Supplementary memorandum submitted by
the Department for Education and Skills
Children with special educational needs
INTRODUCTION
1. The Department's memorandum on special
educational needs (SEN) promised a further note on the Government's
white paper on schools HigherStandards, Better Schools for
All, published on 25 October 2005.
2. This note sets out the main reforms in
the White Paper and what they mean for children with SEN and their
families; it also provides further information on the work the
Department is doing to develop its plans for a flexible continuum
of provision for special educational needs.
The White Paper reforms
3. A summary of the White Paper reforms
is at Annex A. The reforms aim to secure better educational outcomes
for children by improving the quality of education at all schools
and giving parents a range of choices so that every child receives
an excellent education whatever their background and wherever
they live. Children with SEN will benefit from action to target
help to those who need it most, engage and empower parents, and
develop a school system that has the flexibility to respond to
individual needs.
A flexible continuum of provision for SEN
4. The Department's memorandum sets out
plans to develop a continuum of provision—one that combines
elements of mainstream and specialist provision, builds on local
developments, and makes the most of unprecedented capital investment
in schools through the Building Schools for the Future programme.
5. The Schools White Paper sets out a range
of measures for improving the quality of schools and the confidence
of parents of children with SEN in the range of provision available;
this builds on the approach of Removing Barriers to Achievement,
the Government's SEN strategy. The Department has been working
to identify how best to promote the successful development of
a flexible continuum of SEN provision. This work has highlighted
a wide range of models. Some of these are widespread and well-established,
such as resourced units and classes in mainstream schools; and
others, such as co-locations of special and mainstream schools,
are fewer in number. Analysis carried out for the Department has
also found that special and mainstream provision may be brought
together at a number of levels, often in combination and including
joint governance arrangements, shared buildings and facilities,
staff and pupil movement, outreach from mainstream or special
schools, resourced provision in mainstream schools and special
units in both mainstream and special schools depending on children's
needs. Underpinning all of these activities is a need for a common
ethos shared throughout communities of schools and other service
providers.
6. There are five core characteristics which
our plans will seek to promote:
— More inclusive opportunities for
pupils in mainstream and special provision—through shared
grounds, buildings, learning and extra-curricular opportunities.
— More specialist input for pupils
in mainstream schools—through outreach andincreased access
to specialist advice and support.
— Greater collaboration between schools,
working in partnership with the local authority and other agencies,
to make the most of the available skills and expertise and sharing
ownership of more challenging pupils.
— Greater flexibility to respond to
the diverse and changing needs of individual pupils—through
the availability of different models of provision, responsive
back-up for schools, more readily accessible advice and support
and the use of part-time/short-term placements.
— More outward-facing partnership working
between schools, the local authority and health services, to meet
the needs of all local pupils.
7. In taking forward our plans we will focus
on developing strong local planning and commissioning arrangements,
improved skills, stronger partnerships, and improved accountability
for the outcomes achieved by children with SEN. Much of the work
being taken forward through Removing Barriers to Achievement,
and described in its memorandum to the Select Committee, is designed
to promote the key characteristics identified by the study. The
reforms announced in the Schools White Paper will further strengthen
this work. And we will work closely with a wide range of stakeholders
and experts in order to secure the best possible way forward.
How the White Paper will improve outcomes for
children with SEN
8. Children with SEN and their families
will benefit in particular from the commitments in the White Paper
to:
— ensure that local authorities are
able to set specific requirements for SEN provision in new and
existing schools within a school system that offers broader choice
and more flexibility;
— expand significantly the role of
special schools within the successful Specialist Schools Programme,
emphasising their role within the wider community of schools;
— develop the skills of the school
workforce so that they have the appropriate knowledge, awareness
and confidence in working with children with SEN;
— promote better progress by children
with SEN across a wide range of abilities— facilitating
early intervention, promoting high expectations and engaging parents
in their children's learning; and
— improve provision for children with
behavioural, emotional and social difficulties.
Ensuring a range of appropriate SEN provision
9. Local authorities will play a new commissioning
role in relation to a new schools system, at the heart of their
local communities and responsive to the needs of parents and pupils.
They will retain their duty to map what provision is required
in their area, taking account of changes in population, the demand
for children's services, and the need for diversity. They will
ensure sufficient school places, letting successful schools expand,
closing schools that are poor or fail to improve and running competitions
to open new schools. They will have a new duty to promote choice,
diversity and fair access to school places, specifying for new
and replacement schools, what they should provide and how they
should work in partnership with other schools and services.
