Introduction and Context

G:\CFE Commissioning\County Pupil Services\STS SHARED FILES NEW\Service Reviews\Restructure 2011-12\Service Specification\SH S1 Service Specification Sept 2012 v2.0 draft.doc

Contents:

Introduction and context

Purpose of the service2

Key drivers3

Values of the service3

Objectives of the service4

Standards5

Organisation and staffing5

Working practices

Delivery model6

Information sharing and signposting6

Whole setting/school systemic work6

Capacity building and enskilling the children’s workforce6

Targeted and specialist interventions6

Process for requests for professional support and involvement7

Criteria for intervention7

Criteria for ceasing STS involvement8

Service performance management

Monitoring and evaluation8

Management and leadership8

Links with other professionals/agencies9

Review of service specification10

Appendices

STS impact measures11
Process checklist12
Physical and sensorycriteria for intervention15
Abbreviations17

1. Introduction and Context

Special Educational Needs Code of Practice (2001) acknowledges that children have needs that may fall into at least one of four areas defined as:

Cognition and Learning
Communication and Interaction
Physical and Sensory
Social, Emotional and Behaviour

The Specialist Teaching Service works to ensure the best possible outcomes for children and young peoplewith Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities(SEND) 0–19/24 by working collaboratively with professionals in statutory and non statutory organisations. At a strategic level this work is in relation to children and young people with SEND from 0-24, whilst operational services are provided for children and young people aged 0-19.

1.1 Purpose of Service

The Specialist Teaching Service (STS) works to champion inclusive education, to enable children and young people to achieve the best possible outcomes and to improve attainment for children and young people with SEND

Together with the Special Schools who manage the Service through an SLA with the Local Authority,the STSprovides specialist professional leadership to influence the strategic direction and inform the development of policy, practice and procedures at a county and regional and national level in relation to children and young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities, in order to support Kent in discharging its statutory duties.

The Service:

Deploys staff on the basis of ongoing proactive needs analysis to provide high quality, highly specialist advice information, intervention and support for children and young people with SEND across a range of educational settingsto ensure inclusive practice at an individual, group or systemic level.

Works to support integrated processes, including Early Support, CountyPanel and Single Point of Access.

Works to promote the independence, resilience and well being of children and young people with SEND.

Supports integrated service delivery for children and young people 0-19/24 with SENDin collaboration with SpecialSchools and other locality special provision.

Works to ensure full access to the learning environment, curriculum and information for children and young people with SEND, challenging inequalities in line with the Equality Act (2010).

1.2 Key Drivers

The key drivers are:

National

Disability Discrimination Act (Special Educational Needs and Disability Act) 2001
Aiming High for Disabled Children; Better Support for Families 2007
Children Act 2004
Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009
Every Disabled Child Matters 2006
Early Support 2002
Autism Act 2009
Lamb Report 2009
Bercow Report 2008
Equality Act 2010 and the Auxiliary Aids Amendment 2011
Support and Aspiration: A New Approach to Special Educational Needs and Disability [Green Paper on Special Educational Needs and Disability]

Local

Kent’s Children and Young People’s Plan
Kent’s Early Support Protocols and Practices
Kent’s Multi Agency Strategy for Disabled Children
Joint Commissioning Framework for children and young people with Communication and Interaction Needs.
Kent's SEN Strategy
Kent's Early Intervention and Preventative Strategy
County policies on:
Dyslexia
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Speech Language and Communication Needs

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

1.3 Values of the Service

We will promote equality of opportunity.
We have high expectations of children and young people.
We will be child and family focused.
We will ensure increasing opportunities for children and young people in learning and life choices.
We will act in the best interests of the child and family.
We will work with other professionals to ensure a holistic approach.
We will seek to continually improve service quality and outcomes/impact.
We will support the continuum of provision.
We will champion the interests of children and young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities.

1.4 Objectives of the Service

The Servicepriorities are: Taking a collective response

Raising awareness
Working collaboratively
Building on quality first teaching
Working to clear outcome and impact criteria (Appendix 1)
Supporting continual development of staffin schools and settings of children and young people with SEND
Enabling settings to take ownership of the needs of children and young people with SEND

The Service objectives are to:

Support the development and implementation of policies and approaches to enable inclusive practice.
Promote the achievements of children and young people with complex SEND.
Narrow the Special Educational Needs (SEN)/non SEN progress and attainment gaps.
Support workforce development in relation to SEND.
Deliver training through a multi-agency framework in relation to learning difficulties and/or disabilities to ensure the early identification of children and young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities.
Build the confidence and capacity of Children’s Centres and educational settings to meet the needs of children and young people with SEND.
Provide planned interventions based on an assessment of need,particularly to enable children and young people with SEND to access the curriculum.
Provide intervention to young children with complex needs and children and young people with profound, severe and/or complex needs aged 0–19.
Provide timely interventions to children and young people with SEND e.g. at the point of diagnosis and at points of transition.
Monitor and track progress and the impact of interventions.
Support, challenge and intervene in settings and schools.
Work in collaboration with parents/carers.
Involve children and young people and their families in the planning, delivery and evaluation of STS interventions.
Support, encourage and actively consider the voice of the parent/carer and the voice of the child.

