Agenda item

To receive a high-level presentation to Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), including SEND Sufficiency.

This agenda item provided a presentation on the introduction to Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and SEND Sufficiency. The Chair welcomed to the meeting Cary- Anne Sykes, Head of Service for SEND and Mark Cummins, SEND Transformation Project Lead. The Chair invited Cary- Anne and Mark to lead on the presentation, during which the following was noted:

 

What is the SEND Strategy:

·       The key line of the proposed Strategy was “My Life, My Rights”. This was captured via feedback from the young people during the strategy consultation period.

·       This proposed strategy covered the period of 2024-2028 and set the vision for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) in Rotherham. It would drive forward the improvements already started across the local area and help services in education, health, and social care to work together to ensure children and young people in Rotherham would achieve the best outcomes.

·       The proposed strategy had been written in a way to engage young people, as this was requested in the consultation feedback for the Strategy. The SEND Strategy had been approved for consultation.

·       The service listened to children, young people and their families, to find out what needed to change. This highlighted that some parts of the system in Rotherham were working well and the experience of families was good. However, this was not the same for all children, young people and families, there was several areas that required improvement.

·       The proposed strategy was co-produced with partners such as the children’s disabled council, young people and families and would go to wider consultation.

·       Ambition, inclusion and equity was identified as key principles by the consultation.

 

The Four Cornerstones:

·       The service would continue to imbed the Four Cornerstones and recognised that when the cornerstone values were integrated into practice, then trust would be developed and progress in achieving outcomes for children and young people would be made. The service recognised that without trust, systems, partnerships, organisations and families could not work together effectively and meaningful partnership work could not be achieved.

 

The Commitment to Young People with SEND:

·       The following three commitments were identified as priority areas of development and monitoring via consultation with young people.

?   The number of permanent exclusions and part time timetables for children and young people with special educational needs.

?   The number of disabled children and young people and those with special educational needs missing school, due to health concerns, including mental health.

?   Having a clear process for engagement with children and young people.

 

Next Steps:

·       In August the service would begin a borough wide consultation on the Strategy to ensure all communities would be reached.

 

What is SEND Sufficiency:

·       In Rotherham 20.4% of pupils had either a statutory plan for SEND, known as an Education Health Care Plan (EHCP), or were receiving SEND support (which was previously known as school action and school action plus).

·       This compared to an average of 17.1% across all England Authorities. To ensure the educational needs of children and young people in the borough with SEND could continue to be met, the Council created a sufficiency of education provision to meet the needs of all pupils.

·       Most young people with an EHCP would have their needs met in mainstream settings and there was 38% of pupils with an EHCP are in mainstream education.

 

SEND Sufficiency Phase Four:

•       SEND Sufficiency Phase 4 would create ten additional SEND resource provisions within mainstream education settings, this would create a minimum of one hundred additional SEND places, over the next three academic years.

 

What Was a Resource Provision:

·       A resource provision was attached to a mainstream school providing specialist therapeutic input and support for pupils with a specific SEND need type. Pupils could access support from the resource provision based on their individual need, whilst also accessing mainstream classes and curriculum.

·       The development of resource provision through SEND Sufficiency Phase Four would increase capacity for provision, this would follow eight resource provisions developed during previous rounds of SEND Sufficiency.

·       There was currently ninety-seven young people accessing resource provision across Rotherham, with primary and secondary provisions across the following need types:

?   Communication and Interaction

?   Moderate Learning Difficulty

?   Social Emotional and Mental Health

?   Speech, Language and Hearing Impairment.

·       The key strategic aim set out for Phase Four was to enhance mainstream SEND capacity to meet a wider level of need across all schools and mitigate the need for children, young people, and young adults to be educated in settings outside the Borough and promote inclusive practice.

 

The Accessibility Strategy:

·       The Accessibility Capital Funding Programme focused on three distinct areas and included the following:

?   Targeted work across mainstream and special schools linked to accessibility requirements for individual pupils and cohorts.

