2. Welcome and Introduction
Annemarie Blackshaw Head of SEN/AEN Provider Services
Our Speakers today:
• Brian Lamb
• Tim Coulson
• Simon Morgan
Our guests today
• Councillor Ray Gooding
• Councillor Paul Honeywood
3. Programme
10.30 Welcome and Aims for the day – Annemarie Blackshaw
10.35 Some „thoughts‟ on SEND - Video clip
10.40 Presentation on National Context – Brian Lamb
11.00 The issues for Essex - Tim Coulson
11.10 Key Messages from SEND Consultation - Simon Morgan
11.25 Developing the SEND Priorities - Annemarie Blackshaw
11.35 First session - Workshops
12.30 Lunch and networking
13.30 Second session - Workshops
14.30 Summing up and next steps – Annemarie Blackshaw
4. Aims of the day
• Provide an update on the Children and Families Bill
• Identify what the Essex SEND strategy needs to
address
• Summarise the key messages from the recent
consultation and engagement sessions
• Use workshop sessions to further develop the six
key priorities
• Provide a focused session on the local offer
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10. What's in the Bill?
• New Plan to replace the statement covering Education, Health
and Social Care
• School Action and School Action plus disappear to be replaced
by new school based category
• Local Offer-includes all Stakeholders
• Mediation-but not going to be compulsory
• Personal Budgets for those with a plan
• Joint Commissioning of Services
11. Not changing
• Definition of SEN stays the same
• Admissions Code-but greater clarity that Academies are
included-cannot refuse child with SEN accepted under very
specific circumstances
• General principle of inclusion in mainstream schools
• SENCO must be a qualified teacher working at the school
• Plan contains same legal protections around Education as the
Statement
13. Education Health and Care Plan
• Replacing SEN statements and Learning Difficulty Assessments (for 16-
to 25-year-olds) with a single, simpler 0-25 assessment process and
Education, Health and Care Plan from 2014.
• Threshold for triggering a plan does not change
• Rights for triggering a plan remain the same, there will be timescales
and others can also trigger a plan and it will have to be reviewed
• EHC plans extend statutory rights into the further education and
training sector for the first time
• New duties in relation to health but not yet social care in relation to
the plan (CSDPA/Social Care requirements still remain)
• Duty to jointly commission services
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15. Government Bill-Local Offer
• Parents, children and young people must be involved developing the
local offer
• It must set out what families can expect from local services and where
they have eligibility criteria and/or thresholds for accessing services
• What services are available to support those without Education, Health
and Care Plans, including what children, young people and parents can
expect schools and colleges to provide from their delegated funds
• What specialist support is available and how to access it and to give
details of where parents and young people can go for information, advice
and support.
• Each service will be accountable for delivering what is set out in the local
offer and if families are unhappy with what they receive or what is
available they will be able to take this up with those services.
• The local offer will give details of how to complain about provision and
about rights of appeal.
• It must be reviewed
17. School Based Category?
• School Action and School Action Plus to go - new name
Additional SEN Support (this may yet change!)
• School based category poses the question of what the school
offer should look like to achieve better outcomes
• New Funding guidelines-Schools responsible for provision up to
£4,000 + £6,000.
• Currently different models of intervention-what is the evidence
base for different approaches -effective use of TAs a major issue
• A number of models look to develop teacher based expertise
supported by specialist provision. This is what the New Code
now expects - increased responsibility on teachers and schools
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18. Early Identification-New Code
• Consider their core teaching and adapt that to meet needs of the
cohort as a whole
• Ensure that parents of children are fully engaged, consulted and
informed and agreement is reached on how the child‟s needs will be
met
• Ensure that the child or young person is fully engaged, consulted and
informed and agreement is reached on how their needs will be met
• There should be a plan that focuses on what outcomes are expected
and the support that the school, college and any relevant agencies will
provide
• Reviews of progress should be held at least once a term
• Where relevant, external services and providers should work with
settings to meet the needs of children and young people with SEN
and
• Settings should review the effectiveness of what is happening and
consider the need for a further assessment and whether there should
be changes to the support provided
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19. “We know that the educational achievement for children with SEN is
too low and the gap with their peers too wide. This is a hangover of a
system and a society which did not place enough value on achieving
good outcomes for disabled children and children with SEN”
Lamb Inquiry.
