Paper 2

Wokingham Borough Council
0 to 25 Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Strategy
2017 to 2019 /

UnclassifiedPage 101/10/2018

Paper 2

Forward from Councillor Mark Ashwell, Executive Member for Children’s Services

Wokingham is a great placefor families. We have a strong and growing economy; a wide range of public, voluntary and privately funded services that families and children can call upon, and; we have high performing schools that support our children and young people’s development, preparing them for adult life.

One of the things about Wokingham I take the greatest pride in is that children and young people with disabilities attending our local schools can expect to achieve better than the average attainment results of their peers nationally and in similar places across the South of England.

Around four thousand children and young people in our borough have a disability. Through their own resources, and with access to local universal services, most of these children and their parents or carers will thrive alongside their neighbours. Some children and families however will need extra support to give them the same opportunities available to all other children and families. Parents and carers of children with disabilitieswant advice and support on how best to care for their families too.

This 0-25 Special Education Needs and Disabilities Strategy sets out how the Council, with schools, NHS partners and local voluntary organisation plans to make sure that children and young people with disabilities and their families will be supported in accessing the opportunities available to all children and young people so they can reach their full potential.

Through this strategy the Council will reshape the way it supports and serves children and young people with disabilities and their families. Our aim is to raise aspirations for children, young people and parents; putting them at the centre of the decisions that effect them, and; giving them greater choice and control over their support so they can achieve at school and college and make a successful start to adult life. Through this we hope that all children and young people can achieve their full potential.

Cllr Mark Ashwell

Executive Member for Children Services

1Summary

1.1Wokingham is a great place for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) to grow up. The borough has a strong and growing economy; high performing schools and an array of public and privately funded resources for children and young people with disabilities and their parents and carers. However, the Borough faces challenges from rising demand, both from changing demography with a growing young adolescent population and an increase in the number of children with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and SEMH (Social, Emotional and Mental Health). Responding to these rising demands at a time of reducing public funds is a key part of this strategy.We have developed a set of strategic priorities for action and improvement for services from birth to age 25.

1.2The key building blocks to realising better outcomes are:

  • how we build on our engagement practices to better understand need;
  • how we ensure that families have real agency in the delivery of services;
  • that our partnerships continue to develop and
  • that as children become adults they have the support they need to thrive.
  1. To address the challenges local public services are reforming services to work in an integrated way, both singly through the creation of Wokingham Borough Council’s new 0 to 25 SEND Service and by closer working with health partners and neighbouring local authority partners, particularly across the Berkshire West area (Wokingham, Reading and West Berkshire).
  2. The Council believes that putting a greater emphasis on supporting children and young people and their families and carers to have an active role in their own care will be critical for improving community outcomes. It is working to ensure the voice of children and their families is heard in all aspects of decision making. It is extending parent and carer choice by building the short breaks programme around personal budgets and direct payments to parents and carers from April 2018.
  3. Sub-regional health and local authority partnership working is creating a shared data set and a shared understanding of need across the communities served by the three Berkshire West LAs. Where a common need for a particular kind of local SEND education provision emerges from this process we will work together, sharing resources with a view to creating new provision that will be closer to families, at least matching quality and offer better value for money than the independent sector provision.
  4. This work will be set in a strong management framework with clear accountabilities and reporting lines to ensure service aspirations are delivered with tangible benefits to local communities and most importantly better outcomes for children and young people with SEND.
  5. This strategy is concerned with the transformation of Wokingham Borough Council SEND Services over the time period up until April 2019. We plan to establish a joint strategy with health partners that will supersede this strategy from April 2019.

Background

1.8Our Vision for Children and Young People with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) is:

We want all children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities to achieve their full potential and independence in adulthood through bringing together all Wokingham’s services to children and young people to:

  • Help parents and carers in supporting their children and young people with SEND
  • Get early help and support to children and young people with disabilities and their families when they need it
  • Give extra support to achieve at school and college
  • Make sure that children, young people with SEND and their families have access to a wide menu of accessible, supportive, educational, healthy, caring and fun services in Wokingham
  • We will do this against a backdrop of rising demand, particularly for services for children with ASD and SEMH and constrained local authority and partner resources. Achieving this requires new ways of working across public agencies and a new relationship with service users.

2Who are children and young peoplewith SEND?

2.1This strategy is concerned with supporting children and young people with SEND in achieving their potential and helping their parents and carers give them their best possible care and support.

Children and young people with SEND are defined as:

(1)A child or young person has special educational needs if he or she has a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special educational provision to be made for him or her.(S.20.1 Children and Families Act 2014)

When we use the term disabilities we mean:

If you have a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative (adverse) effect on your ability to carry out normal day to day activities(based on S 6.1 Equalities Act 2010)

3Why have a children and young people with SEND Strategy?

