REVIEW OF PROVISION FOR

CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

1. Introduction Page 1

2 Policy and Principles Page 3

• Norfolk Policy Statement
• Principles
• Norfolk Learning Statement
• Working in Partnership

3 Meeting Needs within Mainstream Settings Page 5

• Introduction
• Issues
• Professional Development
• Resources
• Access
• Complex/low incidence needs

4 Special Schools Page 12

• Introduction
• Implications
• Outreach Support

5 Exceptional Needs Page 16

• Independent Sector and other Specialist Provision

6 Specialist Advice and Support Page 17

• Functions
• Services

7 Statements of Special Educational Needs Page 20

8 Summary of Key Recommendations Page 22

Appendices:

• high standards should be set for all children;
• children who experience special educational needs should be included in mainstream education wherever possible;
• needs should be met as early as possible and, whenever possible, without recourse to Statutory Assessment;
• the number of Statements held should be reduced although children with the most complex needs should continue to benefit from them;
• special schools should have a continuing role for some children but with more movement of pupils between special and mainstream schools and enhanced opportunities for cooperation between the two sectors.

• the development of Early Excellence Centres as models for early identification and intervention;
• ensuring that all LEAs establish Parent Partnership Schemes and conciliation arrangements to avoid unnecessary recourse to the SEN Tribunal;
• ensuring that LEAs take account of the views of children, and not just parents and professionals, through the SEN process;
• consulting on a revised and simplified Code of Practice to be introduced in 2001;
• requiring LEAs, through Fair Funding, to ensure SEN funding arrangements are transparent; and the
• development of a more inclusive education system through prevention, early intervention, improved professional development and better access together with a continuing role for special schools.

• a revision of the previous policy towards SEN to become one of ‘Access to Education’ and which establishes inclusion as a policy goal;
• the introduction of the revised SEN funding scheme for mainstream schools to ensure that resources are fairly distributed, available early and without the need for a Statement in most cases;
• the development of a comprehensive Behaviour Support Plan which seeks to improve social inclusion by reducing exclusions and improving attendance;
• the implementation of a monitoring scheme for special educational needs;
• continuing to develop the services provided by School Support Teams so that flexible responses are available to meet identified needs; and by
• consulting on plans to relocate the existing Edinburgh Road School and open a new school for children with Complex Learning Needs on the Sheringham Schools’ Campus.

6. The National Childcare Strategy was introduced in 1998 and is delivered locally through the Norfolk Early Years Development and Childcare Partnership. One of its main aims is to develop and support inclusive early years and childcare services for all children. 'Inclusion' is one of the main objectives in the 2000-2001 Plan.

2. POLICY AND PRINCIPLES

• follow a broad and balanced curriculum that is appropriately differentiated to meet their individual needs and to enable them to realise their potential;
• benefit from high expectations;
• attend school as near to their homes as possible and, when attending special schools, their educational programme should be as similar to that of a mainstream school as possible;
• benefit from specialist support and equipment where this is required to facilitate access to the curriculum and the life of the school and community;
• benefit from support of the highest quality and that represents the ‘cutting edge’ of knowledge and practice;
• be educated in day school provision unless there are educational reasons for them to attend a residential school;
• gain from receiving their education in an inclusive environment in which they are able to contribute to each other’s wellbeing;
• receive an education that is appropriate to their age that will include opportunities to experience progression between phases of schooling and transition to post 16 education;
• benefit from resources that are available to all children on an equitable basis;
• have their social and healthcare needs met with the support, if required, of other agencies working together to provide coordinated services.

1. The Education Department continues to work in partnership with parents, schools, local Health Authorities, Social Services and Voluntary Agencies through the Parent Partnership scheme. All partners work together, through the Partnership Management Group, to provide information and support for parents of pupils with special needs. A key aspect of the Partnership’s work over the next year will be the establishment of an independent conciliation service, aimed at resolving disputes between the LEA and parents regarding Statements and thereby reducing the need for parents to make appeals to the Special Educational Needs Tribunal.
2. There are well established protocols and procedures which facilitate multi-agency planning in cases where children are of concern to more than one agency. Area Joint Action Panels meet regularly to review and plan for cases of concern. Particularly complex cases are also discussed at Child Specific Planning Meetings when all the professionals associated with an individual child or family come together to agree actions. Arrangements have also been established to facilitate the joint purchasing of specialist care and education where normally available resources demonstrably cannot meet needs.

1. Within the commitment to inclusion, the main roles of the Education Department are to :

• set the overall strategic framework for developing inclusive practice, taking account of government priorities;
• provide appropriate resource arrangements to underpin inclusion;
• provide expert and high quality support services for schools;
• ensure that there is appropriate inter-agency collaboration at the planning and operational levels; and to
• monitor the effectiveness of provision made.

