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Category: SEND
Categories
Read the latest SEND newsletter
Categories
Read the latest SEND newsletter
Haringey has published its SEND Strategy 2022-2025. This is being presented for consultation.
View the Strategy and Survey here: Haringey SEND Strategy 2022-2025 | Haringey Council
What are we consulting on?
We need your views on the Haringey SEND (special educational needs, disabilities) strategy. This strategy outlines how we plan to further develop the SEND offer in Haringey over the next three years.
The consultation runs from Monday 20 September 2021 to Sunday 7 November 2021. Please share your views with us by completing the online survey.
The priorities within the SEND Strategy have been informed by:
- a self-assessment across the SEND partnership
- a review of current service provision within the local authority SEND service
- a series of informal conversation events with parents and carers that took place across June and August 2021
- findings from the Ofsted and CQC inspection of SEND services in Haringey (5 to 9 July 2021)
We would like to:
- clarify if the priorities are clear to you
- find out what priorities are the most and least important to you
- understand what you like about the strategy
- understand in what ways the strategy could be improved
- understand if there is anything missing from the strategy that should be included
- understand what impact you think the strategy will have on you, your children, family and our wider community and partnerships
Haringey has a new look Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) newsletter.
The newsletter has been redesigned to provide families with the information they need in an easily accessible format.
This newsletter is part of our exciting developments for Haringey children, young people and their families. We aim to distribute it before every half term with updates on SEND and the local area.
The government has announced a review into special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The review will explore:
- the support provided for pupils with SEND and how best to prepare them for life after school and employment
- what support parents of pupils with SEND require so that they can make the best decisions in the interests of their children
- how to create consistency of support across different localities and ensure that support is “joined up” with other social services
- getting the balance right between provision for mainstream and special schools
- making sure that there is an alignment between “incentives and accountability for schools, colleges and local authorities”
- exploring why there has been an increase in the prevalence of certain health conditions that have led to a rise in the number of education, health and care (EHC) plans
- how to maximise spending for SEND pupils so that it is “efficient, effective and sustainable”
This review comes on the back of recent funding announcements in which the government promised a “major funding boost of £700 million in 2020/21 for pupils with the most complex needs”.
We have redesigned our Education Health and Care Plan process in order to make it smoother and reduce duplication for schools. This should speed up the process and enable us to meet the 20-week statutory deadline in most cases. The new process involves:
- Schools supporting children and families to tell their stories and share their aspirations as part of the referral process, which will enable EHCPs to be more personalised.
- The EHCP using more of the evidence from the application, thus reducing the advice schools need to provide.
- A planning meeting after the EHCP has been finalised with all the professionals to provide school with the support and advice they need to implement the plan.
We are now working with parents to redesign the EHCP template to make it a more user-friendly document. We are planning to launch this at the start of the new school year. This term marks the end of the phasing out period for the old form and all applications must now be sent on the new form. The new form was re-sent out to all SENCOs on Monday 13 May 2019 and should be used for all future requests. SENCos should contact the SEND team for further advice and support.
Seven Sisters Primary School was the subject of an inspiring article in Inclusion Now magazine recently. The piece was written by Richard Rieser.
Read the full article here (external link).
Ambitious about Autism is the national charity for children and young people with autism, providing services, raising awareness and campaigning for change. Through
TreeHouse School (external link)
The Rise School (external link)
Ambitious College (external link)
it offers specialist education and support, with the ambition of making the ordinary possible for more children and young people with autism.
To mark its 21st anniversary this year, the charity launched a campaign called We Need an Education (external link) which highlights how too many children with autism are denied an education. Autistic pupils are at greater risk of exclusion, more likely to experience stress and anxiety at school and their parents face a harder battle to get their children the education they deserve.
Research has found that nine out of ten teachers don't feel prepared to teach children with autism, yet statistically every teacher will teach a child with autism.
Do you have a child with autism in your class this year? Do you feel prepared to meet their needs?
Ambitious about Autism is offering every school in Haringey a FREE Autism Education Trust (external link) 90-minute training session called Making Sense of Autism that will upskill staff to help them to support children with autism. This is basic awareness training suitable for all staff working in an education setting (including teaching staff, lunch-time staff, office staff and governors). Ambitous about Autism can deliver the training at your school at a time that suits you for 20-40 delegates.
Call 020 8815 5166 or email training@ambitiousaboutautism.org.uk to book your session now.
The Department of Education has announced that councils are set to receive an additional £50 million of funding to create additional school places and state-of-the-art facilities for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
This follows the £215 million fund announced in March 2017 to ensure children with SEND have access to a good school place. It is anticipated that the funding could go on to help create “around 740 more special school places” and provide new equipment including playgrounds and sensory rooms.
Children and Families Minister Nadhim Zahawi said: “This funding will help to create thousands more school places across the country, with a clear focus on transforming the experience of education for children with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND)”.
To see how Haringey is expanding special school places for children please refer to our ‘Local Offer’ website (external link) and read the special school expansion place planning report under the ‘SEN news’ section.