Transcript Slide 1

SEN in Darlington
Andy Lister, February 2013
SEN,
Statements
and Statutory
Assessment
The Current System (Just!)
Children have special educational needs if they have a
learning difficulty which calls for special educational provision to
be made for them.
Children have a learning difficulty if they:
a) have a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority
of
children of the same age; or
(b) have a disability which prevents or hinders them from making
use of
educational facilities of a kind generally provided for children of the
same
age in schools within the area of the local education authority
Children must not be regarded as having a learning difficulty solely
because the language or form of language of their home is
different from the language in which they will be taught.
SEN Code of Practice, 2001
The 3 SEN Stages
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School Action - When a class teacher or the SENCO identifies a child
with SEN the class teacher should provide interventions that are
additional to or different from those provided as part of the school’s
usual differentiated curriculum offer and strategies
School Action Plus - A request for help from external services is likely
to follow a decision taken by the SENCO and colleagues, in
consultation with parents, at a meeting to review the child’s IEP.
Schools should always consult specialists when they take action on
behalf of a child through School Action Plus.
Statutory Assessment - Where a request for a statutory assessment is
made by a school to an LEA, the child will have demonstrated
significant cause for concern. The LEA will seek evidence that any
strategy or programme implemented has been continued for a
reasonable period of time without success and that alternatives have
been tried, or the reasons why this has not occurred.
Who is responsible?
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Schools have the knowledge and resources
to make provision – In Darlington, all the
money for secondary schools and about ¾
for primary schools is “delegated” to the
schools.
The school’s Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCo) is the lead professional.
Schools have responsibility for children at
School Action and School Action Plus, as
well as those with statements
Statutory Assessment
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Is a legally controlled process
Takes about 6 months
Can lead to a statement, but need not
Is for the most needy of children (about 2%)
Is needed to gain access to special school
Is not needed for support bases, additional
support, exam access arrangements or
transport
Can be asked for by school, doctor or parent
Statements
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There are 375 children in Darlington who
have a statement from a total school
population of just under 15,000 children
A statement is a legal document which
describes the child’s SEN (Part 2), outlines
the objectives and the provision to meet their
needs (Part 3)
A statement is reviewed every year (the
Annual Review Meeting)
The Lamb Inquiry
The major work in launching the current
SEN agenda; Launched 2008 reported 2009
The Inquiry responded to two major
concerns
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The need to build confidence in the SEN system;
The need to improve the quality of provision.
The Report Concluded that
 Parents need to be listened to more;
 The system needs to be more ambitious for pupils
with SEN.
4 Key Areas
1) Children’s outcomes at the heart of
the system
2) A stronger voice for parents
3) A system with a greater focus on
children’s needs
4) A more accountable system that
delivers better services
The Message
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“It is not the current framework that
is at fault but rather the failure to
comply with both the spirit and the
letter of the framework”
Brian Lamb; December 2009
Lamb Inquiry Dec 2009
“In meetings with parents, ……., there
was little focus on outcomes for children.
Rather the focus was on the type and
amount of provision and often on agreeing a
number of hours of support from a learning
support assistant. ….. few of the parents the
Inquiry met seemed to have been
encouraged to have a discussion about the
outcomes they expected, or aspired to, for
their child or how best these outcomes
might be achieved.”
The Transition Guarantee
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In 2010 – 11, Darlington and Stockton LAs
ran an innovative project for the Government
(DfE) to help identify strategies for Lamb and
the Green Paper on SEN.
The Transition Guarantee focussed on
transition from primary to secondary school.
The Guarantee is an action plan for transition,
signed up to by primary school, secondary
school and parents.
The SEN Green Paper, 2011
The Government’s vision is of a
“radically different system” that:
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supports better life outcomes for young
people
gives parents more confidence by giving
them control
transfers power to front-line
professionals and to local communities
The Green Paper proposes:
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a new approach to identifying SEN
a single assessment process and ‘Education,
Health and Care Plan’
a local offer of all services available
parents to have the option of a personal
budget by 2014
giving parents a real choice of school
greater independence to the assessment of
children's needs
Delivery Partners
The Darlington
Pathfinder Project
Identifying new ways of delivering a coordinated approach to need
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We are developing and trialling a co-ordinated
assessment process, so that all agencies who
are involved with a child sit round a table, with
the parents and agree what they will be
delivering – This could be school, Occupational
Therapist, Speech and Language Therapist,
CAMHS or Social Worker.
The parent should know, by the end of the
assessment, exactly what each agency will
deliver.
Personal Budgets
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By the end of the project, we should be
in a position to offer the Government
advice about how Personal Budgets
could work. The idea of parents being
central to the management of services
for their children is close to the heart of
Government thinking.
Next steps:
Draft Legislation:
Reform of provision for
children and young people
with Special Educational
Needs
September 2012
The Green Paper said:
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A local authority in England and its partner
clinical commissioning groups must make
arrangements (joint commissioning
arrangements) about the EHC provision to be
secured for children and young people for
whom the authority is responsible who have
special educational needs.
