SAHSP Meeting Notes Confidential

Meeting held on 22 March 2012 at Long Sutton Golf Club

Present: Karen Milton KM - Chair

Melanie Marshall MM

Jaqui Tobin JT

Mark Collis MC

Mark Armstrong MA

Alison Murkin AM

Liz Hayward LH

Bob Cochrane BC

Harry Dicks HD

Caroline Fuller CF

Apologies for absence: Diana Denman, Claire Axten, Jill Ewen

Notes from the meeting held on 2 February 2012:

SASH payments still not known across the board, members to investigate. Elmwood pay £150 annually. Critchill choose not to be members. Selworthy and Penrose don’t pay, Fiveways do but withdrawing. SAHSP to pay on behalf of group. Diana to continue to attend meetings. Action: CF to check if Fairmead pay. Those who have paid will be reimbursed from the SAHSP budget. Please let CF have something in writing to place against reimbursement.

Communication of emails: MM said that 25mg email had thrown her box over. Weekly update goes to Mary which she then sends back to HD for checking. He will then return to Mary who will upload it onto SLP with a hyperlink. Action: KM to inform Mary

Six has become I Post (20 March 2012) and all the tabs that were already set up have been carried over. It should not time out after thirty minutes.

Individual school outreach notes needed by MC. Action: MC will email those who need to respond.

MC also reminded Heads to provide representation on the Teaching School Board. Action: MC will chase you!

CWHM - MC wants to draw together all aspects to make sure everyone is working together. HD has brought this aspect up with Sheila Wheeler. MC continues to be concerned that SEN Leadership work still stops and does not become integrated with Mainstream. HD – Compact Executive, The PRU and SEN reviews have a very different picture and this area needs to be clarified. MC welcomed HDs support in highlighting the problems. Who is M Turner’s line manager? Paul Nugent.

Letter sent to Sheila Wheeler by KM about Louise Goll.

Groups/meetings attended still not known. All to get details to CF or complete paper passed during the meeting. Action: CF to circulate picture as currently communicated.

SEF – paperwork will be passed on by MM who is going to Dillington for SEF writing course. LH also attending. AM has spent time with Anne New and is cutting and pasting aspects of Devon documents which she will share. BC – the new format suits him as it is more colourful. It has prompted questions. He has looked at the FSLE . Action: - at the Conference everyone to bring what they are using and working with. Suggestion that we show a few samples to Ofsted inspector.

HD – Hampshire have been advised to do two SEF documents for Ofsted – one for internal use to identify actions for development and the other to show what had been included before. HD has sent Ofsted information – Pages 8 and 30 worth looking at. Page 28 includes a section on writing up the report. Inspectors are still leading inspections in SEN schools for SEN and disabilities of which they have little experience. MM agreed she had received this information at the course she had attended.

Action: KM – create an Ofsted folder on the SLP site for Mary to upload to.

CASPA – Alistair Gregory/Jill Ewen –MA will do an update for everyone at the next meeting. Action: MA agenda for 10 May meeting.

KM – is buying in a nurse for Selworthy, with a special contract that protects her and the school as a direct employee. She has been the School Nurse for some time and KM has spent time up skilling. MC offered that she connect with his professional. She has an education role as well as the care aspect. AM asked about her professional supervision. This is still being working on. MC asked whether there is any funding to support medical care in school. KM feels this is unlikely to happen in the short or even medium term. All agreed the pressure must still be kept on and even though two schools have now felt they must employ medical care on site. KM says she is already seeing trips to A&E reduced and she will keep this data. Academy designation might push this culture along by getting funding from one area to be put in another forum. Discussion centred on what would happen if only one Special School converted. MT has suggested that KM become a Free School! Strong action is still needed. Some schools have still not met Fanny Rowe to get the Therapy action going. Action: HD can start to look at how many Special Schools are converting and to then put pressure to pursue and not let this matter drop. Also to keep the Nurse agenda hot whenever he can.

ASD Transition Group at Glastonbury led by Peter Harnett: there were reps from all the colleges, transitions groups, adults services. Four times Peter mentioned that Diana Denman has offered to host meetings and to lead a presentation on her KS4 unit. He invited all other Special Schools to become involved. She felt this opportunity should not be missed to become involved. She also informed the group of another meeting that has been set up on Adults with ASD. HD had a meeting with PH and had circulated minutes to everyone. Peter reinforced his willingness to communicate with Special Schools. He thought his staff would learn something from meeting Special School staff. MA is still concerned about little silos of power that are being held and people are holding onto them.

SAHSP Business

New Deputy to Critchill appointed yesterday. When MA takes over the Headship of SASHP in September 2012 then the Deputy will also become Deputy of the Deputies group. MA hopes they will sink and swim together. KM agreed that it is helpful for the Head and Deputy to be from the same school when they are leading the Heads and Deputies groups.

HD is looking at how many ADHD students have Camhs input.

Action: All to email HD with number of pupils having Camhs input so he can take it to Children’s Trust. Please also make a guess at what service you think you might need for the coming year. All aspects of Health Provision in schools is being talked about in Compact. So they want to know what is required. Is there a particular link with Special Needs.

HD expects that schools will be taking on Post-19 placements where local provision is inappropriate. MA felt that this is similar to School Nurse situation. Go up to age 25 only but needs to be raised as an issue. It was agreed that if this happens it must be funded. What is Post-16 – SAHSP responsibility so this group needs to step up to the response. MA says all SEN schools should have post-16 provision.

By 6 April must publish an Equalities Statement which must be on your Website or published. Action: Heads

KM shared a good little book on “How to be an Excellent Teacher” which she has given to all her teachers.

