Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan
Today, the Government has responded to the SEND Review Green Paper Consultation by publishing its SEND and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan: Right support, right place, right time . The plan very much sets out a roadmap of transformation heading towards the establishment of a single national system.
Below are some notes I have drawn straight from that plan that you mind find useful as well as links to the full plan.
Notes drawn from the SEND & AP Plan.
-Setting new national SEND and alternative provision standards. Set up engagement across education, health, and care during Spring 2023, elements tested with regional partners by the end of 2023 and the first three practice guides focused on advice for mainstream settings published by the end of 2025.
-Aim of reducing the need for EHCPs as more children’s needs will be met without them through ordinarily available provision.
-Delivery of National Standards will be supported by new SEND and alternative provision practice guides for frontline professionals and an amended SEND Code of Practice for all system partners (which we be consulted on).
-As we develop the National Standards, we will use these as a basis for developing a national approach to delivering funding bands and tariffs to support commissioners and providers to meet the expectations set out in the National Standards.
-Opening more special free schools on application from local authorities.
-Increasing access to specialists and requiring Local Authorities to provide a tailored list of suitable settings informed by the local inclusion plan.
-Creating a three-tier alternative provision system, focusing on targeted early support within mainstream school, time-limited intensive placements in an alternative provision setting, and longer-term placements to support return to mainstream or a sustainable post-16 destination.
-The introduction of a leadership level SENCO National Professional Qualification (NPQ), which will be mandatory for those who do not already hold the National Award for SEN Co-ordination (NASENCO).
-Reviewing the Initial Teacher Training and Early Career Frameworks (commencing early this year).
-The national standardisation of EHC Plans from 2025 and once standardised, there will be increased use of digital technology.
-Deliver updated Ofsted and Care Quality Commission (CQC) Area SEND inspections from 2023 with a greater focus on the outcomes and experience of children and young people with SEND and in alternative provision.
-Develop a system of funding bands and tariffs so that consistent National Standards are backed by more consistent funding across the country.
-Re-examine the state’s relationship with independent special schools to ensure we set comparable expectations for all state-funded specialist providers. To work with the sector to consider how they should be aligned with the new National Standards, defining the provision they offer and bringing consistency and transparency to their costs. This will mean that independent specialist providers should be part of local authorities’ strategic planning and that decisions about changes to the supply of their provision should be made through Local Inclusion Partnerships. Not to prevent bespoke packages of support being offered for children and young people with the most complex needs- there should be clarity and transparency about the provision available.
P87 State-funded independent schools
26. ‘The green paper proposed that national bands and tariffs would apply across the whole range of special education provision, including the independent specialist sector. Independent special schools represent a third of special schools and support 5% of pupils with EHCPs (School Census 2022). The sector’s funding comes overwhelmingly from the state, for example in 2022, local authorities placed over 20,000 children and young people with EHCPs in independent special schools. Despite this, the sector is not treated in the same way as state-maintained specialist provision. Its regulation is designed for private fee-paying schools. Management is fragmented and small-scale, based on local authorities’ individual pupil placements. This is inefficient for both commissioners and providers and makes it difficult to assess the overall impact of independent special schools. Provision can be opened or closed regardless of the effect on the existing local offer of provision made by schools and colleges, leaving local authorities to deal with over or under supply.’
-Develop a system of funding bands and tariffs so that consistent National Standards are backed by more consistent funding across the country.
-Starting in 2023, to undertake research to gather more information about the costs of provision and then explore the best way to manage and reduce this variation as much as possible.
-To further support fairer, sustainable funding, we will continue to work with independent specialist providers to consider how we can ensure that there is clarity and transparency about the cost of bespoke packages of support for children and young people with the most complex needs.
-To continue to work with the college sector to address their distinct funding issues.
-Work with local authorities, early years providers and stakeholders to consider whether changes to the SENIF and other associated elements of the wider current early years funding system are needed, to ensure early years SEND funding arrangements are appropriate and well-targeted.
SEND and AP Improvement Plan in full
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1139561/SEND_and_alternative_provision_improvement_plan.pdf
DfE’s animated video explainer
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT9fgQ8__n8
Alternative accessible formats
www.gov.uk/government/publications/send-and-alternative-provision-improvement-plan?utm_campaign=3264049_SEND%20and%20AP%20Improvement%20Plan%20-%20Member%20Update&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Nasen&dm_i=2F68,1XYK1,AI9O4I,6U1GS,1
Created: 02 Mar 2023 05:03:57 PM