?   Individual requests and contributions for individual pupils linked to the established equipment panel.

?   A small capital grant programme for schools open through application and assessment in line with the school’s own accessibility planning.

 

Accessibility Small Grants Capital Programme-

·       There service was implementing a local authority School’s Accessibility Strategy and Capital Small Grants programme.

·       The Strategy aims were as follows:

?   To increase the extent to which SEND and/or disabled pupils could participate in the curriculum.

?   To improve the physical environment of schools to increase the extent to which disabled pupils could take advantage of education.

?   To improve the delivery of information to disabled pupils and their parents and/or carers through the Rotherham Local Offer.

 

Case Study at Rockingham Junior and Infant School:

•        The school applied for an Accessibility Grant of £20,000 to develop an external, safe, multi-sensory exploration space with a ‘forest school’ approach to outdoor learning.

•        At the time of applying the school had 311 children and 71 children on the SEND register.

•        The school identified that there were many children who had communication, interaction and SEMH needs, who needed a curriculum taught in a different way. This new provision would enable children to engage with school, improve attendance and learn in a way that would enable and empower them.

•        The school was very proactive in involving both children and parents and/or carers in the development of this exciting new provision. This included a visit to the Forest of Bewilderment at Wentworth Woodhouse.

•        The school hoped to complete all works by the end of the summer holidays 2024.

 

Outreach Services:

·       A key part of supporting mainstream schools to meet a wider level of need was the development of a range of specialist outreach provision.

·       The current outreach services developed included the following:

?   Primary and Secondary SEMH Outreach. This had the aim of supporting mainstream schools to reduce suspensions and exclusions. Outreach support had been received by 78 schools, split across 14 secondary, 62 Primaries and 2 Early Years Settings.

?   A pilot Secondary Communication and Interaction Outreach. This service was piloted for this academic year, 6 schools had received support to improve outcomes for communication and interaction learners. The service was extended by a further academic year to understand better longer-term outcomes and impact.

 

The Chair thanked the relevant officers for the presentation and invited questions, this led to the following points being raised during discussions:

·       As part of the wider strategy and implementation work, the service continuously reviewed impact and analysis of provisions, to ensure the most effective outcomes for children and young people.

·       In relation to the consultation period, the service worked with three Key Stage Two groups in mainstream education, three secondary school groups, including children and young people in provision and mainstream. The service consulted with children and young people who were in other education such as electively home educated children and medical home tuition children. The next phase would include questionnaires to ensure every young person in school and other education provisions would have the option to engage and respond.

·       Accessibility would be a key focus in the strategy, to ensure families and carers struggling to engage due to literacy or language barriers could be helped to access services. An easy access document was being produced to ensure the strategy could be easier to read and accessible to all. There would also be an audio and brail versions of the strategy produced to ensure the service could reach as many people as possible.

·       The funding application process for the Small Grant Funding was open to all schools across the borough. The service had practitioners and Specialist Advisory Teachers in school settings, and they would encourage schools to apply for the grant, when a need was recognised. The service also regularly mapped provision to target specific areas where required, there was a recently developed map of specialist provision completed by the service, this would be provided to members of the Commission following the meeting.

·       For a young person to access a resource provision, their needs are identified through the EHCP process. The decisions and recommendations were decided via the Education, Health and Care Plan Panel. There was a cost involved for resource provision and this cost was very similar to the cost of an EHCP in a mainstream school.

·       Resource provisions bridged the gap between mainstream school and specialist schools. The impact of resource provisions was assessed by the service. Sufficiency planning, individual pupil outcomes, attainment, destination data and borough wide outcomes were all assessed by the service.

·       Children born during the Covid Pandemic were considered and accounted for during provision mapping. The service ensured future proofing by including cohorts that missed key transitions during the pandemic in SEND sufficiency planning.

 

 

 

Resolved:

1)    That the presentation on the introduction to SEND and SEND Sufficiency be noted.

2)    That the SEND Transformation Project Lead shares the relevant mapping document relating to specialist provisions, with members.