SEND specialist support and inclusion - Summary Document

We have a duty to keep its special education provision under review and ensure there is the right type of provision and enough places to meet the needs of children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).

We want all children and young people with SEND in North Yorkshire to:

• have the best educational opportunities so that they do as well as possible
• be able to attend a school or provision locally, where they can make friends and be part of their local community
• make progress with learning, have good social and emotional health and be prepared for a fulfilling adult life

There has been a significant increase in the number of children and young people in North Yorkshire who have special educational needs, and we expect this increase to continue.

We need to make sure that we have the right type of education provision in the right place to meet their needs. We know that a number of our children and young people have to go  to school outside North Yorkshire, and we want to avoid this wherever possible.

We have a budget of £49.5 million from central government, called the high needs budget (HNB), to spend on special education provision. At the moment we are overspending by around £8 million. We don’t intend to reduce the high needs budget, but we need to deliver the best provision we can, with the funding we have; this is what the strategic plan for SEND education provision aims to do.

The strategic plan for educating children and young people with SEND aims to provide education tailored to their needs, within North Yorkshire wherever possible. We also aim to improve communication with parents and carers, enable more local decision making, and reduce costly out of county placements.

We have worked with parents and carers, schools and other education providers, professionals and children and young people to develop this plan. It sets out how we will provide education for children and young people with SEND across the whole county, and how we will implement this across five areas;

• Craven
• Hambleton/Richmondshire
• Harrogate/Knaresborough/Ripon
• Scarborough/Whitby/Ryedale
• Selby

After a period of working with stakeholders to shape the plan, we asked for final views on it during a formal consultation in May and June 2018.

Following the consultation, the plan was agreed by North Yorkshire County Council executive members. We have been implementing the plan since Autumn 2018, and have recently updated it to include a second phase.

This document briefly explains the proposals within the strategic plan. The full strategic plan can be found on our SEND specialist support and inclusion page.

We recommend that you read the full document. 

The Strategic Plan for SEND education provision

The Strategic Plan will develop educational provision for children and young people with SEND across a continuum of universal, targeted and specialist provision supported by a new framework for local area decision making and locally based multi-agency teams. Strengthening early identification of the needs of children and young people, and putting in place appropriate interventions to meet their needs is key to the strategic plan. We want to ensure that children and young people have their needs met as early as possible, with the right support.

We have developed three important principles which are the foundation of this plan:

1. An inclusive culture and ethos
2. Joint commitment and accountability to children and young people
3. Right support, right time, right place

Using the above principles, we will work towards achieving the following outcomes:

Overall outcomes
Improved educational, social, emotional and health outcomes for children and young people with SEND.
Increased parental confidence in the continuum of SEND provision in North Yorkshire.
Supporting outcomes
Early identification of SEND through high quality, robust assessment of children and young people’s needs.
More children and young people with SEND have sustained placements in local settings, schools and colleges that are judged good or outstanding by OFSTED.
All education providers are able to effectively support a range of special educational needs and disabilities.
Effective local area partnership governance arrangements to ensure SEND provision meets local needs and partners are jointly accountable.

The principles and outcomes have been co-produced with young people, parents and carers and professionals – they are explained in more detail in the full plan document on our SEND specialist support and inclusion page.

The Strategic Plan – phase 1 and phase 2

There are two phases to the strategic plan for SEND education – but it is one plan to be implemented between 2018 and 2023.

The plan is a very detailed document including countywide and local actions so we strongly recommend that you read the full strategic plan, which can be downloaded on our SEND specialist support and inclusion page.

Phase 1 of the plan looks at three areas – these are outlined on the diagram below.

 

The image above shows the strategic plan and all elements involved in it for phase 1.

Strategic Plan

1. Ensuring a continuum of SEND education provision across the County
2. Robust and local governance, accountability decision making and support
3. Re-shaping high needs budget

A. We will provide universal and targeted provision in mainstream schools, develop the services provided by pupil referral services and create more special school places to enable children and young people with SEND to have the right education for their needs.

