Special

Educational Needs and Disabilities Strategy

London Borough of Barnet

2021 – 2024

SEND Strategy 2021 - 2024

Introduction

This document sets out a vision and strategy for children and young people (0 – 25 years) with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in Barnet.

The strategy is for everyone involved with special educational needs and disabilities including families, headteachers, governors, SENCos in schools and settings, professionals across health, education and social care and the voluntary sector. It covers the Local Area of Barnet, and includes the local authority, schools, early years settings, further education, the clinical commissioning group (CCG), and specialist services in health.

The strategy has been consulted on with all partners in December and January, with four focus groups held for children and young people with SEND.

The strategy is for three years and progress will be monitored through the SEND Partnership Board and the SEND Development Group. The strategy will be updated as necessary in response to significant changes to local need.

Our Vision

“Our vision is for all children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities to achieve well, be confident individuals, live fulfilling lives and successfully transition to adulthood”.

The Children and Young People’s Plan 2019-2023 establishes the vision, key priorities and outcomes for children and young people in Barnet, providing a strategic framework for partnership activity in the borough.

The role that Barnet council and its partners play in the life of children and their families provides an opportunity to promote and embed resilience. Resilience based practice sits at the heart of improving outcomes for children and young people, including those with SEND. This approach is being embedded across the partnership.

In consultation with partners, the aims of our SEND Strategy are:

To ensure that all children and young people with SEND have their needs identified as soon as possible and receive the right support at the earliest opportunity, with a clear focus on short term and long-term outcomes.

To ensure that children and young people with SEND receive high quality, integrated and inclusive services through effective and timely decision making across partner agencies and through listening and responding to the voices of children and young people, parents, families and professionals.

To ensure services are delivered locally and as inclusive and close to home as possible so that children and young people with SEND can benefit from community integration and support from services in Barnet.

Education Strategy

Our vision for SEND also supports our Education Strategy’s strategic vision for education in Barnet:

Resilient schools – resilient communities: We want Barnet to be the most successful place for high quality education where excellent school standards result in all children achieving their best, being safe and happy and able to progress to become successful adults.

In order to achieve this, our mission is to ensure:

Every child attends a good or outstanding school, as judged by Ofsted.

The attainment and progress of children in Barnet schools is within the top 10% nationally.

There is accelerating progress of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable pupils in order to diminish the difference between them and their peers.

Every child receives a high-quality education through clear curriculum intent and effective implementation.

We minimise the impact of the covid19 pandemic on learning.

The Education Strategy sets out a number of strategic goals to achieve this vision around the key themes of access, inclusion and achievement. This SEND Strategy drives the work of the partnership to deliver these goals for children and young people with SEND.

To do this we need:

Enough school places.

All schools to be good or outstanding.

High levels of attainment and progress in all phases.

A relentless focus on meeting the needs of vulnerable pupils, including those with SEND, children looked after, children in need and children eligible for free school meals.

Support for the mental health and well-being of school staff and pupils.

Attendance returning to pre-covid levels and exclusions being kept as low as possible.

Schools that are safe places for staff and pupils given the risks posed by covid19.

Support for the adapted curriculum post-lockdown, including for SEN pupils, and for ensuring high quality teaching and learning in the challenging circumstances in which many pupils are at home having to self-isolate.

Good relationships with schools enabling rigorous monitoring, challenge and support for all schools including the face-to-face and remote learning that they undertake with their pupils.

Effective partnership with council services and with external agencies and organisations.

Strategic goals

The Barnet Education Strategy (2021–2024) sets the framework for the overall direction of travel for all education and learning services in the London Borough of Barnet. The Strategy outlines 6 overall strategic goals:

Strategic goal 1 - Access

To ensure there are sufficient high-quality school places to meet the needs of Barnet residents, including local specialist provision when required for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, and that school organisation and governance arrangements are financially sustainable.

Strategic goal 2 - Inclusion

To ensure the provision of high quality local placements and support for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities aged from 3 to 25 years.

Strategic goal 3 – Achievement - School Improvement

To ensure that every school and setting is good or outstanding.

Strategic goal 4 – Achievement - Educational outcomes

To improve the educational progress and outcomes for all children and young people across all phases and types of institution from early years to post-16, including progress into Higher Education, apprenticeships, training or employment.

