The Government White paper on SEND reform published this week is a rather heavy read for busy parents, but in practice, it comes down to a small range of plans which we have analysed for those parents too busy educating to read ‘War and Peace’.
Individual Support Plans (ISPs)
EHCPs will not be available to the majority of children with SEND. Instead, the Government proposes to introduce ‘Individual Support Plans’ (ISP) for children. ISPs would provide a digital record of the individual child’s learning needs and the reasonable adjustments needed to meet those needs day to day. Schools would have a duty to co-design them with families, for children with identified SEND. This should lead to an ongoing and responsive assessment of need with adjustments made as required.
It is not clear where accountability for ensuring that the identified support in a child’s ISP will be delivered.
It does appear that this approach will effectively exclude home educated children from receiving support as the majority will be supported through school-based ISPs.
Experts at Hand
The Government wants to provide an ‘Experts at Hand’ support service which is intended to give schools quicker access to specialist advice and expertise without having to wait for statutory assessment. The intention is that this will help to provide support to more children in mainstream settings. Again, this appears to exclude home educated children from accessing experts as they are accessed through school.
Specialist Provision Packages
The Government proposes to introduce nationally defined ‘Specialist Provision Packages’ (SPP) for children with the most complex needs. EHCPs will only be available to children who qualify for an SPP. The SPP is intended to set out the provision required and the EHCP to guarantee that it is met.
The White paper does not define ‘complexity’, but it will effectively be defined by the SPP. This could create greater consistency, nationally but the devil will be in the detail of how children are assessed, not least because it is known that some neurodiverse children ‘mask’ symptoms in school. This also raises difficulties for children in home education as they will not have the same access to expert assessment.
Focus on attendance
The White Paper emphasises improving attendance in robust terms, describing absence as not ‘optional’. Proposals include strengthened attendance teams, mentoring, increased data sharing and multi-agency working to tackle absence. There seems to be a lack of recognition of part time timetables and Education Other Than at School (EOTAS, education provided outside school for children who cannot attend school). The emphasis is on school attendance, not education.
A great many children come to home education because of emotionally based barriers to attendance; their mental health is such that attendance at school is not possible for them. It is concerning that even greater stress on full time attendance will drive greater numbers of parents to home educate who do not want to do so.
Behaviour and expectations
The White paper stresses high expectations of children and their behaviour with proposals for new behaviour guidance together with ‘ behaviour hubs’. Children and parents would be required to attend more structured reintegration meetings after suspension. This raises concern in respect of neurodiverse children who can often display what is viewed as ‘bad behaviour’ but is in fact a response to feeling unsafe or misunderstood.
The Government proposes the introduction of formal, agreements between parents and schools to set out expectations on schools, parents and pupils in relation to attendance and behaviour. It is not clear how these agreements will operate but again, this could drive parents to home education who in practice, would prefer their child to be in school.
It is important to note that this is the very start of the consultation process and that families and other stakeholders can provide consultation responses which could help to get these reforms to be the best that they can be from the start.