1.5 Standards

Specialist staff are qualified[1] and experienced in one or more relevant areas of special educational need and/or disability. They maintain knowledge of and are able to support national initiatives in relation to the education of children and young people with SEND. Specialist staff maintain current and relevant professional knowledge relating to work with children and young peoplewith SEND in educational settings.

Specialist staff work to:

National Quality Standards for SEN Support and Outreach Services
National Standards for SEN Specialists
National Standards for Educational Improvement Professionals
Specialist Teaching Service standards
Early Support information sharing protocols

1.6 Organisation and Staffing

The management of the Service has been devolved, through a Service Level Agreement to 12 "lead" Special Schools, one for each District. The special school Headteacher has overall accountability for the work of the team. Each multi skilled District team is led by a District Coordinator, who also has a professional leadership responsibility across the County for a specific need type. In addition a County Professional Lead for Sensory Impairment and two CountyCoordinators [one for HI and one for VI] provide professional leadership for sensory staff. This is necessitated by the fact that there are no maintained special schools for Sensory Impairment in Kent.

The 12 District Co-ordinators [together with the CountyCoordinators for HI and VI for Sensory Impairment specialist teachers] provide management and specialist leadership to:

12.1 specialist teachers for SEND in Early Years
10.9 specialist teachers for cognition and learning
11.6 specialist teachers for communication and interaction
11.5 specialist teachers for social, emotional and behavioural difficulties
5.9 specialist teachers for physical impairment
10.6 specialist teachers for hearing impairment
7.6 specialist teachers for visual impairment
0.9 specialist teachers for multi sensory impairment

Each district team will have named professionals for early years, cognition and learning, communication and interaction, and behaviour. Physical and Sensory professionals are also allocated to a district team but will almost always work across two districts.

In addition, 5 part time Early Years Visual Impairment Play Specialists work alongside the specialist teachers for VI. Two further VI specialists provide a county wide technical and in school support service. Also attached to the teams are 4 part time MSI interveners who work across Kent

2. Working Practices

2.1 Delivery Model

STS staff are committed to early intervention and offer a range of support options which may include:

Information sharing and signposting
Whole setting/schoolsystemic work
Capacity building and enskilling professionals
Targeted and specialist interventions

2.2 Information sharing and signposting

The STS will provide specialistinformation on appropriate strategies forchildren and young people with SEND

2.3Whole setting/school systemic work

It is expected that the educational settings will provide a graduated response to the children and young people’sneeds. STS will provide support to settings/schools to employ specialist strategies to enable the child/young person’s progress to be recorded within an Individual Education Plan (IEP), Individual Behaviour Plan (IBP), Pastoral Support Plan (PSP), Health Care Plan (HCP) or Personal Education Plan (PEP) in the case of children in public care.

2.4 Capacity building and enskilling the children’s workforce

Capacity building and enskilling the children’s workforce will be focused on enabling staff to meet a special educational need or deliver a specific intervention or strategy. These may be bespoke activities for an individual setting or school additional to those continuing professional development opportunities offered as a district, area or county level. Training will be planned in advance and will be evaluated to record impact on staff confidence and skill and the progress and attainment of children and young people.

2.5 Targeted and specialist interventions

Professional support and interventions may include support in working with parents, liaison with other professionals, additional specialist assessments and demonstration of specialist strategies to staff directly working with thechildren and young people, support in implementing advice from other professionals within curriculum delivery, attendance at Team Around the Child meeting, support in implementing advice within a statement of SEN and attendance at annual review or transition review.

Provision of specific highly specialist advice on the children or young people’s learning needs, requirements for curriculum access and/or differentiation, teaching strategies, resources, setting of appropriate targets within IEP/IBP/PSP, advice on transition(where appropriate). Further information to be found in Appendix 2 Stage 2- Interventions

For some individuals, mainly with physical and sensory impairments, direct support may be part of the intervention. This could include direct teaching of specific skills such as Braille, AAC, BSL or equivalent over a longer period of time. The frequency and duration of such interventions will depend on severity of impairment, monitoring will take place annually.

Further information to be found in Appendix 3

2.6 Process for requests for professional support and involvement

Requests for intervention in relation to individual children and young people will mainly be routed through the Local Inclusion Forum Team Meeting.