Strategic goal 5 – Achievement and Inclusion – Minimising the impact of the covid19 pandemic on learning

To ensure the negative impact of the pandemic is countered through an adapted curriculum post-lockdown, including for SEN pupils, high quality teaching and learning in school and at home and that schools are safe, that mental health and well-being of school staff and pupils are addressed and that attendance returns to pre-covid levels while exclusions are kept to a minimum.

Strategic goal 6 – Achievement and Inclusion – Diminishing the difference and building resilience

To diminish the differences in attainment and progress between the most disadvantaged and vulnerable pupils and their peers by accelerating their progress and building resilience.

In order to achieve these, a number of key drivers need to be taken into account. The full list is within the Education Strategy but those most relevant to SEND and Inclusion are:

Inclusion

A clear focus on outcomes, monitoring and review of Education, Health and Care Plans through the Annual Review process and co-production with schools, parents and children and young people.

Improvements in the consistency and quality of provision for pupils whose needs can be met at SEN Support.

Building on the recent improvements in the integration of processes and provision across education, social care and health.

Improved tracking and planning for post-16 young people with SEN and an early focus on preparation for adulthood.

Continuing to identify those at risk of becoming NEET and supporting them to make a successful transition.

Principles

There are a number of principles that underpin the SEND Strategy. These are:

The views of children and young people with SEND and their families are central to what we do.

Children and young people with SEND and their families will be empowered to make informed decisions about their lives.

Mental health and wellbeing will be prioritised in our holistic approach to supporting children and young people.

There will be a focus on early identification of needs in order to deliver high quality, personalised provision for children and young people with SEND;

Children and young people with SEND should be treated as part of their community, enjoying leisure activities and opportunities to make meaningful friendships;

Services should offer support that is timely, evidence informed and makes a difference to the lives of children and young people;

Services will work together, to ensure better outcomes for children and young people with SEND;

Preparation for adulthood will be a key part of the planning needed for young people to make a successful transition to fulfilling and purposeful adult lives;

We will ensure we have a skilled and confident workforce, as this is essential in realising our vision.

Ways of working

We will work together to:

Listen to the views of children and young people and their families;

Respect the views of children and young people and their families, and work together in a solution orientated way to remove barriers;

Work in ways that build trust with all partners;

Value individuality and celebrate diversity;

Have high expectations for children and young people with SEND;

Identify needs and provide effective support in a timely way.

Key Achievements

A great deal of progress has been made in implementing the SEND and Inclusion Strategy for 2017-20. Among the key achievements are the following:

In 2019 attainment and progress of pupils on SEN Support and with an EHCP in all the key measures at Key Stage 2 pupils is in the top 15% of local authorities nationally. At Key Stage 4 Barnet ranked in the top 10% of Local authorities for both Attainment 8 and Progress 8 for pupils at SEN Support.

Moderation of EHC Plans has been rolled out across Barnet, with the expectation that every SENCo attends at least one of the moderation sessions each year. The moderation is to help ensure the consistency and quality of requests for an Education, Health and Care Needs Assessment.

The Local Offer website has been further developed to include a Youth Zone area, with information designed by and for young people with SEND, and a dedicated Parent Carer Zone. Both are open to anyone who wants to access them. Schools are well-supported with excellent information and tools in the SENCo Zone, including recent developments during Covid-19 such as materials to support transition of pupils with SEN back to school and strategic planning for SEND.

A Children and Young People’s Mental Health Plan has been developed and a wide range of mental health services have been commissioned, including an online counselling service for 11 – 25 year olds. There is also Barnet Integrated Clinical Services (BICS), part of Children’s Social Care, who provide a range of therapeutic interventions to children and young people, including counselling, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Music therapy.

The Pre-school Teaching Team pathways have been changed to provide a quick ‘first response’ to families of young children with additional needs.

A co-produced Autism Strategy has been developed over the last year and is beginning to be implemented.

We have three supported internship programmes – Public Health England, Transport for London and Mencap, developing more work-based provision to give greater choice to young people.

The year of 2020 has been like no other, and we have worked together to identify issues for children with SEND and their families resulting from the pandemic. In response to the issues and concerns expressed by families and other partners, we have:

Maintained ‘business as usual’ for the process of undertaking an Education, Health and Care Needs Assessment, and finalising EHC Plans.

