Click on the topics below to reveal our initial thoughts on the SEND Review consultation questions.
When you're done, click on the button below to visit the SEND Review and tell the Government what you think.
Consultation Question 1: What key factors should be considered when developing national standards to ensure they deliver improved outcomes and experiences for children and young people with SEND and their families? This includes how the standards apply across education, health and care in a 0-25 system.
Background
-New national standards, aiming to improve how needs will be identified and met across education, health and care.
- Will include what support should be available in mainstream schools and “best practice in reasonable adjustments for disabled children”.
Will also include information on what specialist provision should be available, when this would be appropriate and how it should be funded, as well as guidance on when a specialist placement or a statutory Education, Health and Care plan might be necessary.
More information: Paragraphs 1 to 5 of Chapter 2
What we think
We think this is a good idea – but only if the national standards lead to better support for deaf children. We will not support anything which might result in a ‘race to the bottom’ or any deaf children losing support they now get and still need.
We think there should be more consistency in support for deaf children and parents have the right to know what they should expect.
We think there should be separate standards for deaf children that include:
Teachers of the Deaf
- choice of specialist provision depending on individual needs
- support with language development in the early years
- technology
- deaf awareness for teachers
- specialist careers advice and tailored support for moving into employment.
Consultation Question 2: How should we develop the proposal for new local SEND partnerships to oversee the effective development of local inclusion plans whilst avoiding placing unnecessary burdens or duplicating current partnerships?
- Proposed change to the law to require local authorities to set up new local SEND partnerships bringing together representatives from across early years, schools, further education, specialist provision, as well as health and care partners
- Local partnerships will work with parents and carers to look at what’s available in the local area and how it should be improved
More information: Paragraphs 6 to 11 of Chapter 2.
We think this is a good idea - but only if the new local SEND partnerships include those who manage specialist education services for deaf children.
Consultation Question 3: What factors would enable local authorities to successfully commission provision for low-incidence high cost need, and further education, across local authority boundaries?
- Most decisions about support for children with SEND takes place at a local authority level. The Government wants to encourage more decisions about support for children with more complex or ‘low incidence’ needs (needs which are less common than others, such as deafness) to be made at a regional level.
More information: Paragraph 10 of Chapter 2.
We think it would be a good idea if more decisions are made at a regional level. We think there are too many local authorities with services that are too small to meet the different needs of deaf children in their area. We want to see more joined up working.
We think the Government needs to do more to make this happen so that local authorities have to work together on support for deaf children, unless they can show they are doing a good job in meeting the needs of deaf children by themselves.
Consultation Question 4: What components of the EHCP should we consider reviewing or amending as we move to a standardised and digitised version?
Background – what the SEND review proposes
- New local multi-agency panels will be created to review and make recommendations for decisions around Education, Health and Care needs assessments and plans.
- New templates and processes for Education, Health and Care plans (EHCP) which will be the same across England (instead of local authorities being able to produce their own versions as now).
- Digitised EHCP process with a new digital EHCP template and a secure central location for parents, carers and professionals to upload key information.
More information: Paragraphs 14 to 23 in Chapter 2.
We think it’s a good idea to have the same template EHCP across England and to make EHCPs digitised
We’re not sure about the use of local multi-agency panels. We think they could work but only if:
1. they are genuinely independent of the local authority (i.e. not employed by the authority)
2. if they focus only on how local authorities have made decisions and don’t interfere with parents’ decisions or rights
3. it doesn’t make the process of getting an EHCP any longer
4. if they include Teachers of the Deaf and/or specialist education services for deaf children when making recommendations about deaf children.
Consultation Question 5: How can parents and local authorities most effectively work together to produce a tailored list of placements that is appropriate for their child, and gives parents confidence in the EHCP process?
- Local inclusion plans will set out the provision that is available within the local area, including resource bases within mainstream, alternative and specialist provision.
- Parents will be provided with a “tailored list of settings” that may be a good place for their child to go to. This could include schools outside of the local authority area.
- Parents will continue to have the right to request their child can go to a mainstream school, even if their child might be able to go to a special school or resource base
More information: Paragraphs 24 to 28 of Chapter 2.
We have concerns about how this will work.
A tailored list could be helpful for parents in seeing what options are available in your area. We know that sometimes parents don’t know that, for example, there are specialist resource bases within a mainstream school in their area.
At the same time, we’re worried that tailored lists could end up being used to discourage or restrict choice for parents.
Consultation Question 6: To what extent do you agree or disagree with our overall approach to strengthen redress, including through national standards and mandatory mediation?
- Families and local authorities must engage in mediation before they can appeal to the SEND Tribunal about their child’s EHCP. Currently, this is optional, rather than mandatory.
- New national standards will set out clear expectations for how mediation will work, including around timescales and local authority representation.
- Government might also consider whether to introduce an additional redress measure in the form of an ‘independent review mechanism’.
More information: Paragraphs 29 to 32 of Chapter 2.
We think that mandatory mediation is a bad idea. We think it’s counter-productive because mediation won’t work if anyone feels like they’re forced to be there.