10. A key part of local authorities' new
role will be to specify what is required in terms of provision
for children with SEN—they will be able to make proposals
for adding specialist SEN provision to all categories of school,
including the new Trust schools. Children with SEN who do not
have statements stand to benefit from the facility for secondary
schools to develop banding policies enabling them to keep a proportion
of places for children from outside their catchment area, and
from the extension of the right to free transport to the three
nearest secondary schools. The White Paper makes clear that there
are complex issues involved in special schools having a fast track
to becoming self-governing foundation schools or acquiring Trust
status. The Government will be considering those issues carefully
with schools and other interested parties before reaching any
conclusions about whether to extend those options to special schools.
Developing the role of special schools
11. Special schools have a key role to play
in developing the continuum of provision to meet the diversity
of children's individual needs and in driving up standards of
achievement. The White Paper announces the Government's intention
to designate 50 new specialist special schools with an SEN specialism
within the next two years, building on the 12 trailblazers already
established. The Department will also be working closely with
the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust and the Youth Sport
Trust to encourage more special schools to submit applications
for a curriculum specialism, with a view to being able to designate
a further 50 special schools by 2008. An evaluation will be commissioned
to compare the respective strengths of special schools with an
SEN or curriculum specialism. This will inform the roll out of
programmes beyond 2008.
12. The Department announced earlier this
year that high-performing specialist schools would be able to
take on additional functions to promote system-wide reform. The
Schools White Paper takes this policy further by asking whether
mainstream specialist schools who wished to take on an additional
SEN role should be encouraged to do so. We would welcome the Select
Committee's views on this important issue before we decide what
action to take.
Developing the skills of the school workforce
13. A well trained school workforce is vital
in raising standards of achievement for all children. The Department
is already taking forward with the Training and Development Agency
a range of measures to improve staff skills in SEN within Initial
Teacher Training; in induction for Newly Qualified Teachers and
at Post-Graduate level; and is supporting better networking of
tutors involved in SEN and disabilities.
14. The White Paper reforms will build on
this through wider changes over the next three years to improve
the quality of teaching of children with SEN including:
— The reform of teachers' professional
standards—to set out what can be expected of teachers at
each stage of their career; this will include the need to have
good, up-to-date knowledge of their subject and a commitment to
effective professional development.
— Training more staff to a high level
in literacy and numeracy and vocational areas.
— Training Health and Welfare staff
for the new roles they will play in full-service extended schools.
— Training more specialists to improve
behaviour and pastoral support.
— Training more bursars and administrative
staff to free up teachers to teach and ensure the best use of
resources to improve outcomes for children.In addition, from September
2006 schools will have multi-year budgets so that they can plan
and deploy resources more effectively. The quality of local support
services for children will also be improved through extended schools
and the development of national quality standards for SEN specialist
support and outreach services.
Improving the progress made by children with SEN
15. The White Paper reinforces the Government's
commitment to tailoring teaching and learning to children's individual
needs with a particular focus on those who are falling behind.
A range of measures will be put in place, starting from April
2006, to drive this forward that will benefit children with SEN,
including:
— Providing all schools, via the National
Strategies, with new resources and best practice guidance on tailoring
teaching and learning for children with SEN.
— A national training programme so
that every school will have an expert leading professional to
develop personalised learning across the whole school.
— Targeted funding for schools with
the highest proportion of underperforming pupils in English and
Maths so that they can employ additional staff to deliver one
to one and small group tuition.
— Expert advice on how best to support
children who face some of the greatest challenges—including
those with SEN.
— Best practice guidance on the most
effective teaching and learning strategies, including the use
of Information and Communication Technology for those who have
fallen behind, and on how to best engage and support their parents.
— Providing access to trained, expert
leading teachers to consolidate and continuously improve the support
available to pupils and make the best use of the new resources
available.
— Extra study support in extended schools.
£335 million from the Dedicated Schools
Grant will be invested by 2007-08 in providing resources to secondary
schools to deliver personalised learning for 11-14-year-olds.
An extra £60 million in 2006-07 and in 2007-08 to be shared
among the primary and secondary sectors will be targeted at those
schools with the highest numbers of pupils who have fallen behind.