Consistently met the statutory target of completing over 95% of EHC Plans within the

20 week timeframe, and this has been maintained throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. o Ensured the quality of EHC Plans in Barnet is consistently good, and six parent carers have been trained to undertake audits of EHC Plans and are members of the auditing team. We have continued to audit our EHC Plans during the pandemic, and the quality of the Plans has been maintained throughout. Where professional advice has been obtained ‘virtually’, we will review Plans early to ensure that they accurately reflect the needs of the child.

CAMHS have established a 24-hour Mental Health crisis line during the pandemic and have also provided telephone appointments and “Attend Anywhere” video conferencing sessions for young people.

Increased KOOTH counselling hours by 37% (October 2020) in response to an increase in anxiety related presentation to our Barnet Integrated Clinical Service (BIC), and to KOOTH (our commissioned online counselling service). 1,580 participants have accessed joint training sessions for schools, parent carers and nurseries run by the Educational Psychology Team. 99% have agreed/strongly agreed with the positive statements about the usefulness and relevance of the training. o There has been increased use of the Local Offer (2366 users in March ‘20; 3924 in June ‘20).

Set up the ‘Open Spaces’ project for families of Autistic children who also have a Learning Difficulty, who needed access to safe outdoor space. This was run across four venues from April 2020. 83 families were offered a session at the project. 60% took up the offer and 20% returned more than once. 101 bookings have been taken up by families to date (October 2020).

Taken part in a “Lost Learning” project with five other London local authorities which involved speaking with schools and students, focussing on Year 5 and 6 in primary and Year 11,12 and 13 in secondary and are using the materials to support “emergency schooling”.

We have parent carer representation on the Complex Needs Panel for decision making to start an EHC Needs assessment, and proceed with an EHC Plan.

We have developed a Re-Integration Hub to support children and young people back into school following the easing of Covid19 restrictions and the wider opening of schools.

Feedback and evidence

To understand what we need to do and what our strategic priorities should be, we have drawn on a number of sources of information, including:

Feedback from children and young people with SEND and their parent carers;

What other professionals have said, including health, social care, schools and educational settings;

Self-evaluation processes and tracking progress through the SEND Development Group and the SEND Partnership Board;

Local and national data on trends in SEND;

The Autism Strategy;

Information from internal reviews undertaken in 2018 and 2019;

Information from SEND Sufficiency review in 2019;

DfE/NHS England visits;

Ofsted/CQC SEND Assurance visit, October 2020;

Local Offer data.

The key areas of focus

Since 2017, much progress has been made in the achievements of children and young people with SEND and the support that they are able to access. For example, attainment and progress of pupils with SEND is in the top 15% nationally for nearly all key measures at both Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4 (although there is a widening gap between the attainment of children and young people with SEND and the attainment of other pupils in Barnet).

We believe that we have made major progress in the successful implementation of the SEND reforms and in improving the outcomes for children and young people with SEND in Barnet. We know, however that we have more to do, and a key aim of this strategy is to highlight where improvements are still needed and agree the priorities to drive things forward.

A major area of challenge in 2020 has been the impact of the Covid19 pandemic on children and young people with SEND and their families. The impact and the Local Area’s response and the need for a continuing response is reflected in the areas of focus and priorities below.

The following are the key areas of focus that have been identified from the sources listed above:

Ensuring that the participation of children and young people in service developments and commissioning becomes a routine way of working.

Ensuring that impact of the pandemic for children and young people with SEND is minimized.

Embedding a shared vision and expectation that SEND is ‘everybody’s business’ across all service providers and commissioners in education, health and social care.

Ensuring preparation for adulthood from the earliest point in annual reviews and embedding joint working across services to support the move into adulthood.

Ensuring sufficient specialist provision, so that children and young people with complex needs can have their needs met in Additional Resource Provisions (ARPS) or maintained special schools in Barnet.

To further improve the consistency of identification of children and young people whose needs can be met through SEN Support (and do not require an Education, Health and Care Plan).

Build on the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Plan to incorporate all aspects of SEMH provision and ensure a clear pathway across education, health and social care.

To reduce waiting times for access to some specialist services for identification of needs and appropriate and necessary intervention.

Ensure that the EHC Plan continues to be relevant to the needs of the child or young person and ensure that, if amendments are made to the EHC Plan, these are done in a timely way following an Annual Review.

Strategic priorities

In this section, we set out the seven strategic priorities to shape the work of the SEND partnership over the next three years.