We are also worried that mandatory mediation will introduce new delays, including in cases where a child is waiting to hear which school they will be going to.
We think the Government should focus instead on how local authorities make decisions about EHCPs.
We’re not sure about any new independent review mechanism. We think it could work - but only if it focuses on how local authorities have made decisions about EHCPs, is genuinely independent of the local authority and doesn’t reduce parents’ rights to appeal or slow things down.
Consultation Question 8: What steps should be taken to strengthen early years practice with regard to conducting the two-year-old progress check and integration with the Healthy Child Programme review?
The Government wants to make sure that early year practitioners are well-skilled and that the progress check that takes place when your child is aged two goes well.
More information: Paragraphs 3 to 5 of Chapter 3.
We think that it should be a requirement that Teachers of the Deaf are involved in the two-year-old progress check and that they work closely with early years practitioners and health visitors as part of this. We think their advice on deaf children’s language development is really important at this age.
Consultation Question 9: To what extent do you agree or disagree that we should introduce a new mandatory SENCo NPQ to replace the NASENCo?
The Government plans to introduce a new leadership qualification for SENCos.
More information: Paragraphs 21 to 24 of Chapter 3.
We have no strong views on this.
Consultation Question 10: To what extent do you agree or disagree that we should strengthen the mandatory SENCo training requirement by requiring that headteachers must be satisfied that the SENCo is in the process of obtaining the relevant qualification when taking on the role?
Consultation Question 12: What more can be done by employers, providers and government to ensure that those young people with SEND can access, participate in and be supported to achieve an apprenticeship, including though access routes like Traineeships?
- New national standards will include standards for transition between education and work.
- New teacher training or further education teachers being developed – is “likely to include” a specialist option in SEND for further education teachers
The Government will also improve careers guidance, including better information about the support that is available as young people move into work.
More information: Paragraph 43 to 53 of Chapter 3.
We think that the proposals in this section are a good idea.
We want the Government to make sure that schools, colleges and local authorities work together on specialist careers advice for deaf young people, with links to work-based training opportunities and employment schemes such as Access to Work and Jobcentre Plus. We think the above should also be included in any new national standards.
We also think the Government should go further on teacher training for further education teachers and commit to it, including a section on SEND (rather than just saying this will be “likely”). This should include a section on deaf awareness and working with specialist teachers.
Whilst this section of the consultation talks about support for young people to move into employment, the consultation question only focuses on apprenticeships. You should feel free to talk about anything else the Government can do to support deaf young people to move into employment if you would like to.
Consultation Question 17: What are the key metrics we should capture and use to measure local and national performance? Please explain why you have selected these.
- New local and national inclusion dashboards so that parents can more easily look at data to see how their local area is doing.
- Will show data on:
outcomes and experiences
identification of need
value for money.
- The Department for Education will work with NHS England on better data sharing between education and health.
More information: Paragraphs 14 to 20 of Chapter 5.
We think this is a good idea – but only if the new national and local dashboards specifically include information and data on deafness.
We think that the dashboards should include information and data on outcomes achieved by all deaf children from early years up to higher education.
We also think that dashboards should track the destinations of deaf young people post-school and post-college.
We also think that numbers of Teachers of the Deaf and funding available to specialist education services for deaf children are also important to show how well the system is supporting deaf children.
Consultation Question 18: How can we best develop a national framework for funding bands and tariffs to achieve our objectives and mitigate unintended consequences and risks?
- Introduction of a new national framework of banding and price tariffs to show how much the Government thinks should be spent for different types of needs and support.
- Government will also set guidelines for who pays for support and how local authorities set funding levels
More information: Paragraphs 27 to 31 of Chapter 5.
We are worried about how this will work. We think there is a risk that any bandings or tariffs end up being too simplistic when looking at what support individual deaf children need, particularly if deaf children have any other needs.
We think it’s important that any bandings and tariffs are set at the right level – otherwise, specialist services and schools might find it harder to continue. This may reduce the range of specialist support available to deaf children.
Consultation Question 19: How can the National SEND Delivery Board work most effectively with local partnerships to ensure the proposals are implemented successfully?
- A new national SEND Delivery Board will be established, bringing together national delivery partners including parents, and representatives of local government, education, health and care.
More information: Paragraphs 6 to 7 of Chapter 6.
We think this is a good idea - but only if the Board includes representation from organisations representing deafness, or sensory impairment.
Consultation Question 22: Is there anything else you would like to say about the proposals in the green paper?
Background - what the send review proposes
n/a
In this section, we plan to focus on numbers of Teachers of the Deaf and specialist education services for deaf children. We’re disappointed that there is no mention of Teachers of the Deaf anywhere in the review.
We think they play a really important role in the SEND system for deaf children but, despite this, we’ve seen a 17% fall in the numbers of Teachers of the Deaf since 2011. We also continue to hear from parents that specialist education services are reducing support in many areas because of cuts to budgets.
If you or your child has benefited from support from Teachers of the Deaf, this is a good place to say so.
Equally, if support for your child has been reduced and/or you’re not getting the support you think you need you can use this section to ask the Government how the SEND review will address this
VISIT THE SEND REVIEW
