.

The architecture is individual, not categorical. That is reinforced by the Equality Act 2010, which requires individual reasonable adjustments.

Equality law does not operate by menu.Yet the new SEND proposals introduce centrally designed “packages” that will “underpin” EHCPs. However they are described, once packages underpin plans, the system inevitably begins to revolve around them. Funding models align to them. Commissioning aligns to them. Expectations align to them.

The practical question subtly shifts from “What does this child need?” to “Which package does this child fit into?”

That is nothing less than philosophical realignment. The courts have long understood that children are not interchangeable. Under the Children Act 1989, a child’s welfare is paramount and their wishes and feelings must be considered.

In Re S (A Minor) (Independent Representation) [1993] 2 FLR 437, Sir Thomas Bingham MR reminded us that children are human beings in their own right, with individual minds and wills deserving serious attention. That judicial recognition of individuality sits uneasily with policy models that cluster children into administratively convenient bundles.

Over years of practice, one lesson stands out, rarely are two children the same, even where the diagnostic label is identical. Autism does not present uniformly. Executive function difficulties vary widely. Trauma affects children differently depending on timing, attachment and environment.

Modern neuroscience confirms what practitioners and parents already know developmental profiles are diverse, overlapping and highly individual.

Against that backdrop, redefining disability through standardised packages risks flattening complexity into something manageable on paper but inadequate in reality.

When combined with proposals that allow the state to override parental preference even where education is suitable, the direction of travel becomes clear. The language of “best interests” and “packages” may appear benign, but together they point towards a system in which officials, rather than families, increasingly determine both what education looks like and what disability requires.

That, to my mind,is not putting children first. It is centralising control.
Parents are not infallible. No one claims they are. But for over a century and a half, our law has struck a careful balance. The state intervenes where education is not suitable, or where a child is unsafe not simply because it believes it can design something better.
We are now being asked to accept a model in which “better”, as defined by the authority, can displace “suitable”, as delivered by the family, and in which disability is organised into preset frameworks that risk constraining individual entitlement.

I cannot accept that direction. Children are not standard units. Disability is not a tariff. Parenthood is not a privilege granted at the discretion of the state.

So I say this... No to replacing individuality with packages. No to redefining suitability as state preference. No to the quiet erosion of rights under the banner of reform.

No, no, no."

I follow him on fb, and have read about this.

We are told our children are our responsibility, but on the other hand all our rights are being taken away.

I do get that children if in home ed should have check ins to make sure they are safe and having an educational that is right for them.

But what I dont like is being told,when the LA couldnt even give my child a sultible educational for 2 years! But of course there allowed to do that.