Agenda item

To provide an update on the progress of the Delivering Better Value in SEND activity.

The Forum considered a report which provided an update on the progress of the Delivering Better Value (DBV) in Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) activity.  The Forum was invited to make comments and thoughts on any of the activity so far and upcoming activity for DBV.

Chris Kiernan explained that the council had been awarded £1m by the DfE to deliver three pilot projects over two years.  The three projects were ASD training for teacher, a Kennel Lane School (KLS) outreach project, and in-house transition support.

Debbie Smith declared an interest in this item as Sandhurst School was likely to be the hub for the KLS outreach project.

The Forum asked whether there would be any support for primary schools as it felt like the focus was on secondary schools.  Chris confirmed that there would be support for primary schools in the KLS outreach and ASD training projects, and a certain amount of support for primary schools with the in-house transitional team as they would be working with pupils from Year 6. 

The Forum expressed that there was a need for support for children transitioning from early years to primary school.  Chris replied that this was a valid point.  In terms of the scale of issues for children with SEND, transition from primary to secondary was the most problematic.  Therefore, the in-house transition project would prioritise the secondary sector.  However, Chris agreed to look at different work that could be done in the future to support transition to primary. 

(Action: Chris Kiernan)

The Forum commented that there needed to be more focus on pre-school and linking with primary schools to lessen the issues as early intervention would help mitigate problems later on. 

A concern was raised about the level of support for schools regarding SEND pupils as resources were felt to be insufficient, and there was a worry that there was such an effort to save money.  It was acknowledged that having young people in mainstream education was important but there was a need for sufficient resources alongside to help those young people succeed.  Chris replied that there was no “penny pinching” or huge cost savings and that, in fact, the council had been spending more than the budget each year.  There was a need to be as efficient as possible.  Regarding specialist support, Chris was confident that there was a strong specialist support team in Bracknell.  However, there was a lack of specialist places which was beyond the council’s control; the legislation produced in 2014 has resulted in well over a 50% increase in Education, Health & Care Plans (EHCPs) in that time.  Councils had been left on their own without capital investment.  BFC had got investment for specialist provision and was looking at more investment in the following three areas: resourced places in primary and secondary schools, ensuring that the council properly supports and codifies those places in terms of entry, and increasing resourced units.  The council was also looking at additional special school capacity in addition to the new ASC school that had been approved.  The application for a Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) secondary school did not succeed and the council had been looking at whether to make further investments.

The Chair noted that several Forum members were invited to the initial DBV meeting.  Newton Europe, the DfE partner, led on that so it was their investigation and their identification of what would save money.  Cheryl Eyre added that they looked at many prospective project areas and there was substantial input from Cherry around early years transitional support and early identification, but then the limit to the amount of money available reduced the number of projects.  Therefore, they had to go back to the data as the basis to develop the three projects.  However, Cherry was still considering how Early Years support could be moved forward so it was not off the table.  Chris added that the council already did a lot in early intervention within early years.  It was included in the Code of Practice, and Chris would be doing a lot more work with schools next year on what needed to be available under schools’ budgets.