3.1Wokingham Borough Council is the lead agency for all children and young people’s services in Wokingham. This means that the Council brings together all local public services and other stakeholders and supports them in working together to help local children and young people achieve the best possible outcomes. The Council and its public sector partners are responsible for giving additional support to children and young people with SEND and their families. This support includes:

  • Involving children and young people and their families in the decisions that the Council may make about their support and services.
  • Giving advice and information to parents and carers on what support is available for children and young people with SEND and their families locally.
  • Agreeing with parents and carers a joined up education, health and care plan that sets out how education services, schools, health services and social services will support each child and or young person.
  • Council and NHS services jointly commissioning services for children and young people with SEND.
  • Supporting parents and carers who care for children and young people with SEND by giving advice and information and by helping them to care for their children.
  • A summary of key legislation and guidance is found in appendix A

4Growing up with SEND in Wokingham

Demography

4.1There are around 50,000 children and young people aged 0-25 living in Wokingham. Of these children and young people:

0 to 4s (Pre-school) – 10,000 (20% (of 0 to 25s))

5 to 11s (Primary) – 16,000 (32%)

12 to 16s (Secondary) – 10,000 (20%)

17 to 18s (Post 16) – 4,000 (8%)

19 to 25 (19+) – 10,000 (20%)

4.2The population trend for these children and young people, based on the Office of National Statistics (ONS) population projections (2014 base) 2017 to 2021 show there will be a:

  • Decline (by less than 5%) in the number of primary age pupils (5 to 9) and young adults (20 to 24).
  • Rise (by less than 5%) in the number of pre-school (0 to 4) and older secondary / post 16 students/
  • Growth (by 13%) in the number of statutory secondary age pupils (10 to 14).
  • Approximately 800 children (2.7% of all children) have higher levels of SEND (with Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) or Statements of SEN).

A further 2,800 children (9.8% of all children) are categorised as needing SEN Support in schools.

Other children will have additional needs, without this being reflected in the statistics.

A key priority is for us to ensure that we have sufficient support in place for the bulge in adolescents and that support is prioritised to those children, young people and families with the greatest need.

4.4The proportion of children with EHCPS / Statements eligible for Free School Meals is 20.1%. This is markedly lower than the national figure for such children (28%), but higher than the Wokingham figure for all children (5.7%).

Attainment

4.5Wokingham Borough (WBC) children with Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) and statements generally have better schools’ attainment than either similar localities or the nation as a whole, looking at data from Early Years through to Post 16, as evidenced in the table below.

Children with EHCP / Statement / 2014 / 2015 / 2016 / 2017
EYFS– % “good” level of development / WBC / 9% / 3% / 10% / 12%
WBC higher than SNs / Nation / SNs / 4.33% / 4.83% / 8.5%
National / 3.0% / 4.0% / 4.0%
KS2 Reading Writing Maths / WBC / 26% / 17% / 2% / 14%
WBC higher than Nation in 2 of 3 years / National / 15% / 16% / 7%
KS4 - % A* to C English and Maths / WBC / 23.9%
WBC higher than Nation / National / 9.9% / 10.5%
Level 3 attainment by age 19
Statement Year 11 (Year 12 in brackets) / WBC / 13.9% (46%) / 8.8% (34.6%) / 14.8% (43.8%)
WBC higher than national figures / National / 2.3% (5.4%) / 8.8% (22.4%) / 13.7% (31.2%)

EYFS = Early Years Foundation Stage

SNs = Statistical Neighbours

4.6The greatest attainment concern is Key Stage 2 combined reading, writing and maths (RWM) where Wokingham children with statements and EHCPs were performing below the national average in 2016. However, 2017 RWM figures show a significant improvement to 14%, but as comparator figures are not yet available, it cannot yet be confirmed that this indicator is no longer of concern.

Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) / Statement breakdown

4.7In 2017 there were 802 children with an EHCP or statement of special education need. The breakdown by primary need is set out in the pie chart below:

4.8Comparing the current data with 2015 data we see:

Overall numbers of children with EHCP / statements have risen by 74 (10%). The greatest growth has been seen in Moderate and Severe Learning Disability (MLD and SLD) (up by 32 over the two year period), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) (up by 34 or 12% over the two year period) and Behavioural, Emotional and Social Difficulties with Social Emotional and Mental Health Difficulties (SEMH) (up by 14 or 12% over this period). Of the other need categories only one (Specific Learning Disability) has declined significantly (by 13 or 41%.)

Children subject to statutory social care intervention

4.934% of the 79 children in care had an EHCP or Statement and a further 7% received SEN support in 2016.

