Government SEND Consultation

In 2019, the government announced it would carry out a review of the special educational needs and disability (SEND) system in England.

The aims of the review were to:

• Find ways of improving services available to families.
• Help staff in schools and colleges to respond to local needs.
• End the postcode lottery of services that families often face.

The government has now completed the SEND review and has published what it thinks should happen next in the SEND and Alternative Provision (AP) Green Paper.

A public consultation on the proposals Is now running and ends on Friday 22 July.

We hope all our supporters and friends will take part in the consultation. This is a real opportunity to change things - each consultation response will be read and all our views are important.

We have now prepared our paper, link above, for submission raising concerns about plans that we fear will decrease:

• Legal rights
• Choice of provision and
• Funding 

We would like to see:

• Training in delivering differentiated, personalised learning throughout education, 5-25, underpinned by expert, tribunal level information on the child’s individual profile of strength and need
• Flexibility within delivery systems to work from a child's developmental profile with parents fully trained and empowered to be partners with professionals
• Understanding that failure to invest in identifying and supporting individual learning styles will create more complex difficulties for children throughout life that society will pay for in low attainment, mental health, youth justice and unemployment.

You can find our response to the Green Paper above

 

The consultation response questionnaire can be found here, along with links to the green paper and summary document. https://consult.education.gov.uk/send-review-division/send-review-2022/

Here's where you can enter in text. Feel free to edit, move, delete or add a different page element.

TEN POINTS FROM THE GREEN PAPER

1. A single, national SEND and alternative provision (AP) system: Establish new, nationally consistent standards for how needs are identified and met at every stage.
2. Establish new local SEND partnerships across education, health, care and local government to produce a local inclusion plan setting out how each area will meet the national standards. 
3. Introduce a standardised and digitised EHCP process and template to minimise bureaucracy and deliver consistency.
4. Introduce a new process for naming a school or college place in a child or young person’s Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan. Local authorities will offer parents a ‘tailored list’ of provision that is appropriate for their child’s needs to enable them to express a preference, rather than parents being able to request any school as at present.
5. Streamline the redress process, including the introduction of mandatory mediation before families can register a SEND Tribunal appeal, with the aim of reducing the number of Tribunal appeals.
6. Consult on the introduction of a new SENDco national professional qualification (NPQ) for school SENDcos.
7. Make alternative provision an integral part of local SEND systems and require new local SEND partnerships to plan and deliver an alternative provision service focused on early intervention.
8. Deliver clarity in roles and responsibilities with every partner across education, health, care and local government having a clear role to play, and being equipped with the levers to fulfil their responsibilities.
9. Work with Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) on their plan to deliver an updated local area SEND inspection framework, with clear accountability in place showing where agencies can improve.  
10. New National SEND Delivery Board to hold to account all elements of the system for supporting children and young people with SEND.