Shining Purple Curves

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Next Steps a summary of proposed DfE changes in
SEND provision and the wider context especially
implications for SENCos by Christopher
Robertson Gareth D Morewood
2nd July 2012
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• Ideological change
• Inclusive education policy
• Broader education policy and the concept of
  autonomous schools (e.g. Beccles)
• Curriculum (dissent) and assessment (sheep and
  goats)
• Parents as choice makers and in control
• Front-line services
• Economic change

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A Radical Overhaul?

• Our proposed reforms respond to the frustrations
  of children and young people and the
  professionals who work with them. We want to put
  in place a radically different system to support
  better life outcomes for young people give
  parents confidence by giving them more control
  and transfer power to professionals on the front
  line and to local communities.
• Support and Aspiration (DfE, 2011, p.4, para 4)

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Next Steps

• Training and Development
• Single School Category
• Single Assessment EHCP
• Widening access to provision
• Local Offer LA but schools as well?
• Parents/Carers giving greater control
  controversial?
• Personal Budgets
• School Funding reform
• Preparation for adulthood independence
• SEN Pathfinders

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Training and ITT

• ITT is changing
• Lamb materials SALT materials
• Teaching Agency Expert Reference Group
• Review of ITT SEND questionnaires
• Placements in Special Provision
• Impairment specific training
• Training Schools up to 100 placements each
  year!
• National Scholarship Scheme
• Open market sources of CPD at a variety of
  levels (e.g. Autism Education Trust CPD
  programme)
• Continuation of SENCo training ( teachers in
  PRUs) BUT with a new DfE-mediated first-come,
  first served application process and a reduction
  in the number of funded places (1000)
• Whole school approaches to achieving access,
  participation and achievement (nasen and Schools
  Network involving lead SENCos Achievement for
  All)

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Single School Category

• Workshop attended earlier this month
• Replacement of SA and SAP with single stage or
  category
• Focus on outcomes not process
• This will then be followed by revised CoP
• Focus on early identification and ensuring
  young people are not missed

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Single Assessment EHCP

• ECHP plan designed to be quicker, better
  integrated and clearer especially with regard to
  provision and support
• Is this really going to be the case?
• Statutory safeguards same as for Statement but
  extended to 25 for those still being taught
  (for debate?)
• By 2014
• How will Health and Social Care be accountable?
• Pathfinders still working through trials

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Widening Provision

• Special Schools can become Academies 28 to
  date (June)
• 3 Special Free Schools from September 2012
• Is this really widening opportunities, or
  further segregating and fragmenting provision?
• Removing the bias towards inclusion in action?

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The Local Offer

• Local Authorities to work with schools re Local
  Offer
• However at odds with the Academy policy and
  segregation of provision?
• This offer should cover services/provision
  from 0 25, in line with EHCPs
• This offer should also include complaints
  procedures and what to do when things go wrong

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• Clear local offer for families with local
  services, including schools, outlining what is
  available
• This will be set out in law as a broad national
  framework (balancing consistency requirements
  with local policy, provision and practice)
• Simpler school SEND policies (curriculum,
  teaching, assessment, pastoral support) developed
  with parents

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Parents Control

• Although the DfE states that new EHCPs will
  allow parents a preference to any state funded
  school recent issues re Academy admissions
  indicate significant gaps with regard to this
  vision and funding agreements of new schools
• Personal Budgets are to go ahead, however they
  will not be a wide-ranging as initially perceived

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Strengthening Parental Rights?

• To choose the school they want for their child
  (removing the bias towards inclusion not
  referred to)
• To access timely integrated education, health
  and care support (solving the bureaucracy
  problem)
• To have concerns about assessment, placement and
  provision addressed through mediation before
  recourse to more formal complaints (early
  dispute resolution)
• Introducing a right of appeal for children if
  they are unhappy with their support (subject to
  pilot findings)

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School Funding Reforms

• Aim is to make the funding more transparent
• Specifically with reform of funding for students
  with high needs
• A lot of confusion and misunderstanding here
• Still to see what reality means here

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Preparing for Adulthood

• The DfE state that by 2015 young people with
  SEND will have
• early integrated support from 0 25
• a single assessment
• access to better quality vocational provision,
  especially post-16
• job support opportunities (conflict here with
  demise of specific schemes?)
• better transition from childrens to adult
  services a significant issue currently in
  mental health for example.

