SEND reform proposals

[IdentityCris]

Being extensively leaked ahead of the White Paper - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2d041wl6po

Doesn't look good.

Nope but it may not come to force. And it there will have to be changes to kegal checks etc.

My child will be impacted by this. Currently LA have offered EOTIS with ehcp and tribunal next month. But its been a nightmare.

He would be coming up to yr 10 in 2029/30 so....

I will as ever email my mp, challenge where I can etc.

Currently also dealing with trying to support under section 17 child in need etc too. Its all exhausting, our systems are not fit for purpose.

I’m very concerned. I will email my MP not that he cares or listens!

I’m very concerned as a SENCO the amount of additional admin this puts on us. We don’t have capacity as it is. I’m working all of half term. They can’t put the additional workload on us without funding for additional staff. I’m aiming to get out by 2029, if I don’t have a breakdown before that.

Yes I think they are going to be throwing mainstream schools under a bus. I work in complex needs school. Well currently on unpaid parental leave due to the LA acting illegally and making me supervise my childs eotis provision...

But them saying the £6,000 funding is going. Needs will just be supported in msinsteam.. because that is working so well currently.. especially with academies and lack of accountability there.

Unless there is decent funding increase on staffing and also investment in buildings and facilities its all a mute point.

I left mainstream because it was awful seeing children being failed because there just were not the staff, funding, resources to support appropriately. For my own well being i couldn't work in that environment.

That's one thing that concerns me a lot. For all that they talk about putting more funding into schools, how realistic is that? No government has raised the £6K SEN delegated funding figure in the last 12 years - why should we believe that funding for a new system will be adequate? If they were so convinced that mainstream plus more funding is the answer, why change the law? Why not put the extra funding and training into place anyway - if they're right, children with SEND will start doing to well in mainstream education that the number of EHCPs will fall automatically.

I'm seriously concerned also that the hefty emphasis on provision in mainstream schools will leave children who cannot cope in any school high and dry, as LAs won't have the money to cover EOTAS any more.

This seems to be based in so many misconceptions, too. On the radio this morning they were talking about no longer have an automatic transfer of EHCPs from primary to secondary schools. We don't have automatic transfer now, the whole point is that that is one of the things to be decided at annual review meetings. How can they make big decisions about the law and policy when they don't understand the present system?

I wonder if one reason they're looking at focusing on primary to secondary transfer first is to remove the right to request a school in section I. I think they're going to argue that all mainstream schools will be able to meet need for the vast majority of students (ie those who will no longer qualify for an EHCP under the new system). The idea being that all secondaries will have a 'resourced provision' so EHCPs will no longer be needed. I'm not sure where all the staff are going to come from for these resourced provisions or what incentives there will be for schools to open them or what measures are going to be in place to ensure they don't end up as a 'dumping ground'. I guess we'll need to see the details.

My DS is in a resourced provision and it's so difficult for his school to get and retain staff as it is.

I read this morning that 19% of EHCPs are issued to DC in Upper KS2. I think there may be a feeling that it's parents trying to 'game' the system so their DC can attend a specific secondary school.

Hopefully organisations like Ipsea, SOS!SEN and Special Needs Jungle will help to challenge whatever is being cooked up.

It could all be so different without costing any money at all. I went to school in Germany. It's not sll perfect there but soo much better for a neurodivergent child like me. No uniform. No rules about hairs, piercings, tatoos, gendered clothing styles etc. No lunch in school. No detention. No behaviour point systems. No SATs. No GCSEs. School ends at 12noon in primary school, at 1pm in secondary. Choice between academic and vocational secondaries. No university fees.

. I went to school in Germany. It's not sll perfect there but soo much better for a neurodivergent child like me. No uniform. No rules about hairs, piercings, tatoos, gendered clothing styles etc. No lunch in school. No detention. No behaviour point systems. No SATs. No GCSEs. School ends at 12noon in primary school, at 1pm in secondary.

But this is a complete nightmare for working parents, which is why there is a move away from the early finish schools and more and more are Ganztagsschulen until 4pm with hort (wraparound care).

If they say that every child with identified SEN has an ISP it is completely unmanageable. Many children have a diagnosis and their needs are met through reasonable adjustments. If we have to write a plan and review it three times a year for all of these children that is at least a full time role in itself. Let alone actually putting the provisions in place. Is there even any evidence that this improves their outcomes? For many children it is the mainstream environment which isn’t meeting their needs. No amount of reasonable adjustments changes that and putting them in a separate room with an adult all day is hardly inclusion. Creating SRPs is a huge job - building, recruiting, training etc. It would probably be more efficient to create them in existing Special Schools.

