SEND and AP: reforms to be trialled before national rollout
Among the measures to be piloted are new national SEND standards, which will be developed in consultation with parents and ‘frontline professionals’, with a majority of the standards being published by the end of 2025. There is also an intention to standardise the template for education, health and care plans (EHCPs), with a presumption that these will move to being in a digital format in future, but again not before 2025. With regard to AP, the green paper had proposed a new approach to funding, with ‘local partnerships’ identifying the budget required to implement plans over a period of a minimum of three years. Although no timescale is given, the DfE says it will now go ahead with this new approach in consultation with the sector.
Other proposals set to go ahead under the plan include the creation of a new leadership level Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator National Professional Qualification (SENCo NPQ), and 33 new special free schools to be built in local authorities with some of the highest level of need. There will also be an extension of AP Specialist Taskforces, which work directly with young people in AP to offer intensive support from experts, including mental health professionals, family workers, and speech and language therapists. Furthermore, by 2025 supported internship places will be doubled from around 2500 to around 5000, backed with £18 million of funding ‘to help young people make the transition into adulthood’.
Speaking about the plan, minister for learning disabilities and autism, Maria Caulfield said: ‘It is vital that health, care and education are working together properly from day one for people with additional needs, which is why we’re making sure steps are being taken to better join up the system and provide support more readily for children and young people with special educational needs and for their families.’
Welcoming the new plan, children’s commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza said: ‘Children with SEND and their families have, for too long, felt penalised by a system that doesn’t support their needs. I am particularly pleased to see this plan’s focus on early help, which will prevent families from reaching breaking point, and the increase in specialist school places so that many more children are able to attend a great school, every day.’
However, other voices were more sceptical of the proposals, with Stephen Kingdom, campaign manager for the Disabled Children’s Partnership, commenting: ‘Parents have been waiting years for the government to fix the broken SEND system, but the reaction of many to today’s plan will be, “Is that it?”. We are pleased to see a focus on workforce, and the plans to standardise EHCPs could be beneficial, but overall this plan falls short of the urgent access needed to address the crisis in support for children with SEND and their families, which has let down a generation of children.’
Full SEND and AP Improvement plan: https://tinyurl.com/3nzs85br
Ministers are aiming to transform alternative provision (AP) and services for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), with the introduction of new national standards and additional specialist school places. These are among measures set out in the DfE’s SEND and AP Improvement plan, published last week. The document follows on from the government’s SEND and AP green paper from March 2022.
Major changes proposed in the plan are to be piloted first, as part of a £70million ‘change programme’, which will last for between two and three years. The programme will take place in nine ‘regional expert partnerships’, each made up of three or four local authorities, and reaching around 30 areas in total initially.Among the measures to be piloted are new national SEND standards, which will be developed in consultation with parents and ‘frontline professionals’, with a majority of the standards being published by the end of 2025. There is also an intention to standardise the template for education, health and care plans (EHCPs), with a presumption that these will move to being in a digital format in future, but again not before 2025. With regard to AP, the green paper had proposed a new approach to funding, with ‘local partnerships’ identifying the budget required to implement plans over a period of a minimum of three years. Although no timescale is given, the DfE says it will now go ahead with this new approach in consultation with the sector.
Other proposals set to go ahead under the plan include the creation of a new leadership level Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator National Professional Qualification (SENCo NPQ), and 33 new special free schools to be built in local authorities with some of the highest level of need. There will also be an extension of AP Specialist Taskforces, which work directly with young people in AP to offer intensive support from experts, including mental health professionals, family workers, and speech and language therapists. Furthermore, by 2025 supported internship places will be doubled from around 2500 to around 5000, backed with £18 million of funding ‘to help young people make the transition into adulthood’.
Speaking about the plan, minister for learning disabilities and autism, Maria Caulfield said: ‘It is vital that health, care and education are working together properly from day one for people with additional needs, which is why we’re making sure steps are being taken to better join up the system and provide support more readily for children and young people with special educational needs and for their families.’
Welcoming the new plan, children’s commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza said: ‘Children with SEND and their families have, for too long, felt penalised by a system that doesn’t support their needs. I am particularly pleased to see this plan’s focus on early help, which will prevent families from reaching breaking point, and the increase in specialist school places so that many more children are able to attend a great school, every day.’
However, other voices were more sceptical of the proposals, with Stephen Kingdom, campaign manager for the Disabled Children’s Partnership, commenting: ‘Parents have been waiting years for the government to fix the broken SEND system, but the reaction of many to today’s plan will be, “Is that it?”. We are pleased to see a focus on workforce, and the plans to standardise EHCPs could be beneficial, but overall this plan falls short of the urgent access needed to address the crisis in support for children with SEND and their families, which has let down a generation of children.’
Full SEND and AP Improvement plan: https://tinyurl.com/3nzs85br