SEND & AP Change Programme
About the Programme
What is the programme?
The West Midlands SEND and AP Change Programme is an initiative led by the Department for Education to improve the support system for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The programme aims to enhance outcomes for these children, improve family experiences, and ensure financial sustainability.
Telford & Wrekin Council is the Lead Local Authority for the West Midlands Region, collaborating with Shropshire, Herefordshire, and Worcestershire. The programme focuses on various reforms, including Alternative Provision (AP) to support children whose behaviours are barriers to learning, the Early Language Support for Every Child (ELSEC) initiative to address speech, language, and communication needs in early years and primary school settings and work on improving National Standards for what 'good' looks like.
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Reforms
Throughout the Programme, different areas of the current SEND and AP offer will be tested to see how these areas work and if they are successful or not. Due to concerns over funding and implementation challenges, the decision was made to halt some of the reforms to reassess and address these critical issues.
The reforms will now focus on:
Alternative Provision (AP)
The SEND and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan is a 3-tier model for AP and mainstream education settings, supporting earlier identification of need and targeted support in schools, working to reduce preventable exclusion.
ELSEC (Early Language Support for Every Child)
Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin only
ELSEC seeks to support education settings by modelling how they might access a more flexible, responsive workforce for children with Speech, Language and Communication Needs within Early Years and Primary School Settings.This reform covers:
The ability for local areas to develop partnerships across health and education to form ELSEC pathfinders Recruitment and training of innovative workforce models, e.g. support worker roles to identify children with speech & language communication needs Following identification, to deliver appropriate universal or targeted support. Children requiring specialist speech and language therapy will be referred via existing local pathways
National Standards and Inclusion Services (formerly OAP)
Work on National Standards is being planned with a view to setting clear national expectations for what ‘good’ looks like in identifying and supporting the four areas of special educational needs. The government's SEND code of practice highlights four broad areas of SEND needs Communication and interaction Cognition and learning Social, emotional, and health difficulties Sensory and/or physical needs.
Phase 1 Reforms
Local Area Inclusion Plan:
The Local Area Inclusion Plan aimed to unify existing documents to create a single local area inclusion plan, written on a new national template.
SEND and AP Inclusion Dashboard:
The inclusion dashboard is designed to bring together SEND and AP performance indicators into a single online platform and will be fully accessible to the public.
EHCP Standardisation:
The DfE has produced a new, standardised template for EHCPs. The EHCP template is designed to improve the consistency and quality of EHCPs and is based on intensive coproduction. This was rolled out and tested within Local Authorities in Phase 1.
Multi-Agency panels:
This reform aimed to implement minimum standards for Multiagency panels with the aim of seeing:
- Improved family experiences, and confidence in SEN support (where relevant)
- Declining trends in mediation / tribunal rates
- Better join-up between strategical and operational practices across the partnership.
Strengthened Approaches to SEND Mediation:
Mediation is part of the appeal process when there is disagreement over an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) or an EHC Needs Assessment. Data was collected to better understand the use and impact of SEND mediation.
Framework for National Standards:
Work on National Standards was planned with a view to setting clear national expectations for what ‘good’ looks like in identifying and supporting the four areas of special educational needs.
Bands and Tariffs:
The DfE were collating data from all Change Programme Partnerships regarding bands and tariffs used when providing high needs funding for SEND.
Advisory Tailored Lists:
Advisory tailored lists were designed to improve experiences of the placement process by illustrating choice for families, ensuring placements are suitably matched for the needs of the child or young person, and supporting LAs to strategically manage their placements and provision.