Following an internal review in November 2018 the previously agreed priorities of the SEND Strategy were reworded to reflect the findings from the review, progress against the SEND reforms and the areas of focus. Subsequently, the priorities have been revisited with the SEND Development Group in January 2020 and further refined to take account of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on children and young people with SEND and their families. These have been shared with partners in October 2020. Priorities 5 and 7 have subsequently been changed as a result of feedback from the consultation and further discussion of the SEND Development Group.

Priority 1: To ensure that we are working in a Family Friendly way and coproduction is central to our work.

Listening to the views of young people with SEND and their families is central to our decision making and driving forward strategic developments. Barnet Parent Carer Forum is represented on the SEND Partnership Board, the SEND Development Group and the Board of Directors of the Barnet Education and Learning Service. More recently, representatives of the BPCF Steering group have joined the membership of the Complex Needs Panel.

All of the SEND Workstreams have parent representation; the CAMHS transformation programme has been co-produced with parent carers and young people; the Autism Strategy has been co-produced with autistic young people and their families. Parents are involved in helping us to ensure that the quality of Education, Health and Care Plans is consistently good, and are involved in the auditing of Plans on a quarterly basis.

Over the last 12 months, the Local Offer has been further developed to include a Young People’s Zone and a Parent-Carer Zone, which includes information and materials to support families during the pandemic. The Local Offer is increasingly being used as the ‘go to’ place for information about SEND across services in Barnet.

The revised Short Breaks offer was launched in October 2019 following a comprehensive review involving families. Surveys and focus groups were undertaken to find out what local families wanted, and the new service requirements were co-designed with local parent representatives.

The voice of children and young people in strategic developments is through the work of BING, a group of young people with SEND, who are supported by the Educational psychology team to give their views on a range of developments, including the SEND Workstreams and the Autism Strategy. Groups of primary and secondary aged pupils in mainstream schools participated in the consultation for this strategy.

We value the views of parent and carers and young people, and as equal partners we want to ensure that their views are represented at all levels of support for SEND in Barnet.

However, we know that we need to do more to increase representation from parent carers across Barnet and ensure that more children and young people with SEND have opportunities to engage in co-production to help shape strategic developments.

What success looks like:

More families feel listened to and feel that they are able to participate in shaping service developments and have a sense of co-ownership.

More young people, including those in receipt of SEN Support as well as those with an Education, Health and Care Plan feel listened to and feel that they are able to participate in shaping service developments, as well as their individual plans.

There is a continuing increase in the number of parent carers and young people with SEND who report a positive experience of, and confidence in support that they receive.

Data shows less conflict in the system, e,g. reduction in the numbers of complaints and the number of appeals to Tribunal.

Key next steps:

Further develop the Local Offer to include a dedicated post-16 Zone for education providers and work with young people to develop more information for the Young People’s Zone which is relevant, interesting and useful to those who access it.

Building on strong parental engagement, formalise our outreach function for families, including those most isolated, so that there is effective communication and a dedicated SEN ‘link’ person for families of Children and Young People with complex needs. This will help to ensure equality of access through the provision of information and signposting to teams/services.

Work with schools and settings, and parent carers to provide more opportunities for children and young people with SEND to give their views on how best to meet their needs, and the activities that they want to access to support the development of their independence.

Undertake surveys and focus groups with parent carers and children and young people to get their feedback on experiences of services.

Provide more opportunities for mediation between services and families so that issues of support and placement can be dealt with at an early stage of dissatisfaction.

Ensure regular reporting to the SEND Partnership Board on the performance of amending EHC Plans following an Annual Review.

Priority 2: To minimise the long-term impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the attainment, achievement and psychological wellbeing of children and young people with SEND.

There is growing evidence of the significant impact that the Covid-19 pandemic has had on children and young people with SEND and their families. A study undertaken between 22nd March and 1st April involving 241 families of children with SEND, found that nearly half of the parents reported experiencing greater anxiety, concern for their child’s future and fears of them failing even further behind their peers (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, NICE, 2020).

The National Network of Parent Carer Forums (NNPCF) and the Information, Advice and

Support Services (IASS) for the Council of Disabled Children have reported parental concerns to include SEND provision not being in place for their child, delays in EHCP assessments and annual reviews, lack of support for transitions, include transfers in September 2021.

Key concerns from school stakeholder groups (DfE Oct. 2020) include providing appropriate mental health support for pupils, pupil attendance due to unauthorized absence and access to specialist services.