2. This compares to a national picture in which approximately 59% of pupils holding Statements attend mainstream schools. Norfolk is relatively unusual in that resources have been devolved to schools for children with Statements. The majority of LEAs maintain a traditional split between statutory and non-statutory resources with the latter, where identified, being delegated to schools.

1. The major focus for inclusive education is mainstream schools. Within Norfolk, over 99% of the pupil population currently benefits from a mainstream educational placement. Where the barriers to learning are particularly complex, it may be necessary to further develop opportunities to access a continuum of support and provision as local as possible to the child’s home; to further enhance opportunities to access flexibly the continuum of provision through the further development of mainstream/special school dual registration arrangements and through the development of an outreach support facility from special schools.

4. The Teacher Training Agency has recently published new National Standards for Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators (SENCOs) and ‘Using the National Standards for Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators’. These publications will inform the development the roles of SENCOs, specialist teachers and learning support assistants in order to help schools create and develop inclusive arrangements. Staff will need to be skilful in working with their school colleagues in reviewing current arrangements, analysing barriers to participation, formulating problem-solving strategies and the leadership and management of change. Such initiatives are key to the overall task of school improvement and effectiveness.

• looking at how expectations are set and opportunities provided for all to succeed;

• considering how to build on pupils’ different experiences, interests and strengths to enable them to learn;
• enabling all pupils to take part in lessons fully and effectively; and
• ensuring compliance with equal opportunities legislation governing race, gender and disability.

• create effective learning environments;
• secure pupils’ motivation and concentration;
• provide equality of opportunity through teaching approaches;
• use appropriate assessment approaches; and
• set targets for learning.

6. Planning and co-ordination should also be undertaken in relation to the guidance in the revised SEN Code of Practice. The ‘Index for Inclusion: developing learning and participation in schools’ (Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education in collaboration with the Centre for Educational Needs, University of Manchester and Centre for Educational Research Canterbury Christ Church University College 2000), provides a framework and direction when planning for the development of policy and good practice.
7. In order to assist senior managers and SENCOs in their role, the Education Department proposes to establish an SEN Web Site that will allow access to information relating to Special Educational Needs. This will incorporate information relating to statutory issues, school-funding mechanisms, training opportunities and an accessible database of key individuals and organisations, locally and nationally, able to advise on issues relating to special educational needs.
8. All pre-school groups in the voluntary and private sectors receiving nursery grant must have regard to the SEN Code Of Practice, have a SENCO in place and have procedures for the early identification, monitoring and recording the progress of children with SEN.
9. Within the Education Department, there will be support for pre-school providers from the Norfolk Psychological Service Early Years Team, the Norfolk Education Advisory Service and the Early Years Development and Childcare Partnership.

1. Professional development opportunities for all school and support staff (teachers and learning support assistants) working with children with special educational needs must be focussed and coherent at the point of delivery to schools, in relation to planned priorities and in relation to regional and local needs. The Education Department is implementing a comprehensive and structured approach to improving staff knowledge and skills as described in Section 4 of "Meeting Special Educational Needs: A programme of action" (DfEE 1998).

• setting up a cross service and departmental group to co-ordinate, plan and develop professional development opportunities in a range of areas of SEN;
• requiring professional development opportunities to conform to a common quality standard and be managed within an agreed Code of Practice;
• being linked to national, regional and local needs and initiatives;
• being based on a framework of support for teachers, SENCOs, senior managers, subject leaders and learning support assistants in relation to the relevant national standards;
• engaging with higher education institutions to ensure appropriate, graduated levels of accreditation where possible and desirable;
• using, disseminating and publishing research resulting or arising from professional development opportunities;
• encourage peer networks and collaborative, partnership activities to support professional development;
• encouraging a wide definition of professional development opportunities to suit different needs;
• an annual review of the range and type of professional development opportunities offered;
• the development of an inclusion / SEN web site to promote information access and exchange; and by
• developing links with, and information for, governors targeted at SEN issues through the Governor Support Unit.

 3.4 Resources

• ensure that the continued development of the special educational needs funding arrangements seeks to reduce the administrative load on schools;
• improve the management and distribution of resources for high need pupils (those currently at Band E) and establish a clear link with the funding of pupils who attend special schools;
• establish clearer criteria for high level funding and the numbers and needs of children benefiting from it so that demographic change from population growth or inclusion can be measured; and
• review the operation of the appeal and moderation processes.

5. For pre-school children, the Education and Social Services Departments provide resources to support children with SEN attending services run by independent and voluntary organisations. Steps will be taken to develop joint criteria for the allocation of these resources and to ensure that arrangements are in hand to undertake joint agency assessments. Nursery classes within maintained schools each have five designated places available for children with special educational needs.