In addition some interventions may come about through requests from:

Early Support
Single Point of Access

Health Consultants/Paediatricians
CountyPanel
Improvement Partner for Setting, School, SpecialSchool or ShortStaySchool
Communication and Interaction Steering Group
Physical Disability Steering Group
In Year Fair Access

Wherever practical, requests for intervention will be responded to sequentially. The critical or emergency nature of some requests may necessitate prioritisation.

Informed parental agreement is required before a request for intervention in relation to an individual or group interventions for children and young peoplecan be accepted.

2.7 Criteria for Intervention

Two or more of the following criteria must be met:

The child or young person is receiving intervention at Early Years/School Action Plus,has a Statement of SEN, or if a younger child, their needs are considered to be profound, severe or complex.
To enable the child or young person to remain within existing provision or to access a setting, monitoring and review processes within the education placement indicate that needs are not being fully met within current planning and provision arrangements.
The child or young person’s educational placement or home/care setting requires different or additional intervention.
Needs have been clearly identified that require intensive and ongoing multi-agency intervention and planning from one or more statutory agencies.
There is a significant medically identified impairment or disability impacting on the child or young person’s development and/or access to the curriculum.
The child or young person is not accessing/engaging with the learning environment and the strategies used have had limited impact.

2.8 Criteria for ceasing STS involvement

One or more of the following:

Intervention as planned has been completed and evaluated The childor young personis betterequipped to be able to access and engage with the curriculum independently as a result of advice and support being embedded within the setting school context..
Delivery of further intervention is agreed through a multi-professional meeting (e.g. Team Around Child or Annual Review) to be more appropriately delivered by another professional.
The criteria for intervention is no longer met.
The childor young personis making progress in line with the plan for intervention.
The childor young person(of school age) moves out of Kent maintained school.
The young personreaches the end of statutory school age or16-19 year olds reach the end of education in a maintained school.

Process checklist to assist with planning, undertaking and evaluating interventions ca be found in Appendix 2.

3. Service Performance Management

3.1 Monitoring and Evaluation

The impact of the service delivery will be measured through an agreed framework. The LIFT executive will receive quantitative information from Management Information and qualitative information from the DISCO. Quarterly reports will be required by the County Strategic Group, chaired by Patrick Leeson.

A centrally managed Monitoring and Quality Assurance post will also support the process.

3.2 Management and Leadership

SpecialSchool headteachers, the District Co-ordinators and the CountyCoordinators for HI and VI will ensure that all STS staff receive regular supervision and performance management in line with relevant Terms & Conditions.
Headteachers, the CountyLead for Sensory Impairment, the CountyCoordinators for HI and VI, and the DISCOs with their professional leadership responsibilities will ensure that all service staff have a high level of skills in their area of specialism.
Headteachers, the County Lead for Sensory Impairment, the County Coordinators for HI and VI, and the DISCOswill ensure that STS staff have planned and undertaken continuous professional development, including safeguarding.
Headteachers and DISCOswill ensure that risk assessments are undertaken regarding working practices.
Headteachers, supported by District Co-ordinators, and the County Professional Lead for Sensory Impairment will recruit, induct and deploy STS staff.
District Co-ordinators will provide supervision and professional support to Specialist staff. .
Headteachers will ensure day to day line management tasks are undertaken.
Headteachers will ensure performance management processes inform pay progression processes.

3.3 Links with other professionals/agencies

STS senior staff lead and/or contribute to a range of locality, county, regional and national groups which provide a wider forum for the development of initiatives, guidance and best practice.

There are robust links with other professionals and partner agencies through working as part of integrated locality teams aroundchildren and young people, settings and schools.
The service works within a continuum of SEN specialist provision in partnership with Special Schools and other locality provision.
The Service is fully involved in multi disciplinary processes and practices including Early Support, Single Point of Access and County statutory assessment processes.
The service leads/contributes to the Multi-Agency Groups which include the following:

Communication and Interaction Steering Group
Physical Disability Steering Group
Specific Learning Difficulties Steering Group
Early Support Commissioning Group
Early Talk Steering Group
Portage Commissioning Group
Multi Sensory Impairment Steering Group
Shared Vision Partnership Steering Group
Down Syndrome Steering Group
Aiming High for Disabled Children: Short Breaks
Special Educational Needs Strategy
West and East Kent Service Development Groups

Review of Service Specification

This Service Specification will be reviewed on anannual basis. The next review is due in September 2013.

3rdSeptember2012

Appendix 1

How will the outcomes from service delivery be monitored and evaluated?

Quantitative measures, to include amongst other things, analyses from Raiseonline and End-of-Key-Stage data, for children with SEND, particularly those at Early Years and School Action Plus:

a. Impact on closing attainment gaps for individuals/groups

b. Progress in relation to ‘Small Steps’ for individuals/groups

c. EYFS Learning Profile

d. Progress according to SEND need type for groups of children

e. Progress in relation to numeracy/ literacy for individuals/groups

f. Impact on exclusion levels.