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SEND Pathfinders

• a single education, health and care plan (EHCP)
  from birth to 25 years old (to improve outcomes)
• personal budgets for parents of disabled children
  and those with SEN so they can choose which
  services best suit the needs of their children
• the role of Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS)
  organisations and parents in coordinating a new
  assessment and bringing greater independence to
  the process
• strong partnership between all local services and
  agencies working together (pooled and aligned
  budgets)
• improved commissioning, particularly through
  links to health reforms (health and well-being
  boards)
• the cost of reform (value for money)
• mediation for parents
• transferability of support across area
  boundaries.

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Pathfinder options

• a national funding framework to see if this would
  help parents understand what level of funding is
  available to support their childs needs
• better support to help parents the assessment
  process
• support to vulnerable children through the new
  assessment process
• the impact of reforms on children in the early
  years and young people aged from 16 to 25
• Note Much of the Pathfinder development work is
  targeted at the 2.8 of the school population
  with statements of SEN (224,210 pupils) rather
  than the 17.8 of pupils with SEN but without
  statements (1,449, 685 pupils)

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Emerging Issues

• How to ensure that changes being tested are
  genuinely child/young person centred
• How to determine who is eligible for the single
  assessment process and how this is linked to the
  local offer (in local authorities) and the work
  of schools
• What outcome focused EHCPs should include and
  look like (e.g. how child/young friendly should
  the format and content be)
• The timescale for completing single assessments,
  what review schedule is appropriate and who
  should be involved
• Accountability procedures that bite across the
  range of services in the EHCP
• How to ensure personal budgets give families more
  control through the use of personal budgets
  across education, health and care services
• School involvement and knowledge of pathfinders?

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Independent evaluation (SQW) Early findings
(June 2012)

• Better support system a risk that the
  introduction of a key worker and summary
  assessment may actually increase bureaucracy
  (additions to current roles/documentation)
• More choice, control better outcomes projects
  seeking to achieve .... types of outcomes not
  yet been well defined
• Greater independence into the assessment system
  using the voluntary sector (VCS) not been a
  focus of projects, the focus has been on the key
  worker instead
• Value for money cost of change significant
  (even for a small number of families), cost of
  key worker role an addition to the system,
  unclear how new approaches could be scaled up and
  resourced

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Fundamental Review of Needs key reform (1)

• Addressing the over identification of needs
  concern without setting a target number (Sarah
  Teather, R4 Today Programme, 15th May) but
  through the introduction of a new single school
  based category (no change the way resources are
  allocated)
• Other commentators have referred to as many as
  450,000 children being taken out of the
  category of SEN altogether (Harris, 2012)
• Conceptualising high-incidence needs (already
  being referred to as low-cost needs) and
  boundaries at both ends of this new category
  (low attainers and borderline low
  incidence needs)

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Fundamental Review of Needs key reform (2)

• Less emphasis on BESD/SEBD and more on better
  discipline and better teaching, with access to
  appropriate multidisciplinary support (e.g. to
  address emotional and mental health needs), but
  no reference to MLD
• Recognition of the importance of PRUs and the
  high number (79) of pupils attending PRUs with a
  special educational need (Charlie Taylor report
  2012)
• The development of statutory and non-statutory
  advice and guidance that addresses concerns, is
  helpful and does not exacerbate problems for
  children, parents and teachers/schools is crucial
  (Code of Practice Mk3)

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The Front Line

• To transfer power to professionals on the front
  line and to communities we will strip away
  unnecessary bureaucracy so that professionals
  can innovate and use their judgement establish a
  clearer system so that professionals from
  different services and the voluntary and
  community sector can work together and give
  parents and communities much more influence over
  local services.
• Support and Aspiration (2011, p.5, para 7)

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Specialist Provision a positive preferred
choice

• Enhanced role (teaching and training providers) -
  new models to meet demand (resourced mainstream,
  academies, free schools) based on expertise and
  specialist knowledge
• Integrity of provision valued (i.e. not having to
  be linked to outreach activity)
• Greater autonomy to innovate and pioneer new
  education pathways and curricula
• Better continuity of provision (e.g. school gt
  college local gt regional)
• SENCo role?

