IEPs to change from current form

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

DS has a statement and has had one of these for several years now. He is now nearly at the end of his secondary school career - a fact that never ceases to amaze me!.

I was shown a new style IEP the other day which is mainly the child's own thoughts. I was at that time told by his secondary school that IEPs in their current form are to be changed to become less wordy and more along the lines of what a personal passport is like (eg what I find easy, what I find more difficult etc).

They also do not seem to know an awful lot about EHCPs anyway so I was wondering if anyone else has come across this new IEP format.

IEPs can be in any format. We have a specially designed one at our school so that they are more accessible for parents, students and teaching staff.

EHCPs will be for students with Band 3 statement and above, as I understand it. Because they go to 25 they should help with the transition to college and then employment.

Yep attila that is what a friend told me who is a senco in a neighbouring LA to me.

She said she was adapting her personal profiles to add a box at the bottom for targets.

It sounds more user friendly anyway and saves having 2 sheets of paper for the teachers to ignore read!

lairy what is a band 3 statement? Is there a band 2/4 statement? and what is the difference between them?

I don't think IEPs were ever compulsory anyway were they? The duty was to set short term targets.

Given that hardly any IEPs were SMART anyway, it seems common sense to the 'setters' that they can easily be turned into provision plans or passports or whatever.

Yes, broadly band 1 is very complex and severe difficulties (e.g. These children are always in specialist provision). Band 2 similar but less severe. Band 3 and 4 generally in mainstream provision. Band 3 students have 18 plus hours of support per week ( this does not have to be 1:1) Band 4 students tend to have fewer than 18 hours of support each week.
Under the new Code of Practice, children with band 3, 2 or 1 statements will have an EHCP. Current statements of support will stand until the child leaves Secondary. (That is my understanding - we are a Pathfinder authority, so I have been quite involved...)

Do children with band 4 currently have statements?

Yes. It's called a Band 4 statement ( though you might have to dig a bit to find out what your own child has as they no longer put this on the statement)

It's useful because it details all the support a child needs and how the school is expected to provide this support.

The new funding structure is causing difficulties for school with a lot of students with Band 3 and 4 statements, because whereas before schools were given additional funding to provide additional support for these students, school are now expected to provide this support from their own school budgets. It sounds reasonable ( ie govt keeps saying this money is within the school's existing budget), but actually if a child needs 20 hours of support a week from a TA, this costs the school about 12k a year from its own budget. Even Band 3 statements, which have a 'top up' are extremely expensive - the top up is peanuts in terms of the actual cost to the school.

Under Gove's new funding system, a student with a Band 3 statement joining our school in year 7 will cost the school an additional 60k over their school career. 50 k of this is from the school budget.

Some unscrupulous school leaders are discouraging parents of children with additional needs from applying, or 'encouraging' them to apply to other schools so that they do not have to bear this cost. This is particularly a problem where schools have a 'shared catchment' - if one school is brilliant and inclusive ( like the one where I work) and the other tries to 'put off' parents of children with additional needs, the brilliant, inclusive school can be crippled financially. It is so wrong.

LairyPoppins: thank you for the explanation

LairyPoppins you may well be in a Pathfinder Authority (as am I, incidentally) but I think your statement should be revised:

"Under the new Code of Practice, children with band 3, 2 or 1 statements will have an EHCP. Current statements of support will stand until the child leaves Secondary. (That is my understanding - we are a Pathfinder authority, so I have been quite involved...)"

Should read:

"In my authority they have chosen to use a banding matrix to identify which statemented children should convert to EHCP."

There is absolutely nothing in the new Code regarding the transfer of existing Statements to EHCPs and recent Government guidance is that they expect the vast majority of current statemented children to convert to EHCP and are not expecting a significant drop in numbers from Statement to EHCP.

Additionally, as the funding is becoming more divorced from Statements/EHCPS, the consideration should not be a financial one but on whether criteria is met.

"but actually if a child needs 20 hours of support a week from a TA, this costs the school about 12k a year from its own budget."

Ladypoppins, again there seems to be confusion her. Every school has a notional budget for SEN. That £12k comes from that allocation. If a school has over its fair share of children with these needs it can ask the LA for top up funding from the high needs block. This is detailed in the nationally published SEN Funding arrangements.