Improving Outcomes for Children and Young People in Essex with Special Educational Needs

Dear Colleague,

Improving outcomes for children and young people in Essex with Special Educational Needs and / or Disabilities (SEND)

As you will be aware a key focus of both the national SEND reform and the Essex County Council’s SEND Strategy is to improve outcomes for children and young people in Essex with SEND.

The final version of the new SEN Code of Practice has now been published. Chapter 6 gives comprehensive and unequivocal requirements for schools and applies mostly to the mainstream sector. The new code stipulates that:

All children and young people are entitled to an education that enables them to make progress so that they:

• achieve their best

• become confident individuals living fulfilling lives, and

• make a successful transition into adulthood, whether into employment, further or higher education or training

“Schools must use their best endeavours to make sure that a child with SEN gets the support they need – this means doing everything they can to meet children and young people’s SEN”

What does this mean?

·  Developing high quality and effective leadership for SEN at all levels; including careful consideration about the appointment, development and effectiveness of the SENCO;

·  having an outcomes focussed approach to making progress where the child or young person and their family at the centre of planning and evaluation;

·  championing a person-centred approach; in Essex this is called the One-Planning Environment;

·  having clear processes for effective identification, assessment & monitoring ;

·  addressing identified concerns with high quality teaching as a first response;

·  using evidenced based interventions that are regularly evaluated against impact;

·  applying an inclusive and integrated approach to school effectiveness for SEN; threading through performance management and professional development for all staff

·  a commitment to developing a high quality schools SEND Information Report; ideally demonstrating effective development with a range of partner schools, services and organisations;

·  working closely with the Local Authority and the wide range of providers within the Local Offer to improve outcomes

Currently the Essex SEN/non SEN gap has been 5% below England since 2005, for the last four years Essex SEN pupils have been at least 7% lower (8%in 2013). It should be our joint aim to close this gap significantly and rapidly.

Our approach to this challenge has been to establish an Essex SEND Innovations Project Group and we have successfully secured funding from the DFE SEND Implementation Grant to support schools to develop and implement effective and innovative practice to improve outcomes for this group of children and young people.

We are very pleased that Gareth Morewood has agreed to Chair the Essex SEND Innovations Project Group. Gareth is a highly successful school practitioner with a national reputation for outstanding SEND innovation; Gareth is also a writer, researcher and trainer with a passion for inclusion – more information can be found at www.gdmorewood.com.

FACE (Families Acting for Change in Essex) will also be a partner in this venture because of the emphasis of parental engagement in new SEN Code of Practice.

We would like to invite bids for funding that will be evaluated by the by the Essex SEND Innovations Project Group. Bids can be for resources and additional expertise to promote and support innovation around SEND strategy, inclusive practice and improved outcomes for young people.

Bids can be for amounts between £5,000 and £25,000. It is expected that a significant degree of match funding should be demonstrated on the bid; this could be in terms of money or time commitment from leading staff.

Bids will be evaluated primarily on the projected impact and improved outcomes for children and young people with SEND; other considerations will be:

·  the capacity of the school to deliver the proposal;

·  the schools own commitment in terms of resources and delivery;

·  the breadth of impact (Will the project leave a sustainable legacy? Will the impact be far reaching?);

·  agreement to report impact data/intelligence around the work and to share with other schools;

·  clear links with the values of the 2014 reform and the new SEND Code of practice;

·  collaborative bids would be welcomed and prioritised (also alongside the specialist sector schools).

First Step:

The first step is to indicate an interest in taking part in the Innovations Project by contacting your quadrant SEN Standards and Excellence Commissioner and completing an initial application which will be a very brief outline idea or proposal. Gareth Morewood is happy to share a list of projects which you may be interested in pursuing and we can forward this on request. Your SEN SEC will advise you and answer any questions you may have about the project or the application process:

Standards and Excellence SEN Commissioner SOUTH: Jill Thomas -

Standards and Excellence SEN Commissioner MID: Karen Woolhouse -

Standards and Excellence SEN Commissioner WEST: Ruth Sturdy -

Standards and Excellence SEN Inclusion Commissioner NORTH EAST: Kim McWilliam –

Timeline:

Attached is a brief overview of the time-frame and the process. The application process will be concluded by October half-term 2014 and the presentations describing impact will take place in early December 2015.

I am sure you will agree that this is a great opportunity to develop innovative practice for SEND in the context of national reform; providing valuable resources in the form of funding and expertise to support school endeavours. We look forward to working in partnership with you on these projects and most importantly, making a significant difference to the young people in Essex schools.

Yours sincerely,

Clare Kershaw

Head of Commissioning – Education and Lifelong Learning