16. Schools need to set expectations of
what children with SEN can achieve pitched at an appropriate and
suitably challenging level. The Department's memorandum sets out
what is being done to help schools in this area. The White Paper
sets out broader details of the New Relationship with Schools
accountability framework. Schools will need to show how all their
pupils are achieving and School Improvement Partners appointed
by local authorities will provide support and challenge to schools
in raising achievement and closing achievement gaps between different
groups. This will provide a clear impetus for continuous improvement
in the outcomes achieved by children with SEN and better accountability
to parents.
17. Alongside this the White Paper announces
a range of measures for engaging parents in their children's learning,
including:
— Requiring schools to give termly
information to parents on how their child is progressing and regular
opportunities for face to face discussion (new Regulations to
be made by September 2006).
— Expecting schools to use Home-School
Agreements to agree commitments on working together with parents
(revised guidance to issue in September 2006).
— Requiring school governing bodies
to seek and respond to the views of parents (regulations to be
laid in 2006) and encouraging them to establish Parent Councils
(to be included in forthcoming legislation).
— Making greater use of School Councils
to hear children's views in mainstream and special schools. School
Councils UK has been asked to create a network for schools and
their school councils to share good practice, which will include
special schools. School Councils UK has also recently produced
School Councils for All a guide to inclusion within schools
with advice on engaging pupils with SEN.
— Providing tailored information to
parents when their children start primary and secondary education
(this will be piloted in local authorities in 2006-08).
— Improving information to parents
on choosing a school (the Code of Practice on Admissions will
be revised and guidance issued in January 2006 and choice advisers
should be in place from September 2006).
— Establishing a new right for parents
to complain to Ofsted when they have concerns the school is failing
to address (this will be included in forthcoming legislation).
Improving provision for children with behavioural,
emotional and social difficulties
18. The White Paper welcomes the work of
the Practitioners' Group on School Behaviour and Discipline led
by Sir Alan Steer and gives a commitment to disseminate its findings
on good practice to ensure they are embedded in every school.
It sets a clear expectation that schools will form partnerships
to improve behaviour and that every secondary school will be part
of such a partnership by 2007.
19. The White Paper also recognises that
there is a small group of children with severe and complex behavioural,
emotional and social difficulties and accepts the Steer Group's
recommendation that further investigation is required to determine
how best to ensure that the underlying causes of their difficulties
are identified as early as possible and that they can access appropriate
multi-agency support.
Conclusion
20. Children and young people with SEN already
benefit from the personalisation inherent in the SEN framework,
which provides an individualised assessment of need and tailored
provision, with access where appropriate to services that can
best meet their particular needs. The White Paper reinforces this
approach further to promote a fully personalised response to every
child and builds on the programme of action being taken forward
through Removing Barriers to Achievement. It also seeks
to intensify the links between mainstream and special schools
and promote a flexible continuum of provision to meet children's
individual needs. This system wide change should help all children,
whatever their needs and wherever they are taught, to receive
a good education and an opportunity to realise their potential.
21. The Department has communicated the
key elements of the White Paper and its implications for children
and young people with SEN to leading organisations in the SEN
field.
5 November 2005
Annex A
HIGHER STANDARDS, BETTER SCHOOLS FOR ALL—
MORE CHOICE FOR PARENTS AND PUPILS: SUMMARY
OF KEY CHANGES
A NEW SCHOOLS
SYSTEM
— Schools will be able to acquire a
self-governing trust—similar to those supporting Academies
which will give them the freedom to work with new partners to
help develop their ethos and raise standards.
— Academies will remain at the heart
of the programme, with continued and new opportunities to develop
them in schools and areas of real and historical underperformance
and under achievement.
— Independent schools will find it
easier to enter the new system.
— A national schools commissioner will
drive change, matching schools and new partners, promoting the
benefits of choice, access and diversity, and taking action where
parental choices are being frustrated.
CHOICE AND
ACCESS FOR
ALL
— Choice will be more widely available
to all within an increasingly specialist system, not just to those
who can pay for it. Key to choice is the provision of more good
places and more good schools. This will be supported by:
(a) Introducing better information for all parents
when their children enter primary and secondary school, and dedicated
choice advisers to help the least well-off parents to exercise
their choices.
(b) Extending the rights to free school transport
to children from poorer families to go to their three nearest
secondary schools within six miles of their home (where they are
outside walking distance) and piloting transport to support such
choices for all parents, which will help the environment as well
as school choice.