OUTCOMES
20. THE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE SHOWS
THAT PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IS ONE OF
THE KEY FACTORS IN SECURING HIGHER
STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
AND SUSTAINED SCHOOL PERFORMANCE
(Harris 2006).
21. Challenges
• Moving to the Education Health and Care Plan
• Getting the Local Offer right
• What does a good school offer look like for SEN?
• How do we ensure better outcomes for children?
• What expectations should we have of classroom teachers and
what is the role of professional support and when should it be
deployed?
• What is the evidence for different approaches?
• How do we ensure that parents and young people are fully
engaged?
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26. Our Vision
In Essex, our vision is to ensure that all Children and Young
People with SEND have a full range of support and
opportunities available to them. We will work together to
ensure that all children have opportunities in learning and to
maximise their life chances, goals and aspirations. To achieve
this will require professionals and local communities to work
effectively together. We also want to ensure that parents and
carers have greater confidence by giving them better access to
information and greater opportunity to participate in decision
making. We will strive to make our SEND processes more
flexible and transparent.
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27. Our Principles
Our vision is underpinned by a number of shared principles that
guide the commissioning and provision of services for children and
young people with SEND.
• Information on SEND should be easily accessible to all.
• Parents / carers are the experts on their children‟s needs .
• All children and young people have a right to be involved in
decision making that affects their lives.
• The needs of most children with SEND can and should be met in
a mainstream setting.
• There should be equality of access to services .
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28. Our Principles cont.…
• There should be a range of mainstream and specialist provision .
• Special Schools should play an important role in supporting
mainstream schools to include pupils with SEND.
• Raising achievement and narrowing the gap in attainment for
children with SEND must be the aim of all education providers in
Essex.
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29. Our Issues
What we need to focus on:-
• Increasing confidence in the system
• Identification of SEN
• Focusing on early intervention and prevention
• Funding and resourcing for pupils with SEN
• Working in partnership
• Improving the school experience for pupils with SEN
• Securing attainment and progress
• Increasing specialist provision
• Increasing confidence in what we can achieve in Essex
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31. Introduction
To obtain views on the future delivery of SEND services and shape
the development of a SEND Strategy
862 online responses received (127 additional face-to-face
responses)
32. Proposed Priorities
1. Ensure all schools and educational settings offer good or
outstanding provision for pupils with SEND.
2. Strengthen and coordinate our approach to preventative
work and early intervention programmes.
3. Working in partnership to produce the Local Offer.
4. Ensure pupils with SEND follow a planned pathway through
transition into adulthood that supports their progression.
5. Improve the organisation and delivery of SEN assessments,
placements and services, including joint assessment and
funding arrangements for C&YP with residential and/or
exceptional health needs.
6. We want to ensure there is a range of provision in place to
support children with SEND.
33.
34.
35. To ensure that there are no gaps in health
and social care provision suggested areas of
focus included:
38. School Employees (216) and Other (248)
What else we could do to improve progress and achievement for children
and young people with SEND: -
What services do we need to target at early intervention: -
School Employee Other
Appropriately qualified and well trained teachers/ practitioners
Access to professional support,
advice and information
Improved school understanding of
expectations re. SEND
More funding and improved access
to funding/transparency
Multi-agency collaboration and
information sharing
School Employee Other
Speech, language and occupational therapy
Specialist teaching provision (especially at pre-school)
Early years support Health services – often the first point
of contact
39. What can we do to improve the way schools, health and social care work
together to support children and families?