The Commons Education
Committee said:
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We believe that the Government is relying too heavily
on the duty of joint commissioning between local
authorities, Health and social care in order for the
reforms to work. The active involvement of the NHS in
commissioning, delivery and redress is critical to the
success of the legislation. The Government must
ensure that the NHS is obliged to participate fully. We
make various recommendations on this point,
including that regulations should commit Health to
adhere to timetables for assessments of SEN. We
also call for the Government to clarify in the legislation
how responsibility for the provision of services which
can be defined either as supporting health or special
educational needs—such as speech and language
therapy—will be decided.
They also said ……
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We welcome the principle of integrated
Education Health and Care assessments, but
believe that they will require much more
rigorous testing and shaping through the
Pathfinders
We also recommend that all current
protections afforded by a Statement of SEN
be maintained in the new legislation.
The Children and Families Bill 2013
2nd Reading in House of Commons: 25th Feb!!
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The Government still claims that it is, “is transforming the system for
children and young people with special educational needs (SEN)”, but
the Bill describes an Education, Health and Care Plan as:
 For the purposes of this Part, an EHC plan is a plan specifying;
 (a) 45the child’s or young person’s special educational needs;
 (b) the outcomes sought for him or her;
 (c) the special educational provision required by him or her;
 (d) any health care and social care provision of a prescribed
description
required by him or her.
 This is almost identical to a statement …… Very
disappointing!
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We propose to replace the current SEN categories of
School Action and School Action Plus with a new, single
early years and school-based SEN category, providing
clear guidance to settings and schools on the
appropriate identification of pupils with SEN.
These changes will be set out in the new SEN Code of
Practice to be published in 2014 and will include a clear
process for identification and assessment, setting
objectives for pupils, reviewing progress and securing
further support.
This does not change the legislative duties on schools to
use best endeavours to secure special educational
provision, to have an SEN co-ordinator, to notify parents
of such provision or to publish information on how it is
implementing its policy on SEN and Disability. These
are all set out in primary legislation in the Children and
Families Bill.
Find out for yourself; Try
Googling ……..
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Draft legislation on Reform of provision for
children and young people with Special
Educational Needs
September 2012
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Pre-legislative scrutiny: Special
Educational Needs - Education Committee
December 2012
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Children and Families Bill 2013
February 2013
Ofsted Review of SEN
“A Statement is Not Enough”
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The young people to whom inspectors spoke
during the review were clear about what they
wanted for the future: successful
relationships and friendships; independence,
including choice about who they lived with;
choice about what to do with their spare
time; and the opportunity to work.
Parents saw the current system as requiring
them to ‘fight for the rights’ of their children
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What consistently worked well was rigorous monitoring of
the progress of individual children, with quick intervention
and thorough evaluation of its impact. High aspirations
and a determination to enable young people to be as
independent as possible led most reliably to the best
educational achievement.
the support they were allocated was not always
appropriate to their needs. For example, some were
allocated support for their behaviour when, in fact, they
had specific communication needs
When a child or young person is underachieving, the
school or setting should begin by analysing the
effectiveness of its generic teaching and systems for
support before deciding that she or he has special
educational needs
Ofsted 2012
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“Inspection is primarily about how individual
pupils benefit from their school. It is important to
test the school’s response to individual needs by
observing how well it helps all pupils to make
progress and fulfil their potential, especially
those whose needs, dispositions, aptitudes or
circumstances require particularly perceptive and
expert teaching and/or additional support.”
“Meeting the needs of every pupil is the
difference between a good school and a weak
school”
Sir Michael Wilshaw, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, September 2012
Free Schools and
Academies
Some Questions Answered
The situation now:
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All the secondary schools in Darlington are
academies
The only special school in Darlington is an
academy. They plan to open a Special Free
School next September
About 2/3 of the primary schools are academies
By the end of this year it is likely that all the
schools in Darlington will be academies
Academies, Free Schools and
Statements of SEN
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Can an a Academy/Free School be named on a child’s
statement of special educational needs?
Yes. And the local authority will have to consider those
representations as it would for any other school.
Can an Academy/ Free School refuse to be named on a child’s
statement of special educational needs?
An Academy/Free School has to be consulted before a local
authority decides to name the school in a child’s statement. The
local authority has to assure itself that the school is suitable to the
child’s age, aptitude, ability and type of SEN, and that the admission
of the child would not be incompatible with the education of other
children, or the efficient use of resources. The local authority must
give consideration to any objections raised by an Academy/Free
School but once named in a child’s statement, the Academy/Free
School will be required to admit the child.
This is identical to the arrangements for a Local Authority School
Special Academies/Free
Schools
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A special academy is a special school in England
that has acquired the academy freedoms, and is
able to operate with the same freedoms and
responsibilities as other academies.
Special academies are schools that have the
freedom and the responsibility for shaping their
own vision – to teach, provide services and spend
money based on what they think will enable the
pupils they work with to achieve, fulfil their
potential and go on to lead successful adult lives.
Beaumont Hill is a Special Academy.
Contacting Darlington LA SEN
SEN team: Jacqui Robinson / Andy Lister
Town Hall, Darlington
Tel; 01325 388850
Email; [email protected]
[email protected]
Parent Partnership Service:
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Email; [email protected]
Tel; 01325 388618