This is referred to in the plan as ensuring a continuum of SEND education provision across the county.

Universal provision

Universal education provision is available to everyone. This is often called mainstream education and is provided by early years providers, schools and further education colleges.

To enable children and young people with SEND to learn in universal provision, we will; 

• develop a skilled workforce and set up local teams made up of professionals with different skills;
• improve support for children and young people with SEND in mainstream schools;
• provide better information and work with schools to develop a new culture and ethos;
• improve information and communication for parents/carers; and
• improve support and information for those delivering post 16/19 education.

Targeted provision

Targeted provision is more specialist than that provided in mainstream schools. This provision gives a higher level of support for children and young people with SEND, but is not provided in a special school setting.

To provide targeted provision for children and young people with SEND we will;

• develop a different model of targeted mainstream provision, in a number of schools to allow children and young people to receive more specialist support in small groups;
• provide places in pupil referral services to provide flexible support for pupils as well as places for permanently excluded pupils;
• strengthen the processes and support for schools commissioning their own alternative provision;
• provide new guidance for staff on decision making for pupils with medical needs; and establish a ‘virtual school’ for pupils with medical needs.

Specialist provision

Specialist provision is support which is specifically organised to meet the needs of pupils with SEND. Special schools provide specialist provision.

To provide specialist provision for children and young people with SEND we will:

• increase the number of day places in North Yorkshire special schools; 
• strengthen processes and use clear criteria for decision making about residential placements at North Yorkshire’s residential special schools;
• submit an application for a special free school in Selby;
• work towards establishing additional local specialist provision in the Ripon area;
• work with special schools to look at the support they can provide to universal and targeted provision, and work with special schools to commission a therapeutic offer;
• strengthen processes for preparing for adulthood and improve the offer for young people; and 
• develop and improve the way we prepare young people for adulthood, across sixth form special provision, the adult learning and skills service and supported internships. 

Capital plan

Capital funding is used for fixed assets such as buildings. Capital funding is not part of the high needs budget. The Council will receive some funding from the special provision capital fund from the Government over the next three years.

To support the development of the continuum of provision the capital plan focuses on;

• implementing the approved plan for year 1 of the special provision capital funding;
• consulting on the proposals for using years 2 and 3 of the special provision capital funding during phase 1; and
• exploring additional options for securing capital funding to support the delivery of the strategic plan, including through the school condition grant.

The North Yorkshire inclusion partnership

The North Yorkshire inclusion partnership will enable decisions to be made by local groups.

The partnership will provide a local governance structure with;

• a countywide inclusion governance group which oversees local area groups; • local area inclusion steering groups; and
• local area inclusion panels.

Details of who will be in each of these groups and the role of each group can be found in the strategic plan document available on our SEND specialist support and inclusion page.

The diagram below shows how the local groups will be organised:

 

The above image shows the North Yorkshire Countywide Inclusion Governance Group.

• Craven local area inclusion steering group
  • Craven inclusion panel
    • KS1/2
    • KS3/4
• Hambleton and Richmondshire local area inclusion steering group
  • Hambleton and Richmondshire inclusion panel
    • KS 1/2
    • KS 3/4
• Harrogate, Ripon and Knaresborough local area inclusion steering group
  • Harrogate, Ripon and Knaresborough inclusion panel
    • KS 1/2
    • KS 3/4
• Scarborough, Whitby and Ryedale local area inclusion steering group
  • Scarborough inclusion panel
    • KS 1/2
    • KS 3/4
  • Whitby inclusion panel
    • KS 1/2
    • KS 3/4
  • Ryedale inclusion panel
    • KS 1/2
    • KS 3/4
• Selby local area inclusion steering group
  • Selby inclusion panel
    • KS 1/2
    • KS 3/4

Support in local areas

Local teams will support the following areas of need:

• communication and interaction;
• cognition and learning; and
• social, emotional and mental health.

Support for children and young people with sensory/physical needs will be managed and coordinated centrally but there will be links with the local teams.