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Support Services

• Cinderella is not invited to the ball even though
  she is wanted (Ellis et al, 2012 NUT 2012)
• Struggling to manage budget cuts at a time when
  they are needed (Gross, 2011 NUT 2012) (valued
  front line services?)
• Need to trade services in a system that is
  opened up to include independent providers (a
  service may have been privatised), special
  schools (including academies and free schools)
• Need to work in competition with other services a
  school may wish to buy, for example educational
  psychology and advisory services including those
  run by voluntary and community sector
  organisations

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A framework for outreach, in-reach support

• In addition to any frameworks already in use it
  might be worth reviewing and adapting Quality
  Standards for SEN Support and Outreach Services
  (DCSF, 2008)
• The Quality Standards cover 16 dimensions of
  support and outreach organised under 2 headings
• outcomes standards
• service management and delivery standards
• The standards are designed to be used as
  suggested markers against which services provided
  can be evaluated

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The SENCo may

• want to consider whether their school or setting
  has sufficient access to services
• want to identify how service support and guidance
  has contributed to improved outcomes, or how they
  think it might do so in the future
• wish to reflect on the nature of support, whether
  they think is sufficient, and how it impacts on
  individual learners 
• challenge and support services to work in ways
  that they consider to be most effective in
  classroom contexts
• wish to contribute to discussions about how to
  disseminate advice to teachers and teaching
  assistants and to collate feedback for services
  on collaborative support practice
• wish to be included in a self-evaluation feedback
  cycle and to share their views on specific
  aspects of it
• have important things to say about capacity
  building and how this needs to be balanced
  against work overload and the over delegation of
  responsibilities.

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Ofsted and Inspections

• Half-day notice now settled on
• Clear focus on age and starting point re
  progress of groups (Especially SEND)
• Looking for rapid and sustained progression
• Still place of specific stories and case
  studies
• Cannot be outstanding without teaching being
  judged so a new limiting factor

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The Future of Inclusive Support
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Enhanced Special Provision

• Is outward looking (connected to mainstream and
  the work of SENCos).
• Offers in-reach for pupils and staff from
  partner schools.
• Maintains its integrity (with clear core and
  support service roles).
• Supports the professional development of its own
  staff, with a particular emphasis on enhancing
  skills to support colleagues in mainstream
  schools.
• Is reflective and self-critical with regard to
  both provision and pedagogy, recognising the
  importance of academic and broader educational
  outcomes.

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Enhanced inclusive support

• Takes account of the preferences of parents,
  children and young people and values the time
  involved in partnership
• Recognises the role that schools and SENCos play
  in determining the use of support (and the
  strengths and weaknesses of this)
• Recognises that aspects of support to learners,
  provided by teaching assistants should focus on
  outcomes
• Maintains its integrity (with clear core and
  support service roles) and operates within an
  appropriate service framework that is evaluative
• Supports the professional development of its own
  staff, with a particular emphasis on enhancing
  skills to support colleagues in schools and other
  settings.
• Involves working with a range of
  professionals/organisations

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Timescale for change
Introduce Bill to Parliament
Consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny period
Royal Assent and implementation
Draft Bill Published
Summer Spring
Spring 2012 2013
2014
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September 2014 (1)

• Expect to be working with a new slimmed down SEN
  or SEND Code of Practice that contains essential
  advice the professionals need and reflects
  changes to the law, including statutory advice on
  inclusive schooling
• Expect to be using a single assessment framework
  and Education and Health Care Plans (not
  Statements)
• Expect to play a role in the use of personal
  budgets and direct payments
• Expect to be working with a clear local offer
  that you are part of and will be using to access
  services and support

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September 2014 (2)

• Expect to be working with more parents as
  decision-makers with regard to choosing the
  right school for their child as a right
• Expect to be using a new single school category
  of SEN or SEND (Whos in/out ????)
• Expect to be developing more effective ways of
  working with children experiencing behavioural,
  emotional, social and mental health difficulties
• Expect to be using effective interventions and
  approaches to implement these that work for you
  (matching provision to needs)

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September 2014 (3)

• Expect with time and leadership support to
  innovate (teaching and curriculum provision)
• Expect to be taking a lead in providing,
  facilitating and choosing training in a more
  open market
• Expect to play a key role in accessing external
  advice and support from a range of providers
• Expect to know how funding models operate and how
  funds are used (without clear ring-fencing)
• Expect to have to build, rebuild and sustain
  SENCo networks
• Expect to clarify with governors and school
  leaders the scope of the SENCo role ....

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Watch this space

• However consultations and trials go change
  is ahead
• Much of which is very uncertain
• and complex
• Questions
• Christopher Robertson and
• Gareth D Morewood
• 2nd July 2012

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Whatever happens enjoy the