4.103% of the children subject to child protection had an EHCP or Statement and a further 16% received SEN support.

4.1147% of Children In Needhad an EHCP or Statement and a further 10% received SEN support.

5OUR STRATEGY

Principles

5.1The principles that underpin our strategy ensure that children, young people and families are placed at the centre of decision making, enabling them to participate in a fully informed way, and with a focus on achieving the best possible outcomes. They are:

  • Personalising services- putting children and their families at the centre of our work, to work with us in co-partnership to deliver services directly and to help them procure their own services through Personal Budgets that reflect their needs and aspirations,
  • Working in partnership,between all the statutory health and care services and schools, with all taking collective responsibility to deliver education, health and social care in a co-ordinated and or integrated way.
  • Early action to prevent difficulties escalating to a point where a statutory need arises.
  • Schools that are good or outstanding - inclusive, and supported to ensure children and young people achieve the highest level of educational and personal development their capacities allow.
  • Local services- to ensure family and community support can be maintained and supported close to people’s homes to improve and significantly contribute to the welfare of children and young people.
  • The Local Authority supporting all partners with knowledgeable, flexible and resolutely focused support on the welfare and development of children and young people.

Demand, financial resources and workforce

Financial priorities

5.2The continued reduction in budgets in successive local government financial settlements means that the Council must:

  • Seek the best value for money in all service areas, through efficient organisation, better procurement and partnership working with other councils and health commissioners.
  • Focus specialist services on those children, young people and families who have the greatest need and who have a statutory entitlement.
  • Target Early Help services to prevent needs increasing so that higher levels of spend on avoidable statutory services are required
  • Charge for services where lawful and families have the means to pay.
  • Giving families and young people greater control in how their financial support is used.

Financial Position

5.3SEND services are funded from the Council’s General Fund and from the High Needs block of the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG).

SEND spend from the General Fund is £1.2M. Of this £600K funds Short Breaks and other care services.The High Needs block budget (funding education services) for 2017/18 is £18.9M. The forecast as at 31st August 2017 shows an overspend of approximately £1.3m on the DSG overall. Most of which is attributable to an overspend in Special Education Needs. This reflects an increasing spend (due to rising placement rates) on out of borough provision.

5.4Demand and spend has risen at a time when the budget has been reduced. Newly introduced Short Breaks personal budgets are designed to lead to a closer alignment between spend and need.In the long-term trends of rising levels of need and an increasing young population point to increased spend pressures at a time when there is no likelihood of significant increases in resources. All service changes must therefore work to increase efficiencies and better target resources on children most in need.

Workforce

5.5The Council is currently in the process of amalgamating the SEN and some of the statutory Children’s Social Care functions to form a new 0 to 25 Children’s Service. As part of the our “21st Century Council” programme to improve efficiencies and services the Council will put in place from April 2018 its new 0-25 SEND Service with a single front door for referrals, integrated education and care teams and integrated commissioning with health services.

Strategic Priorities

5.6To realise our vision for children and young people with SEND and their families we have 7 strategic priorities:

  1. Understand children and young peoplewith SEND and Family needs and aspirations:
  2. Deliver high quality SEND early years support
  3. Deliver high quality SEND education that helps children achieve their best
  4. Build capacity to improve inclusive education in schools and to improve the special schools offer
  5. Integrate our services around SEND children and young people and their Families
  6. Support successful transition to adulthood
  7. Support Parents and Carers

6Priority 1: Understand children and young people with SEND and family needs and aspirations:

Context

6.1The Children and Young People’s Partnership Priorities 2017 to 2018identifies the need to “work well in partnership with families”.Partnership is maintained through dialogue with REACH (the parent carer forum for Wokingham), the Children with Additional Needs Network (CAN), and with the Children in Care Council as well as with individual families through SENDIASS,and in the development of individual Care and EHCPlans.

6.2The Children in Care Council regularly reports to the Wokingham Community Parenting Board on issues relating to those looked after children with SEND and their carers.

6.3There is strong evidence to show parents and their children are actively engaged and their views are taken into account during the EHCP assessment process. There is strong evidence too that schools and settings actively encourage parents, carers, children and young people to engage in the annual review process. There is an annual survey of all stakeholders in the EHC process.

Key issues

6.4The voice of the child and young person will be heard in service planning and delivery. The new 0 to 25 SEND Service will ensure that their voice is heard more clearly at referral and assessment and when decisions are being taken.

6.5Engagement with children young people and families occurs in all services. The feedback gained from engagement activity should be systematically collated and used by People’s Services leaders to inform future service development. Prevention and early help services are critical for engagement.