(c) Making it easier for schools to introduce
fair admissions policies, including banding, so that they can
keep a proportion of places for students who live outside traditional
urban school catchment areas within a genuinely comprehensive
intake. Some specialist schools and Academies already successfully
use this approach.
PARENTS AND
PUPILS FULLY
ENGAGED IN
IMPROVING STANDARDS
— Parents will receive regular, meaningful
reports during the school year about how their child is doing
with opportunities to discuss their child's them and their child's
progress at school.
— Parents have the chance to form elected
Parent Councils to influence school decisions on issues such as
school meals, uniform and discipline (such councils will be required
in Trust schools).
— Parents have better local complaints
procedures and access to a new national complaints service from
Ofsted.
— Parents have access to more and clearer
information about local schools, how to get involved and how to
lever change including the creation of new schools.
— Parents are able to set up new schools
supported by a dedicated capital pot.
EDUCATION TAILORED
TO THE
INDIVIDUAL
— Improved knowledge about how different
young people acquire knowledge and skills and increased resources
in our schools, a reformed school workforce and the greater availability
of ICT, gives teachers the opportunity to tailor lessons and support
in schools to the individual needs of each pupil. So there will
be:
(d) targeted one-to-one tuition in English and
Maths in the schools with the most underperforming pupils, to
help those falling behind to catch up with their peers;
(e) more stretching lessons and opportunities
for gifted and talented pupils;
(f) extended schools, offering many new opportunities
to learn and develop beyond the formal school day;
(g) more schools adopting grouping and setting
of pupils in particular subjects according to ability; and
(h) a national training programme to enable each
school to have one leading professional to help develop tailored
lessons.
MEASURES TO
TACKLE FAILURE
AND UNDERPERFORMANCE
— Failing schools will be more quickly
turned around; and where no progress is made after a year, a competition
for new providers will be held. Coasting schools will put on notice
to improve, and if progress is not made, will enter special measures
within a year.
— Competitions will be required for
new schools and the replacement of failing schools, for the first
time providing a straightforward route to bring new providers
into the system. All new schools will be self-governing foundation,
voluntary aided church schools or Academies.
— Parents will be able to urge Ofsted
action or request new providers, and where there is strong demand
or dissatisfaction with existing choices, authorities will have
to meet their concerns.
LIGHTER TOUCH
FOR GOOD
SCHOOLS
— Good schools will be able to expand
or federate more easily with other schools to expand their influence
and increase the supply of good places, improving choices for
parents.
— The best specialist schools will
be able to acquire extra specialism and funded for new responsibilities
such as teacher training.
— Ofsted will consult on an even lighter
touch inspection system for high-performing schools.
BETTER DISCIPLINE
— The key recommendations of the Steer
Group will be implemented by:
(i) Introducing a clear and unambiguous legal
right for teachers to discipline pupils backed by an expectation
that every school has a clear set of rules and sanctions.
(j) Extending parenting contracts and orders,
so that schools [individually or collectively] can use them to
force parents to take responsibility for their children's bad
behaviour in school.
(k) Requiring parents to take responsibility
for excluded pupils in their first five days of a suspension (by
ensuring they are properly supervised doing schoolwork at home)
with fines for parents if excluded pupils are found unsupervised
during school hours.
(l) Expecting headteachers to use their newly
devolved powers and funding collectively to develop on and off-site
provision for suspensions longer than five days (instead of 15
days at present) and insisting that all exclusions are properly
recorded.
A NEW ROLE
FOR LOCAL
AUTHORITIES
— The role of the Local Education Authority
will change from provider to commissioner.
— As a part of their wider responsibilities
for children and young people, local authorities will be expected
to become parents' champions, commissioning rather than providing
education. They will have a new duty to promote choice diversity
and access to school places and school transport.
— It will be easier for new schools
to be established, where there is parental demand.
— The school organisation committee
will be abolished and their decision-making powers transferred
to local authorities; disputes will continue to be resolved by
the Schools Adjudicator.
— Local authorities will work with
the newly created Schools Commissioner to ensure more choice,
greater diversity and better access for disadvantaged groups to
good schools in every area.
— Local authorities and Learning and
Skills Councils will work more closely together to ensure real
choice and higher standards in the provision of education for
14-19-year-olds in schools and colleges.
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