Local teams of professionals will have a range of functions which will include;

• providing a minimum free core offer of support
• offering outreach services to settings and schools in response to referrals
• delivering early intervention advice and support
• organising the local special education needs co-ordinator (SENCO) network meetings
• offering group sessions and training for children and young people and parents/carers
• providing a targeted rapid response based on clear criteria
• providing a therapy offer

C. We will re-think how we spend the money we get from central government (the high needs budget) to achieve actions from areas A and B.

This is referred to in the plan as re-shaping the high needs budget.

The high needs budget

When the strategic plan was first written North Yorkshire County Council had a high needs budget of £44.8 million and expected to overspend by £5.5 million on special educational needs education provision in 2018/19. When the plan was updated this was £49.5 million and we were overspending by around £8 million.

As part of reshaping the high needs budget, we will;

• reshape the high needs funding model to support (A) the continuum of SEND education provision, and (B) robust local governance, accountability, decision making and support
• create opportunities for local decision making on funding by the local area inclusion steering groups

The strategic plan has now been updated to include phase 2.

This includes the following areas which are explained in the following pages. There will be opportunities for engagement and consultation as our actions are delivered:

The image above shows the strategic plan and all elements involved in it for phase 2.

Strategic Plan

• Ensuring a continuum of SEND provision across the County
• Capital planning and development
• Joint working and commissioning

We will provide universal and targeted provision in mainstream schools, develop the services provided by pupil referral services and create more special school places to enable children and young people with SEND to have the right education for their needs.

This is referred to in the plan as ensuring a continuum of SEND education provision across the county.

Early years provision

To improve provision for children in the early years with SEND we will: 

• Collect information and carry out engagement to find out more about early years provision for children with SEND. We will work in partnership with the North Yorkshire parent/carer forum to carry out this engagement; and
• Develop, consult on and implement a plan for early years provision for children and young people with SEND. 

Targeted provision

To provide targeted provision for children and young people with SEND we will:

• Complete the commissioning of the first 9 targeted mainstream provisions, including allocating agreed capital funding
• Commission more targeted mainstream provisions across the county to fulfil our aims in the strategic plan

Specialist provision

To provide specialist provision for children and young people with SEND we will:

• work with the DfE and the successful trust to develop the special free school in the Selby locality. For more information you can visit our proposed special free school in Selby page
• continue to explore and develop special school provision for children and young people with Autism who need a mainstream curriculum
• explore how we can develop more provision for children and young people with SEMH needs

Capital plan

Capital funding is used for fixed assets such as buildings. Capital funding is not part of the high needs budget.

To support the development of the continuum of provision we will:

• allocate £232,558 of special provision capital funding to support the first phase of targeted provisions and update the plan for that funding
• develop a capital plan to support the strategic plan, which will include updating and improving existing special schools and supporting targeted mainstream provision development

Joint working and joint commissioning 

Feedback on our consultation on the strategic plan showed that it was essential education, health and social care work together to meet children and young people’s needs. In addition, the Council and partners must work together and commission services jointly.

To improve joint working and joint commissioning we will:

• develop a shared vision and strategy
• make sure the local teams work closely across education, health and social care
• work with the Clinical Commissioning Groups in North Yorkshire to develop a joint commissioning statement and identify and implement joint commissioning of services

The strategic plan will result in planned provision in each locality based on forecasting and information and feedback. This will result in variations in provision between different areas.

The detail for each local area can be found on pages 34 - 38 of the full plan document.

SEND education in North Yorkshire – when are we implementing the strategic plan?

The plan will be carried out over at least five years and will be reviewed each year.

Detailed plans for implementation are in the strategic plan on pages 39-43 and 55-56.

How will we know if things are getting better?

The measures we will use to monitor our progress to the outcomes in the strategic plan are set out on pages 44 and 45 of the main plan document. These apply to the whole plan.

We will review the strategic plan every year, and publish the review. The first review of the plan can be found on our SEND specialist support and inclusion page.