In Barnet, we have surveyed over 700 young people with SEND about the impact of the pandemic for them. Key concerns have related to increased anxiety and other mental health needs resulting from the impact of ‘lockdown’ and uncertainty about the future, lost learning and the impact of the pandemic on access to further/higher education and employability.

Findings from the recent Ofsted/Care Quality Commission SEND Assurance visit confirmed that services and providers had worked well together to support children and young people with SEND and their families. From our own learning, and the feedback from children, and young people, parents and schools in Barnet, we aim to build on what has worked well during the pandemic and identify any gaps or greater areas of need that have resulted from the pandemic.

What success looks like:

Those families of children with SEND who need tailored support are prioritized by education, health and social care.

Families are able to access specialist professional advice focused on how to meet their child’s educational and mental health needs.

Parent carers report that they know what support is available for their child if their child is not attending school, and how to access it.

Children and young people with SEND report that they know how to access support for their mental health.

Attendance of children and young people with SEND is at least at the national average.

There are reduced number of requests for EHE for children and young people at SEN Support or in receipt of an EHC Plan.

Next Steps

Ensure that, where advice for new EHCPs has been provided virtually, an early review is undertaken to ensure that the Plan accurately reflects the needs of the child and the provision required to meet need;

Formalise a blended approach, to include when a face-to-face assessment or intervention needs to take place; or when families are digitally or otherwise isolated

Utilise the opportunities presented through technology to enhance information sharing across the partnership.

Building on the “Lost Learning report” commissioned by authorities in North London support schools and early years settings, provide evidence informed and appropriate curricula to support Children and Young People with complex needs to make progress with their learning and broader therapeutic needs;

Extend the ‘Open Spaces’ project to provide families with safe access to swimming/leisure facilities and explore with families of children and young people with significant learning needs ways to support their education/development;

Formalise our outreach function for families, including those most isolated, so that there is effective communication and a dedicated SEN ‘link’ contact person for families of children and young people with complex needs to help ensure equality of access through the provision of information and signposting to other teams/services.

Continue to support families so that they feel confident in safely returning their child to school and reducing the likelihood of them opting for Elective Home Education.

Priority 3: To ensure sufficient high-quality provision in borough for children and young people with complex needs, including Autism.

We are committed to providing sufficient high-quality provision in Barnet and maximising the proportion of children and young people with SEND who are educated close to their family and community support networks. Over the last 2 years we have increased places for our Additional Resource Provisions (ARP) and our special schools.

We continue to see an increase in the number of EHC Plans issued and although the number of children and young people with SEND in mainstream schools in Barnet is high in comparison with other Local Areas, the number of requests for specialist places, particularly for special school placements continues to rise.

Although we have increased places at Oakleigh special school, Oak Lodge special school, Kisharon special school and Northway special school, we recognize the continuing need for a significant additional provision for autistic children and young people.

Although autism continues to be the area of greatest need in Barnet, and nationally, we also recognise that there are many children and young people with SEND who do not have autism, but still require support and provision specific to their need.

What success looks like:

There are sufficient high-quality SEN school places in Barnet, from early years through to post 16 to meet current and future needs. This will take account of the four broad areas of need in the SEND Code of Practice, 2015: cognition and learning; social, emotional and mental health; communication and interaction; sensory and/or physical needs.

Children and young people with SEND are able to access provision that is as close to them as possible.

There is a reduction in the numbers of children and young people with SEND who attend out of borough provision or independent provision due to there being insufficient places and/or the right type of provision to meet need in Barnet.

The majority of children and young people with SEND have their needs met in mainstream schools.

Key next steps:

Update the SEND sufficiency and needs analysis to provide the necessary data to inform decision making about further provision to meet future needs.

Update the Special Places Plan and commission additional specialist provision in line with the plan, including support for the development of the Windmill Free school as part of the Oak Lodge Academy Trust so that more young people can have their needs met locally.

Continue to support mainstream schools with advice, training and appropriate levels of funding so they are equipped to meet the needs of pupils with SEND, including those who do not require an Education, Health and Care Plan.

Deliver on the Autism Strategy, including developing a position statement of approaches, languages and practice across the partnership. This will underpin the development of a multiagency workforce training plan including general awareness, reasonable adjustments in schools and settings and specialist autism training delivered by the Autism Team (BELS).