1. The funding system for pupils with special educational needs enables pupils with complex needs to be identified and it can provide them with a level of individual resourcing (Band E). This facility has promoted the successful inclusion of many pupils who may have otherwise attended specialist or special school provision. There are examples of small groups of children with complex needs, e.g. autistic spectrum disorders and sensory impairment, when Band E funding has been utilised to facilitate a clustering arrangement in a geographically convenient school. This has enabled specialist advice and support to be delivered more effectively than would otherwise have been the case.

3. Additionally, the LEA maintains a number of specialist group resources in mainstream schools. This provision includes:

1. Language Development Centres

5. The principle of inclusion requires that, wherever possible, children should be educated within their own community, i.e. attending their local school. The banded funding system available in mainstream schools enables schools to receive high levels of resourcing directly related to individual pupil needs. In effect, this may replace the need to maintain separately funded, generic Learning Support Centres. The Education Department would still need to retain some very specialist facilities through the maintenance and further development of a number of schools with enhanced resources and specialist skills to meet a range of complex and low incidence needs. Within this context, the primary Language Development and Assessment and Learning Support Centres could be retained, together with existing Specific Learning Difficulty Centres within high schools. The more specialist nature of this provision is considered both an effective and efficient means of addressing such specific high level needs.

• the present arrangements for the maintenance of generic Learning Support Centres would no longer be necessary and could be discontinued. Robust transitional arrangements would need to be established. For example, final admissions meetings could take place in the Autumn term 2000 for new placements in September 2001. Funding could be maintained until March 2003. Thereafter, where changes are made to existing patterns of provision, the entitlement of children still attending the Learning Support Centres could be preserved through transfer to Band E funding;
• a comprehensive study should be completed during the Autumn term 2000 to identify best practice within existing Learning Support Centres and within identified mainstream schools without Learning Support Centres. The study would focus upon the framework required to maintain, develop and extend the professional skill base and expertise of SEN teachers and the need to enable children with significant and complex needs, included within mainstream schools wherever possible. This could also include the concept of specially resourced schools or clusters to support children with a number of low incidence but complex needs including profound sensory impairments, autistic spectrum disorders and very complex physical and health related disabilities;
• existing early years Assessment and Learning Support Centres would need to be retained with a further review to identify gaps in provision. For example, The areas around King’s Lynn and Thetford do not have access to this type of resource;
• existing high school Centres for children with specific learning difficulties would need to be retained with the current review of their operation completed and other schools encouraged to develop specialist skills for working with such children;
• primary Language Development Centres would need to be retained;
• similarly, the existing Sensory Impairment Resource Bases, both visual and hearing, would be retained , with consideration given to their further development as ‘resourced schools’.

7. It would be necessary to review and re-establish the contractual arrangements between the LEA and Governors with respect to all the maintained unit provision and the subsequent development of specially resourced schools or clusters.

3. SPECIAL SCHOOLS

• opportunities to be educated as near to their homes as is possible;
• opportunities to benefit from an age appropriate educational experience; to move through primary phase, secondary to 16+ provision;
• access to specialist teaching and healthcare support as appropriate;
• opportunities to maintain inclusive links with a local mainstream school through flexible admissions and dual registration arrangements;
• opportunities to benefit from a supported transition to a full-time mainstream school environment when objectives specified through the Statement of Special Educational Needs have been achieved.

• benefit teachers and classroom assistants;
• allow children with the most complex needs, placed in both special and mainstream schools, access to resources not readily available in their schools; and which, over time
• enable more children currently receiving their education solely in special schools, to attend mainstream schools for all or part of their learning.

• reduce the number of pupils placed in approved non LEA maintained schools with particular focus on the population of children who experience emotional and behavioural difficulties;
• reduce the number of full-time places in schools designated for children with moderate learning difficulties;
• develop an admissions process to special schools which will support inclusion through fixed term and dual registered placements;
• reduce the number of full-time places in the school designated for children with physical disabilities;
• develop an appropriately resourced outreach role for special schools, which complements existing support services and which enables them to provide support and advice regarding children with complex learning needs;
• enable more children with complex learning needs to experience some or all of their education within a mainstream settings;
• develop existing special school provision to allow a greater number of children with emotional and behavioural difficulties to be educated in LEA maintained special schools in Norfolk; and
• reinvest resources, currently used to fund out of county provision, in Norfolk schools.

• King’s Lynn:

• Dereham:

• Norwich:

• Attleborough:

• North Norfolk:

• Great Yarmouth:

1. 169 places are currently purchased from schools within the independent sector at a cost of £3.555m. Of these placements, 54 students’ primary difficulty relates to EBD. It is recognised that students experiencing exceptional and very low incidence needs may, on occasions, require a specialist provision not available within Norfolk. Such placements are funded through shared arrangements with Norfolk Social Services Department and Norfolk Health Authority.
2. More specialist provision needs to be developed within Norfolk, enabling students with emotional and behavioural difficulties to be educated close to their homes wherever possible. This would allow additional resources to be focused on Norfolk Schools.