We need to fundamentally change the way we run our schools.

I am - selfishly - glad that my DS1 has now completed his education. We had to go into the private system for several years until a special school could take him, because mainstream state was too big, too noisy and too crowded for him to access any education there (he’s very very autistic). The Tories’ mainstream state provision couldn’t meet his needs at all and now Labour looks like they’re going to disadvantage even more children who need specialist schooling.

Except that special schools are often too far for children to travel. My child gets eotis but the one school that might at some point be able to meet needs is a 75 min drive away on a good day with no additional pick ups. He would struggle with that journey on a good day and he certainly couldn't do it twice a day, 5 days a week and be remotely able to access his education.

But previous government's closed specialist schools so now children have to travel riddiculous distances. Hence the idea of bases attached to current schools which for a lot of parents is preferable. But they need to be funded, resourced etc properly to meet needs.

My child has massively complex sensory needs along with autism, pda, tourettes. A spiky profile very cognitively able in some areas but cant cope in groups, ie his latest EP report details no more than groups of 4-6.

He was in mainstream til yr 3 when it fell apart and was not learning, was being babysat badly with LA and school still saying they could meet needs. 🙄 well the headteachers words were that he felt technically they could provide what was in ehcp, so could meet needs. Despite him being unable to access the toilet or eat all day due to overwhelm. And by their own admisdiinnhe was not accessing any learning. The ehcp wasnt drafted until he was already not managing. And of course was appalling and needed tribunal for b and f and I.. County have now conceded all of B, offered eotis for I and are STILL quibbling over bits of F.

The process is exhausting but that is partly because local authorities breach law, prevaricate etc and there is no comeback.

Our tribunal was supposed to be last sept, they failed to submit the working document so 2 days before it was cancelled. Now less than 3 weeks before tribunal and they are suddenly offering lots of ammendments.. but they managed to delay so much that my child missed a year of education and currently gets 9 hours a week.

I have followed correct complaints procedures etc the whole way through, even had compensation, apologies. Makes no difference the LA dont care its still saved them money.

The lack of accountability extends to academy chain schools too where they refuse even basic reasonable adjustments.

Targeted and Targeted Plus have hallmarks of school action and school action plus, and round in circles we go.

One reason for the focus on phase transfers is this will be how they phase in a new system. Just like they did for transition from SSEN to EHCPs and how the Welsh system changed over to IDPs. As each cohort reaches certain phase transfers, they will move system. Rather than it just being about ARs.

I don’t see how capping independent fees at £60k is feasible without increasing costs elsewhere. It will result in an increase in EOTAS/EOTIS/C spending (a proper package can be several multiples of £60k - I have 2 DSs with expensive comprehensive EOTAS/EOTIS packages), an increase in PBs for those on the roll of a school, an increase in social care and ICB costs, an increase in YJS costs, etc.

It is good practice for all with SEN to have a plan of some sort, anyway. Not all are like EHCPs, but a school level SEN support plan (called different things in different areas/schools).

When I was young, we just went home by ourselves, got something out of the fridge and relaxed or played until our parents came home at 5pm or 6pm. Having a quiet afternoon in an empty house was so essential for re-regulating and recharging. The sheer presence of other people, including parents, is often very stressful. There are still many children in Germany who go home after school by themselves and spend the afternoon alone. It's perfectly legal and encouraged in Germany.

Many DC with additional needs, particularly at the level of requiring an EHCP, cannot be left alone until 5-6pm. Some can’t even be left at all.

It also ignores that many DC with a SEN travel via school transport. In many cases that requires an adult to be present at drop off.

From what age? And what happens to families where children have additional needs/disabilities.

I have German friends btw and they definitely have a good balance of giving the children age appropriate freedom and responsibility but primary school children really cant be left alone all afternoon for example and nor can many children with additional needs. So what happens with younger children. Ie under 11?

This doesn't work so well for some kids with SEN who need adult supervision. For many parents of kids with disabilities that time at school is the only break they get and they would struggle as a family if it was shorter.

Whilst some independent special school fees seem to take the piss, there are nevertheless some very specialist schools that cater for conditions like epilepsy and other serious medical conditions, and I really don't see how they could possibly operate within a fees cap of £60K a year. They have to employ very specialist medical staff and in effect have the equivalent of hospital wards available on site, in addition to all the normal specialist school requirements.

I'm also concerned at talk of means testing school transport. As pointed out, many children with SEN have to travel long distances to school purely because of underinvestment in special schools. Why on earth should their families effectively be penalised for the crime of having a disabled child?