Build on the work of BEAM and Autism Team to develop a home-based support model, targeted at primary school children with a first time diagnosis of Autism.

Priority 4: To ensure effective joint commissioning with clear pathways of support from Early Years through to adulthood.

In Barnet we have well established joint commissioning arrangements in place.

Commissioners from the Local authority and CCG work very closely together and we have a

SEND Joint Commissioning Workstream that reports to the SEND Development Group and

SEND Partnership Board. Membership of this group has representation from education (BELS), Barnet Parent Carer Forum, Clinical Commissioning Group, Family Services and specialist Health services. We have S75 agreements in place for: Looked After Children nursing; Integrated Therapies; mental health and wellbeing and the governance is through the Children’s Partnership Board.

Through joint commissioning we have delivered:

The joint tripartite arrangements for the most complex children and young people in residential placements; this arrangement has been further strengthened by the introduction of a pre-tripartite meeting to ensure we have fully considered local options and are working together effectively, with clear review arrangements;

Increased capacity into mental health and wellbeing services including the introduction of

KOOTH and QWELL (online counselling support for young people and parents/carers), Terapia (accredited training in Psychotherapy) and the Resilient schools service;

A co-produced Autism Strategy with parent carers, young people with autism, statutory services, schools and the voluntary sector to identify gaps in provision and have clear commissioning priorities.

These are just some examples of jointly commissioned services and provision in response to local need.

We know that there are areas of improvement to ensure that children and young people with SEND can access the support that they need in a timely way.

What success looks like:

Joint commissioning arrangements are informed by analysis of local needs and coproduced with parent carers and young people with SEND.

Commissioning of services, service development and provision clearly reflects feedback from parent carers and young people.

Children and young people have their therapeutic needs met and are able to access specialist therapeutic services in a timely way, including OT, Physiotherapy and Speech and Language therapy.

There are improved outcomes for vulnerable groups with SEND (including looked after children, and children in the youth justice system) as a result of joint commissioning.

Reduced waiting times for specialist assessments and appropriate interventions.

Key next steps:

Building on the CYP Mental Health Transformation and transition support, develop clear pathways of support and provision for those children and young people whose behaviour puts them at risk of exclusion in mainstream schools.

Ensure that all children and young people placed in out of borough and independent schools receive the highest quality of provision through the development and implementation of a multi-agency quality assurance framework.

Building on the short breaks work, enhance respite provision for children and families, to increase resilience of families and help ensure that children and young people with SEND have their needs met locally in borough;

Through robust contract management and working with providers, ensure that there is a high quality universal offer of therapeutic support and advice for OT, Speech and Language therapy, and Physiotherapy. Ensure that children and young people with the highest level of therapeutic need are able to access specialist support in a timely way.

Through the development and implementation of the Autism strategy, reduce waiting times for diagnosis of Autism, and ensure that children and families are supported preassessment and while undergoing assessment over time.

Embed transforming care approach to relevant children and young people through partnership working across education, health and social care.

Priority 5: In line with Resilient schools, develop greater confidence, skills and competencies in mainstream schools to meet the needs of children and young people with SEND, utilising resources and services across Barnet, such as Specialist Team Support and Mental Health Teams.

Over the last three years, our SEND Assessments and Placement Team has led on a process to work in partnership with schools across Barnet to increase the consistency of SEND identification. Materials such as the Ordinary Available document, and the SEND Toolkit have been co-developed with schools to support them with identification and assessment of needs.

Impact is measured through the Moderation meetings with SENCO’s. More recently, SENCO’s have been able to access further support and advice through the Challenge workshops, and an online SENCO conference.

What success looks like:

There is increased parental confidence at transition points when there is a change of provision for their child (including the transition from Early Years to primary, and primary to secondary school).

Increased engagement in the inclusion training that is available for schools in Barnet.

Fewer families of children with SEND opt for Elective Home Education.

Schools report that they are confident in successfully meeting the needs of children and young people with a range of special educational needs.

The percentage of children and young people identified with special educational needs who are either at SEN Support or have an Education, Health and Care Plan is in line with statistical neighbours, and national trends.

The majority of children and young people with SEND, including those with an Education, Health and Care Plan have their needs met in mainstream school.

There is a robust system of identification of SEN for pre-school children, so that appropriate support is in place for young children on entry to school.

