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.

But presumably if the support he needed was available without needing an ehcp it would also be fine.

I believe Labour think they are trying to achieve a system where a lot of things that can only be accessed via an ehcp now, become accessible in other ways which are quicker.

I have worked in education since ehcps started and when I first started work there were children who were supported without an ehcp who would now need an ehcp as the external support we used to have dissapeared.

For example, we had access to salt for any child that needed it! We could refer direct and then when they visited, regularly, we could say 'what do you think about Bob over there' and get an opinion on Bob too. It then got more and more rationed and eventually could only be accessed via an ehcp and basically only during the assesment process. So now you had to have an ehcp to get salt and as a parent id be terrified of it being stripped away! All us sen parents are scared and bruised.

But actually as a society I think its better if we just had schools being able to request salt or OT for any child that needed it regardless of ehcp status and ehcps were for a layer of complexity above that (which might be your child's level still). I mean its quite mad we have been put in a position where we need a legal document to outline what is often some pretty basic healthcare delivered in school and then have to enforce it through court!

I just dont have trust it will be delivered and i dont think they have understood the issues really. Its very sad.

I don't see how the support he needs would be available without an EHCP as it includes him having 2:1 support, personal care etc. He has no learning disabilities or behavioural issues, the support he needs is largely physical.

I agree with you but the Government are trying to save money. It would be wonderful if every kid had bespoke provision, I suspect most would do better not shoehorned into a huge, chaotic, one size fits all secondary school. But that is unaffordable.

Although I imagine that there will u-turn in a couple of weeks!

I don't want bespoke provision, I simply want my child to be able to access mainstream education. He can do this but only with an EHCP.

I don't think that's too much to expect.

I'm pretty concerned about this, this is the year my DC3 will be transitioning to secondary.

I'm hoping by the time it comes around then things are more settled but yes I was under the impression that the whole EHCP could be removed at this stage in lieu of other kinds of support.

Although our EHCP often feels like it's not worth the paper it's printed on.

I hear you but when the number of kids being legally entitled to such adjustments is so huge, it becomes impossible to implement. The system wasn't designed to work like that. That's why I think they want to move back towards something more universal.

The principle of the changes is good. We have to wait and see whether it is implemented properly and with enough funding. That is why people are nervous about it! They have had bad experiences.
The NHS is palatably better right now, so hopefully same will apply to state education.
In my LA we now have a ridiculous situation where most parents who get an EHCP simply pick and choose the Ofsted outstanding schools and with transport on top. It is too expensive. All secondary schools should be funded to the level that they have SEND specialist support so all schools can cater to all children.

I just hope that he would be in the category if 'only those with the most severe needs'. He deserves his place in mainstream and I pray it continues, but like you I would be very scared of it being removed. All trust has gone. We are battered and exhausted. My son is at a special school and the idea he could be better served mainstream in a hub is delusional.

But i dont think they said noone would get an ehcp. I think they are looking at the rise in ehcps and are saying SOME of these children could be better supported without having to go through a slow bonkers legal process that breaks them as genuinely some of the stuff you need an ehcp to access really was available without an ehcp before.

I want a better system. I dont trust this is it.

The idea is also more collaboration between schools to support SEND via resources and know how. There is a lot of tech that will help eg children with impaired vision and dyslexia on top. If all the children with similar across the country can access a collaborative approach and state of the art resources and know how, that would surely be a good thing. So a national effort to address SEND would hopefully go some way towards this, in theory.

I would have loved for my DS to be reassessed at Y6 as he'd changed a lot but his school/the LEA kept saying "they have no EP" or sending the EP when he was off sick.

I don't now much about EHCP, so I won't comment here, but my heart goes out to the people who fought really hard to get it for their kids.
I have a 5 y.o. being currently monitored for SEN because "he has had difficulties transitioning from Reception to Y1". The teacher had a chat with me recently to get him to write stories at home, because he refuses at school and cries. Then I thought about my home country (I'm from EU) and I figured out that he would be only in a preschool there, playing Lego and maybe learning about shapes. I remember I started Reception at 6 and I was the only kid in my class who could read (mummy taught me at home). I'm just wondering that maybe the system in England is too harsh and too demanding on many kids who have to sit at the desk and write and do math calculation so early when that's actually not really age-appropriate when compared internationally, thus making them very stressed early on and fail. So I would address early years curriculum first, maybe make it less demanding and more play-based? All we have learnt in our Y1 meeting in September was that "there is this big phonics exam at the end of Y1 so pls prepare your kids!" Seriously, an exam for 6 year olds. It's crazy.

This isn't going to work either. I suspect it is going to be a disaster and not even save money in the long run.

I guess in a perfect system all children would be assessed in Year 5 for any educational needs and then there would be careful planning for all as it is the secondary transition that mostly goes wrong. So rather than huge focus on academics, the focus would be on profiles for all children to understand how they learn and any additional needs/what support is best for them long term.

