Every local authority in the UK must put forward its own local special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) plan to the Government by June 19.
In preparation for this, at Slough Borough Council’s latest schools forum meeting on Wednesday (May 20), representatives from schools across the borough heard an overview of what the council’s draft local plan would look like.
Some of the objectives of the new model include improving SEND support in mainstream schools and reducing the need for education health and care plans (EHCPs) where a child’s needs can be met in other ways.
EHCPs are plans which set out what support each child or young person with SEND requires.
One of the biggest Government changes proposed is that, although EHCPs will continue to exist, Individual Support Plans (ISPs) will also be introduced.
The plans are similar to EHCPs, but schools will be legally required to create an ISP for every child or young person with SEND.
Neil Sykes the principal at Arbour Vale School said: “I can see many parents pushing for EHCPs over the next five years and I can see many of those out of necessity going to tribunal, clogging the system.”
One of the challenges parents face with current EHCPs is the delay in their children accessing the support they need.
When their needs are not met, parents can then challenge a local authority’s decision about an EHC plan at the SEND tribunal.
Neil Hoskinson, the director of education at Slough Borough Council, said that if there are more requests for plans and ‘if they are reasonable’, then parents and children should get them, but where these are seen as ‘necessary’.
“What we want is this feeling that there’s far more confidence from families and particularly young people that they will get that support much earlier,” he added.
Children with special educational needs will also be supported by specialists – such as educational psychologists and speech and language therapy support – in the mainstream setting where possible.
This new programme, called Experts at Hand, looks to reduce escalations to children needing EHCPs .
Rhodri Bryant, the executive principal at the Arbib Education Trust, said ‘in principle’ he agrees with having experts ‘on hand’ and having access to that support.
But he raised concerns about schools actually being able to recruit these experts.
He said: “We all know that when there has been lots of movement – staff turnover – churn, particularly in the social care system, young people lose out. And it becomes fragmented and really difficult to manage.”
Mr Hoskinson agreed and said there is already ‘a shortage’ of educational psychologists (EPs) and more would be needed as part of the national reforms.
He said the council has responded to the Department of Education on a consultation around the reforms and lodged their concerns about EPs and the number of psychologists working as interims.
Mr Bryant raised a further concern about the assessments carried out by educational psychologists being done remotely rather than face to face with the family and child.
He believed that doing assessments in such a way is ‘outrageous’.
But Mr Hoskinson reassured the forum that there is already a hybrid model within the borough whereby a number of assessments are done face to face and some of them remotely.