Key next steps:

Ensure that all schools in Barnet are aware of the central training offer.

Facilitate peer to peer challenges in schools to share good practice in inclusion of children and young people in SEND.

Roll out the Inclusion audit to mainstream schools, having a clear expectation across all Barnet schools that this will be undertaken and reported to the SEND Partnership Board and School Review Group on an annual basis.

Develop a Barnet kite mark for inclusion for mainstream schools.

Nursery and pre-school settings have access to materials and training so that they can accurately identify SEN and put appropriate interventions in place to support the child’s learning and development.

Priority 6: Champion the educational progress and attainment of pupils with SEND.

The Education Strategy sets out to improve the educational progress and outcomes for all children and young people, including those with SEND, across all phases and types of setting, from early years to post 16. It also seeks to diminish the difference in attainment and progress between the most disadvantaged and vulnerable pupils and their peers by accelerating their progress and building resilience.

Attainment and progress of pupils with SEND is in the top 15% nationally for nearly all key measures at both Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4 What success looks like:

The attainment gap between pupils with and without SEND continues to narrow.

Ensure an even greater consistency across all schools to identify and track the progress of children and young people at SEN Support.

Lower levels of fixed term exclusions for pupils with SEND, including those at SEN Support.

Ensuring the SEND pupil voice is always heard at key events and conferences in Barnet.

Next steps:

Develop an Engagement Curriculum with mainstream schools to support them to meet the needs of children and young people with SEND.

Co-ordinate the sharing of practice and curriculum between special schools and mainstream schools to further support the attainment and achievement of children and young people with additional learning needs.

Work with schools to further develop a differentiated approach for secondary aged young people at SEN Support in mainstream schools.

Priority 7: Develop skills, knowledge and understanding across the workforce and local area to create supporting environments that promote community integration and independence, enabling young people to make informed decisions and have control over their own lives.

Supporting children and young people with SEND to achieve a successful transition into adulthood continues to be a priority for us.

Progress has been made, including the development of our multi-agency Preparation for Adulthood (PfA) Protocol (2018 – 2021) co-produced with parents, which details the responsibilities of the agencies involved in transition planning for young people with complex needs. This can be found on our Local Offer.

We continue to need to strengthen our planning and tracking of post-16 provision to ensure that there are appropriate opportunities, including supported internships, for young people with complex needs and tailored work based and voluntary opportunities.

What success looks like:

Young people with SEND leave school with an option of education, training or employment.

There is good planning for adult life with young people and their families reporting increased choice and control with regard to living independently, having good health and opportunities to take part in a range of activities including supported internships and employment.

Young people with SEND report that they have choice and control over their lives and the support they receive.

There is an increase in the take-up of personal budgets, particularly by young people post

16.

More young people with SEND are travelling as independently as possible, including introducing pick up points for SEND transport, where appropriate and increasing the offer of ‘travel training’.

Key next steps:

We will facilitate the sharing of best practice across colleges and other post 16 providers.

We will embed preparation for adulthood at the earliest point in annual reviews.

Continue to develop and embed a range of pathways for post 16, including supported internships, apprenticeships, voluntary and paid employment.

Embed the offer of Personal Budgets for families and further develop this process to give them greater choice and flexibility about how their child’s needs can be met.

Support young people with Independent Travel Training.

9. Governance Arrangements

Planning and delivering the priorities has required close collaboration and planning across partner agencies, parent carers and schools. The SEND Partnership Board is responsible for leading the strategic approach of the partnership of the council, Barnet Education and Learning Service (BELS), schools, the health service and parent carers to meet the needs of Barnet’s children and young people with SEND. The Board acts as a strategic forum to identify priorities and to oversee the delivery of the council’s statutory requirements in relation to the Children and Families Act 2014.

The co-ordination of the operational SEND developments is through the SEND Development

Group, a multi-agency group with representation from Barnet Parent Carer Forum, schools, SENDIASS, Further Education, Early years, specialist education services, specialist health providers, health commissioners, social care and co-chaired by the Director of SEND and Inclusion. The SEND Development Group reports to the SEND Partnership Board. The SEND

Development Group is the primary forum for coordinating the operational SEND developments in Barnet. It is also responsible for driving the implementation of national policy and SEND Legislation. We have well established and active workstreams, all with representation from parent carers, health, education and social care, working on key priorities linked to the SEND Strategy and the Autism Strategy.