How can we ensure transition planning achieves the best possible outcomes
for young people
School Employee Other
Information sharing and communications
(so parents can make informed decisions)
Multi-agency join up / thinking beyond the school
A single point of contact/Key worker Involving families when considering
long term needs of child
School Employee Other
Information sharing/signposting/communications/understanding parent and
child views
Understanding of the importance of multi-agency working (with equal
footing for agencies) and Introducing keyworkers/coordinators
More training Removing bureaucracy
40. What things do you feel could be done differently to improve the statutory
assessment process: -
What would improve their confidence in the range of provision in place to
support children with SEND in Essex schools: -
School Employee Other
More training (minimum level for all staff) and more specialist teachers
Joined up support/multi-agency
working
More SEN Places and
choice/Increased teaching capacity
Special provision made for children
with severe ASD
More information on what free
schools will provide
School Employee Other
Speed up the process (but not at the cost of quality)
More support to complete complex
forms (online and in plain English)
Families better able to inform the
process (clear communication)
Progress information provided
throughout/Greater transparency
Assessments carried out early and
reviewed/amended regularly
41. Next steps
On-going consultation through these engagement sessions -
Informed by this consultation analysis
Consider how this analysis will influence our new SEND
strategy for Essex.
42. 42
Developing the SEND Priorities
• The SEND strategy has been planned by a multi agency
strategy reference group
• Throughout the process all plans have been reported to
Elected Members through the Policy Scrutiny Committee
• The priority areas consulted on reflect the new SEND
legislation and address the Essex context
• Each priority area has been assigned a multi agency
project team to detail the main areas for development
and develop action plans of what we need to do in Essex
• We want to take this opportunity to gain your views on
developing the priorities further
43. Workshop Sessions
The aim of each workshop is to work in
partnership to inform and develop the six priority
areas in the SEND strategy.
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44. Developing the SEND Priorities
We now have 2 sessions for workshops one before lunch and one
immediately after lunch. There are 6 workshops; you were asked to
choose 3 that most interested you. The project team have
endeavoured to allocate according to your preferences.
Workshop 1 – Ensure all schools and education setting offer good
or outstanding provision for pupils with SEND.
Elizabeth Cornish – Assistant Lead Strategic Commissioner – SEN
Inclusion
Room: Blue Room
Workshop 2 – Strengthen and co-ordinate our approach to
preventative work and early intervention programmes.
Chris Perkins – Manager - Specialist Teaching and Pre-school
Services
Room: Dining Hall
44
45. …..continued
Workshop 3 – Working in partnership to produce the Local Offer
Professor Brian Lamb OBE
Room: Red Room
Workshop 4 – Ensure pupils with SEND follow a planed pathway
through transition into adulthood that supports their progression.
Julia Ammar Seraie –Service Development Officer Transition
Pathway Service
Room: Board Room Morning Only
Workshop 5 - Improve the organisation and the delivery of SEN
assessments, placements and services, including joint assessment
and funding arrangements for child and young people.
Alison Stanford – Manager Statutory Assessment Service
Room: Main Hall
45
46. ……continued
Workshop 6 – Develop a continuum of provision to meet a
continuum of need.
Gary Bloom – Manager SEN Provision Development
Room: Board Room Afternoon Only
Remember to go straight to your second workshop
after lunch!
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47. Summing up and next steps
Reflection on the day……..
Next steps
• Reviewing and incorporating all of the feedback (July/Aug`13)
• Working with the Policy Team to produce the SEND Strategy
(Aug`13)
• Final on-line consultation (Sept`13)
• Development of action plans by the multi-agency SEND project
groups (2013-14)
• Publication of Local Offer (Sept `14)
• Web portal for Local Offer (Sept`14)
• Embracing the e-culture.
• Living the commitment to work in partnership and improve
confidence.
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Tim Could you look at these notes and cover the Vision and Principles of the proposed strategy and finally end up with the key issues. I have also sent this to you as an email attachment
Agencies talking to each other effectivelyMulti-disciplinary teams, single link workers Transition points - through formal education system and into adulthood
