Officers present: / Alun Rees – Head of the Leeds Virtual College for VulnerableChildren
In Attendance / 7 people attended
Mark Barnett – Elmete Central SILC (minute taker)

Presentation

Alun Rees (AR) welcomed everyone to the meeting and gave a presentation on the proposals to change the age range and expand the capacity of the BESD SILC (Elmete Lane) and to expand the capacity of the North East SILC from January 2014, including the integration of the Key Stage 2, 3 and 4 PRUs into the larger SILCs.

The presentation included:

  • An overview of the proposals,
  • Why the local authority is proposing the redesigns and how they have been

developed,

  • Purpose of the public consultation, &
  • What happens to comments and the Next steps

Comments and Questions

The table below outlines the main comments made and questions asked together with the response given by officers.

Comment / Question / Response from AR
During the presentation there were some questions about capacity of the proposed provisions. / AR explained that the proposals would increase the number of children that could be on the roll of NE SILC and Elmete Wood SILC. That meant the maximum number of places they could offer to children with statements would increase to 50 and 230 respectively, though the final numbers would be based on the best available demographic data when the proposals were considered by Executive Board.
This was not the limit on the number of places that could be traded to schools, partnerships or (for permanently excluded children) the local authority. The number of children that the two SILCs could provide an ‘alternative provision’ service for would depend on the nature of the provision: full time on site, part time on site, outreach into schools, etc. It would also depend on the type of provision schools and partnerships wanted to buy. What the consultation does is to empower the SILCs to make a traded offer, not to impose any limits on its size and scale. However, their first obligation would be to ensure they could meet their obligations to provide for statemented children. Having bought a certain number of ‘PRU places’ from the SILCs however, the local authority would expect them to be able to deliver up to those numbers.
There was a question about Post-16 provision. / The local authority was not proposing to create a post-16 provision for the secondary BESD SILC as it felt that the post-16 offer would be better provided through specialist post-16 providers. That wasn’t to say that the SILC couldn’t enter into an arrangement with a post-16 provider to provide learning to children who were on the roll of the SILC.
Other questions related to:
Timescales – / The timescales described in the booklet on the proposals were confirmed.
Potential for a change of name for Elmete Wood given this significant change in its scale and remit / The local authority welcomed this suggestion but it isn’t necessary as part of the consultation. Rather it would be something for the Governing Body to consider.
How will the provision be funded. / The SILCs would be funded on the same basis as any other SILC in Leeds and in line with the changes in the national funding regulations for special schools.
The local authority envisaged continuing to buy the same number of alternative provision places given from the SICLs as it was buying from the PRUs from April 1 2013 in line with the changes to the national funding regulations for PRUs.
How would the five secondary sites be used / The pre-proposal planning for the use of the 5 secondary sites (Elmete Wood, Stonegate, Burley Park, Hunslet Gate and Tinshill) had involved the Education Psychology service reviewing the needs of children at the PRUs or in BESD provision and using that snapshot, along with the available intelligence on future need, to determine how the learning programmes across the 5 sites could be shaped.
The detail of actual programme offer, and models of delivery, would be finalised following the statutory consultation, but the intention of the proposal was to provide for a span of BESD need that recognised the age of the child or young person, the level of need and specific behaviour need.
Access to the sites would mean that the scale of each provision could be matched to the level of need so that one site would be quite small and aim at providing for a small number of children requiring very specialised, therapeutic provision. Another site would accept a larger cohort of children who could access a significant position of the national curriculum in an approximately supported setting.
In summary, there was a thorough discussion of the issues and no objections were raised to the proposal during the meeting.

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