The changing needs of 21st century pupils

Although the SEND Green Paper has been much delayed, it was finally released on the 9 March and we are now into the consultation phase. For those who have yet to read the green paper, it covers five strands: early identification and support; giving parents control; learning and achieving; preparing for adulthood; and services working together for families. The key points from each strand are highlighted as follows:

Early Identification and support
•    Early identification of need: health and development review at 2/2.5 years
•    Support in early years from health professionals: greater capacity from health visiting services
•    Accessible and high quality early years provision: DfE and DfH joint policy statement on the early years; tickell review of EYFS; free entitlement of 15 hours for disadvantaged two year olds
•    A new approach to statutory assessment: education, health and care plan to replace statement
•    A more efficient statutory assessment process: DoH to improve the provision and timeliness of health advice; to reduce time limit for current statutory assessment process to 20 weeks

Giving parent’s control
•    Supporting families through the system: a continuation of early support resources
•    Clearer information for parents: local authorities to set out a local offer of support; slim down requirements on schools to publish SEN information
•    Giving parents more control over support and funding for their child: individual budget by 2014 for all those with EHC plan
•    A clear choice of school: parents will have rights to express a preference for a state-    funded school
•    Short breaks for carers and children: a continuation in investment in short breaks
•    Mediation to resolve disagreements: use of mediation before a parent can register an appeal with the Tribunal

Learning and achieving
•    Developing excellent teaching practice for SEN in schools and colleges
•    Effective leadership is critical to changing ethos and approach in schools and colleges
•    Getting the best from all school and college staff
•    The Achievement for All approach
•    Challenging low expectations of, and targeting support for, children with SEN
•    Identifying and tackling the causes of difficult behaviour
•    Improving access to wider behaviour support
•    Special schools
•    Special free schools
•    Stronger school accountability

Preparing for adulthood
•    Planning for young people’s futures
•    A broad range of education and learning opportunities: Wolf Review
•    Employment opportunities and support: the role of disability employment advisers
•    A coordinated transition to adult health services: joint working across all services
•    Support for independent living

Services working together for families
•    Local authorities and local health services will play a pivotal role in delivering change for children, young people and families
•    Reducing bureaucratic burdens on professionals
•    Empowering local professionals to develop collaborative, innovative and high quality services
•    Supporting the development of high quality speech and language therapy workforce and educational psychology profession
•    Encouraging greater collaboration between local areas
•    Extending local freedom and flexibility over the use of funding
•    Enabling the voluntary and community sector to take on  a greater role in delivering services
•    Exploring a national banded funding framework
•    Bringing about greater alignment of pre 16 and post 16 funding arrangements

Questions answered
A number of points have been raised since the green paper was released and answered below. 

Q. Why does the government and Ofsted expect SEN pupils to make 2 full levels of progress across the Key Stage?
A: It is a misunderstanding that Ofsted expects pupils with special needs to make 2 full levels progress. If you look at the guidance on our site to inspectors it doesn’t specify this figure.
Q: Who will monitor provision and outcomes for SEN children with the diminished role of the local authority?
A: We still see a role for local authorities (LAs)in monitoring provision but the pathfinder projects will be looking at other bodies such as the third sector.
Q: It is clear that there is a growing demand for therapy support especially speech and language therapy. It is often unclear to schools as to who has the responsibility to fund this.  Is it the LA, health or a combination of these?
A: Pathfinder projects will flesh out who takes responsibility for the elements that makes up provision.

General points
On the day of the green paper’s release nasen, along with the SSAT, FLSE and NAHT, held a SEN summit where representatives from the DfE and OFSTED were able to clarify general points arising from the proposals:

Firstly school action and school action plus will be replaced by a single school based SEN category.

Secondly it is proposed that there will be a performance indicator for SEN on performance tables.

The circumstances that lead to a statement being initiated will be carried forward for the new system.

It isn’t envisaged at the moment that Ofsted will monitor the role of health providers. Education, health and care will be required to work together to meet the needs of children and young adults.

Personal budgets won’t always be a cash allocation and outstanding special schools can become teaching schools.

Nasen’s response
Nasen feels that it is really important that parents and families are at the heart of their child’s development both pre, during and post education. We are pleased that there is an additional year’s funding for the Award for SEN Co-ordination and we will work with the department and the providers to ensure that the standard of this training is maintained and that the course content is reviewed in light of the changes outlined in the green paper. The SENCO will need to be at the forefront of the implementation of all of the guidance issued within the green paper and nasen will support them in this.

Nasen has expressed its concern on a number of occasions in regard to SEN professional development for all teachers. Nasen is delighted that they have been given the opportunity through DfE funding to provide whole-school raising awareness training on SEND. This will ensure that every teacher has some basic knowledge about SEND and the changing needs of 21st century children.

The recommendations also need to be seen alongside the Education Bill, Health White Paper and the future development s of academies and free schools. We urgently need more clarification on funding, how we facilitate professionals from health and education working together and how this will all be paid for, including where does Pupil Premium fit in?

Finally, this consultation period is an opportunity to influence future policy and practice. Such opportunities are few and far between and we would urge all professionals to help shape the framework for future education provision to ensure that the next system is fair and equitable for all children and young adults, regardless of need, setting or local authority.