1. As a key part of its commitment to enhancing and maintaining inclusive education, the Education Department maintains a range of specialist child and school support services. Over recent years these services have developed both the quality of their operations and the range and innovation of their practice. The services provide a graduated range of functions to help ensure that the particular needs of pupils are met and that schools are supported in their work with children.

• maintain and provide expertise which is not ordinarily available in schools;
• trial and introduce to schools new ways of working with children;
• trial and introduce new materials for supporting children with particular needs;
• demonstrably contribute to inclusion and raising standards for all children;
• contribute to the evaluation of the effectiveness of provision for pupils with particular needs, both generally and for individual pupils;
• be able to address needs across the County in a flexible and focused way;
• maintain highly consistent, responsive and high quality support for children, schools and parents/carers.

• advice to schools on organisation and approaches to support pupils with particular needs;
• staff training at school or Authority level;
• advice on planning to meet the needs of individual children;
• provision of expertise and materials to help schools teach children with particular needs;
• assessment and advice regarding specific strategies;
• short-term trial teaching and interventions;
• longer periods of fixed-term interventions with pupils who have severe or complex difficulties (e.g. involving behaviour or specific learning difficulties);
• direct teaching of pupils with additional needs or who are out of school;
• support for transition;
• advice to parents/carers;
• statutory assessment and review; and
• advice on pupil placement.

4. Norfolk maintains a range of Services with complementary functions.

• Level 1: regular visits to schools by multidisciplinary School Support Teams within a time allocation framework along a graduated continuum from advice through assessment to short-term interventions.
• Level 2: a range of activities which are designed to be flexible and focused on need including fast responses to urgent situations, responses which require particular and high levels of expertise (e.g. fixed-term teaching of children with dyslexia, work with disaffected children and those with emotional difficulties), literacy and disaffection task groups, off-site teaching for disaffected children, work with children who are looked after, work with families, support for pre-school children and providers, support for children placed out of county.
• Level 3: activities which require expertise to be deployed on a whole-Service basis such as critical incident responses, counselling of children who have suffered racial abuse, development of autistic spectrum responses, support for schools with difficulties.

6. The proposed ‘Connexions Service’, recently announced by the DfEE, will also develop a defined role in respect of young people aged 13+ who are at risk of becoming disaffected or disengaged from education, training or employment. This service is expected to provide personal advisers for such young people from April 2002.

• an introduction of a revised style, enabling clear connections between all part of the Statement and more precise identification of the provision to be made in the school;
• development of clear links between Statement content and Band E resource allocations;
• improved review and monitoring procedures, enabling the Education Department to discontinue Statements when the objectives have been achieved.

4. It is expected that most needs should be met at early stages of the Code of Practice and without the need for a Statement. Where Statements are necessary, they should be clearly focused on specific needs and actions and be subject to full annual review, often leading to discontinuation when the objectives have been achieved. A small number of children with very complex needs will continue to hold Statements throughout their school careers. Overall, the LEA aims to reduce the number of Statements by 25% within the next five years.

• new specialist provision could be required within mainstream schools to support the inclusion of a small number of children who experience particularly complex needs. Some existing provision could be phased out over time;

• consideration should be given to ways of achieving equitable access to provision irrespective of geographic location within Norfolk;

• an Access Plan should be published and, wherever possible, steps should be taken to improve the accessibility of Norfolk’s schools to those who experience disabilities;

• services for children who are in the care of Norfolk County Council should be further developed to ensure that attainment improves and continuity of education is regarded as a high priority;

• resource allocations to both special and mainstream schools should be linked to ensure that demographic change can be measured and that inclusion is supported;

• special schools should be retained but could develop a new role to support identified children with complex needs within mainstream schools through shared placements and outreach support;

• special schools currently designated as schools for children with severe or moderate learning difficulties could be re-designated as schools for children with complex learning needs. Wherever possible, they could provide separate provision for primary and secondary age pupils. There could be some increase in provision for children with complex learning, emotional and behavioural difficulties; and

• use of non-maintained special schools to meet some very low incidence needs could continue but on a reduced basis.

APPENDIX A

REVIEW OF PROVISION FOR CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS

• To advise on the conduct and outcomes of a review of SEN provision and the subsequent development of a plan for meeting special educational needs.
• To ensure that the review takes full account of local and national priorities as outlined in the:

• To consider the format and content of the SEN Development Plan.
• When making recommendations to the Director of Education, to have regard to the Norfolk Policy Statement and inclusion and the agreed principles which guide the review.
• To make recommendations to the Director of Education regarding the consultation process, consider outcomes and make recommendations for inclusion within the final plan.