Does anyone know how it works if a child is in a special school? They wouldn’t suddenly be expected to go to a mainstream would they ?

My concern is that only those with the most severe needs will apply to children in special provisions.

“Does anyone know how it works if a child is in a special school? They wouldn’t suddenly be expected to go to a mainstream would they ?”

No, the minister on the radio this morning set children would not be forced to move setting.
I guess the only thing that could conceivably go wrong is if a special school went bust because the LA no longer funded it properly.

The bit that confuses me is what people expect for kids who have behavioural needs, or are ND, but do not have learning disabilities - eg they are capable of accessing the mainstream curriculum albeit with support.

My mum was a teacher in a special school in the 80s and special schools were not academic at all, it was kids with down syndrome and learning disabilities and brain damage & genetic conditions, who needed care as well as education, for their own safety and others. The curriculum focus was on self care, independence - being able to prepare food, use public transport, employ a functional level of maths/reading, interact with others people in the community etc.

Nowadays there seem to be a host of people with children who don't have learning disabilities etc, but who expect the state to provide an incredibly tailored, one to one level of provision, even where this doesn't appear to be effective in enabling the child or young person to attend school or work.

Its just not sustainable. Its not up to the state to spend £50,000 per kid to ensure a child has no demands placed on them ever and make every child emotionally happy with equine therapy and dance classes and one to one tuition.

Specialist schools also close because of bad management and abuse... In my region 3 have closed recently, two due to abuse and one was probably going that way but went bust. Two others including my DS school have had teachers taken to court over abuse.

“The bit that confuses me is what people expect for kids who have behavioural needs, or are ND, but do not have learning disabilities - eg they are capable of accessing the mainstream curriculum albeit with support.”

Such children need mental health support, things like CBT, confidence building, stuff that specialists on the NHS and in education (trained in both) should be providing.

It is no good removing ND DC from life and making things too easy for them, only if they are burn out do they need a break. Otherwise they need support to access education and life in a way that works for them.

I can see why you would worry about that and one of the leaks suggested it. Its a terrible idea!

I truly hope thats not the case because I dont personally think the choice of special or mainstream is about 'severity' but suitable environments and suitable curriculum. I think there are children more 'severely' send than mine at mainstream because the curriculum and environment is right for them once adaptions are in place.

Im just so cross all these leaks and the current situation has vulnerable families sleepless over change.

I'm so conflicted on this but suspect it will just turn into a nightmare

In reality a lot of children have EHCPs that are out of date and don't reflect their current needs or support levels. A lot changes on a move to secondary (if anything more support is often required!) so it's right to ensure any plan is current and correct. However as this is my 'in reality' section, we all know LAs will use this as a reason to reduce support/maybe even remove plans and it will chuck the tribunal system (if we still have it) into even more chaos, and if we don't have SENDIST anymore, well we're just setting ourselves up for major problems when we end up with a load of young people out of education, NEET and in benefits later down the line.

if current annual reviews were done in a timely and proper manner these assessments wouldn't be necessary, and if by any small (extremely unlikely) chance a child no longer needed a plan, at least the plan remains in place until the hearing in a cease to maintain appeal where parents disagree with the LA decision.

So really we just need better enforcement and ARs than reassessment.

But the whole point is that if their difficulties are subtle or masked to the extent they’re not apparent to people around them, are they at a level that requires an EHCP which are meant for the most disabled children out there?

The area of SEMH has become so blurred with education, disability and EHCPs that it’s easy to forget the system wasn’t designed for this kind of need. It was designed for children with more medical based needs, whose health depend on the adaptions and provision in the plan.

The system is currently flailing to deal with what is effectively an avalanche of sudden ‘SENH’ anxious/autistic children, a profile almost unheard of 20 years ago. I’m not here to debate whether the increase is a true increase or better diagnosis, the fact is these children didn’t need EHCPs 20 years ago and they certainly wouldn’t have qualified for special school.

We cannot allow costs to spiral indefinitely and reach a place where 20% of children need specialist provision. It just isn’t affordable.

No other comparable country has the SEN level of need that we do. It needs urgent investigation.

I agree with you and I really hope it isn't the case either but it definitely has me up at night worrying because it wouldn't surprise me as it seems to be the kind of 'logic' they will go for.

I think its a really good idea parents are doing their kids no favours by insisting just because their child has autism they need all these extra provisions. A significant amount of people with autism can live a successful "normal" life and achieve great things. This diagnosis along with other diagnosis can be a real barrier in peoples futures unnecessarily. Also with the amount of people diagnosed as ND now it means that people with severe ND don't get the help they deserve. How many teens young adults do we have leaving school and going straight on benefits instead of trying to get a job go to college because they are told their whole life that they struggle and aren't capable.

Not all children with EHCP's are autistic.

Mine isn't.