I don't see how resourced provision in mainstream schools will help, either. If, for example, the specialist RP for speech and language difficulties is in school A to the north of the county, whilst the RP for dyslexia is in school B in the south, the dyslexic child in the north and the child with communication problems in the south are still going to have to travel long distances.

@Madthings Children, including neurodiverse children - I have AuDHD, in Germany make their way to school by themselves from age 6. I and my best friend, who had ADHD and dyslexia, and later went to a special school for secondary, went to school on our own, depending on how we felt either by bike or public transport and then spent the afternoon playing by ourselves in the local woods without supervision. It's not illegal for primary school kids to be home alone, and I was often home alone or out and about alone from age 6, but many other parents either work from home, work part time, work early shifts (6 to 2 or 5 to 1 - most office jobs in Germany are 7-3, and shifts in bakeries, supermarkets etc start at 5 or 6am and end at 1 or 2), have help of grandparents or baby sitters or use after school clubs. Not every neurodiverse/disabled child could stay without any supervision, of course, but my personal experience and observation is that the more freedom, the less academic pressure, less time spent in school, less time being supervised and told what to do, what to wear, what and when to eat, and more time 'in the fresh air' (fresh air in Germany is trusted to heal everything) will lead to many neurodiverse children without intellectual disability/severe co-morbidities showing fewer difficulties or symptoms. It also helps that it is often difficult to see the difference between 'normal' German behaviour and 'autistic' behaviour. What in England looks 'special' often looks 'normal' in Germany.

Any children on the SEND register currently needs a provision map with targets and strategies that is reviewed 3 times annually. So this provision in itself is not new. Many schools in the country currently use learning plans as a way to meet standard and so for many this will not be new but it will be interesting to see how schools not accurately tracking provision will adapt as many are not employing full time sendcos. It should be manageable is sendcos are full time and required tk be on SLT and so hopefully the white paper increases guidance for how schools employ sendcos.

I don’t think the SEND resource bases will work like that at all. Every mainstream school will have one, it won’t specialise in anything but will be a room somewhere (library/ICT room/hut/cupboard!) filled with any child with an EHCP and a rotation of LSAs on minimum wage. If you’re lucky, the SaLT or OT will come in once a term. I don’t think there is any intention of making any child travel-they’ll just go to their catchment school’s hub and have to poke up with whatever they offer. No dyslexia specialism or speech and langue specialist-all just generalists (and cheap). I doubt there will be a teacher going anywhere near it-except the SENCo who will do the ARs.

I don't think the means testing of travel is in the White Paper is it? I think that's something the LGA have been putting about as one of their pleas for extra funding. The net result of more schools that can meet needs locally ought to be a reduction in travel bills but that will be 10 years in the future. But be mindful of this in the upcoming local elections...

I've got a 2 children with SEND, one with an EHCP. I'm also a secondary governor. I think it's really difficult right now for embattled parents (of which we are!) to look at a system 10 years in the future and think about what works better when there is zero trust, but I'm cautiously optimistic that there is the intention to shift the system and take some of the gatekeeping away from LAs. I hate the EHCP system with a passion. I hate that we need one (when DC's needs could be met in a well resourced mainstream with access to therapies without one), I hate that we won our last appeal (our second one) because we could afford to pay for the necessary specialist reports and I can run the appeals process when we have parents in our school who can't manage the paperwork; as a governor I hate that we have such limited access to specialists to help us meet our children's needs and that they come to us without challenges being caught properly by primary. I hate that there are private providers profiteering off the failure of the system.

We have a SEND resource base in our school that we resource out of our regular budget- it's not a full provision but some children do spend a lot of their day there. I don't think it's fair to characterise it as a shed! We have specialist teachers focused on it. But yes, we definitely need more access to specialists like SLT, OT etc. it's incredibly difficult to recruit and hold on to good SENCOs as well (our current one is really excellent). We have a really good approach to inclusion, so it can be done if leadership focus on it.

I do also think incentives need to be shifted for schools. At the moment most schools are perfectly happy for one school in their area to be the 'beacon' school for SEND so they don't have to bother themselves and can quite easily say they're not a suitable setting while making the environment quite hostile to children with SEND. They need to be performance-assessed on it, held to account and there be implications for their data and funding if they don't bother.

I dont understand how this helps autistic children with very spiky profiles who may not have profound learning disabilities but cannot cope in mainstream classrooms. It’s not like we already have an enormous amount of school refusals and mental health problems rocketing.

Is the idea that every school would have a really good resource base and be able to support like an ehcp but less officially?

Im really curious what you mean by this. What things seem normal? Do you mean very routine behaviour?