Head2Head programme through SWALSS which MM and LH are going to and KM circulated information on the programme.

Achievement for All - publication KM has printed off details and recommends everyone dips into it.

School Updates – Capacity, Challenges and Developments:

MA – new deputy appointed from within. He had external help from the College on the Interview Panel. He felt it was hard giving support to internal candidates. Now need to appoint an Assistant Headteacher. AM felt it would be good for other Heads to offer the help and support that you give staff to help them go to other schools for higher level posts.

MM – Federation has gone through with Penrose. Throwing up challenges along with new building, JT retiring and Ofsted expected Autumn 2012. She had really enjoyed her morning with MA and found it useful.

KM – trying to obtain £5000 from LA to help with Capacity issues. She has 101 staff to manage which she finds hard. She had 17 staff off the other day. They have Return to Work interviews, and implement the Bradford Factor system. It gives you the next step to help you keep staff aware of problems. MA said he was struggling with a staff member. AM gives a letter to staff to jolt them into realisation that their absence is being monitored. Had to deal with an incident of gross professional misconduct with a member of staff losing his temper. It took all her time LADO and HR are leading it. He has been suspended. KM had never had to deal with this before. HD - warned that home support must be offered.

MC – Teaching Schools taking up most of his time. He is waiting to hear whether he will be able to deliver programmes on NPQH. He is hoping to go with a not for profit organisation SELT not NCfL. He passed data to his PFSA to follow up and it has given him a greater response. Went to SASH and they were looking at UPS standards framework. He recommended that SAHSP use a standardised document for all to use. Action: MC to email document to everyone.

LH – Federated with Elmwood. Huge issues with communication because waiting notification for being able to operate differently. Julia Ridge has helped her with consultation procedures and she is finding it hard to get her message out correctly. She is trying to become a skilled Coach. She has a strong group of LSAs but her Teachers fail to see the importance of meeting deadlines. She is hoping her new coaching skills will help them with this. She is finding it challenging and it chips into her self-confidence. Long term sickness since October 2011. Contemplating a severance package. Using HR Sam Simmons Advisor to help her but she hates the role of being the baddie. She is concerned that this in turn will make her less effective. KM said all of SAHSP were there to help and nurture. All agreed that it is important that the group and meetings should always leave time for headteacher support. Local groups do not offer the right sort of support. MA applauded that she has a long term problem and that she has lit the fire which upsets people. He said she must keep going as he knows she is doing it for the right reason – Best Interest of the Children.

AM – She wanted to reassure LH not to lose confidence as she has experienced this too and thanked LH for sharing her feelings within SAHSP. 15% of the building has been shut down for building refurbishment. SW One taken huge fee to manage the project that they are not managing. One Teacher heading towards competency – have used Coaching. Working hard on getting data for CASPA. Worried that she sometimes loses the big picture. She is feeling she lacks clarity and focus.

Mike Turner – welcomed to group at 11am

Good quality of Special Schools in Somerset and he realises they also work well with their local schools.

SEN Review – can share – AM and MC come to Task and Finish Groups and heard about all the services. Regan Delf wrote a report and from that a draft action plan was included in the pack that MT tabled. Work around delivery and participation of parental input. Schools want to know about delivery rather than the values section. MT realises that this must be for the LA to deal with. Work with Mark Hulland to carry on to get what parents want.

KM said that the LA must recognise that Special Schools do not use RAISE online and this continues to be a problem. MT will come back and talk to SAHSP with Jill Ewen. AM will pass to MA any help that her SIP is from West Midlands and has some data that might be interesting.

KM feels that the Case work Officers are magnificent but they are not always enough when you need someone external to the school. MC – the transition period is difficult and as such how the LA continue to be involved with schools. MT – the values area is going to be important and he is aware that there are still people leaving, but Case Work officers are protected and will not be reduced. He did reiterate that schools will be supporting each other more and more. AM – if significant amounts of money go with a child when the child move schools, how will schools manage? The softer things that parents shout about must be recognised, the well-being measure. MT – realises it is in his plan and he mustn’t just pay lip service to it.

Strategic Team made up of four Commissioners they are the key providers of the LA. SEN fits in there under Paul Nugent. Some goes under John Kirby.

LMSS Funding – use Audits for top up funding only? SAHSP will discuss this separately. MT says that he needs to discuss with Heads and Governors on how many places should be funded at £10,000 a place. Action: KM and MT to return to talk to SAHSP about how they get what Heads want.

Out of County analysis – MT would always talk to schools if the child’s needs could be met within Somerset. HD – trend is that out of county placements has come down due to Somerset Special Schools taking more placements. Tribunal experience – where costs are similar the LA do not challenge as the Tribunal will always go with parental preference.

ASD – resource bases opened with profile that is not similar to those in special schools. Lots of children are succeeding in mainstream. The long term strategy is working. MT talked about schools having an Autism base not currently in Somerset but in other counties. MC still wanting an overall strategy rather than responding to individual situations.

Therapies: £3.5million contract. The contract does not give the LA influence to guide this. There are more cuts to be made. Through the Compact, do schools want to put more money in to get a Health Service delivered service but directed by Education or it will be directed by the Health Service. He is aware of discussions with Fanny Rowe.

KM – School Nurses – the need for the provision will not go away. Lucy Watson has attended SAHSP. KM says until a child dies in school, nothing is going to happen. She reiterated that the LA are expecting the schools to admit more and more children with severe needs. MT suggested that Schools Forum should think about an additional line for special school funding to provide funding. Action HD to take suggestion to School’s Forum