Barbara Thurogood, Head of Special
Educational Needs Education Services introduced the
report.
NOTED:
1.
Enfield has seen a year on year increase
on referrals for Education, Health & Care Needs assessments,
there is not dissimilar to any other London borough.
2.
The Special Educational Needs 2 survey
undertaken by DfE shows that there has been a 10% increase
nationally is children with SEND. The DfE have been looking at
reviewing SEND reforms to see how the increasing demand can be
managed.
3. The
threshold for assessment is low which means there is an increase in
referrals. It is expected that post Covid there will be a higher
demand.
4. Following analysis, the needs that
have been identified are: speech, language and communication,
autism and complex autism.
3.
Some examples of work were provided:
currently looking at an Inclusion Charter, so that all schools will
start to be more inclusive for children with SEN identifying needs
as early as possible; a Speech and Language Communication hub is
being developed, this is at the project initiation stage. This will
be to support schools to identify children who may not need EHCP
but may require additional support. More support for autism and
changes to nurture groups, so they will be part time and increase
numbers from 10 to 28.
4.
Increases in travel costs is because
there has not been enough growth of provisions in borough. This is
being reviewed and developing different options with school place
planning so provision can be increased locally.
Comments, queries and questions:
- What has been the impact of Personal Travel budgets
and how have they been received? How has
Covid effected personal travel budgets? Officers advised that some
colleges were supporting young people with independent travel
training and they are not able to do this due to Covid
restrictions. However, those young people who are still able to
attend schools and colleges are still accessing personal travel
budgets. The local authority is reviewed how the SEN service works
with the travel assistance team, to ensure that there is fairness
and equity within the offer and to manage the provision more
effectively. The legislation states you identify the nearest school
in the first instance, and this is the school that is offered if
there is places available. If parental choice not to go there, then
under the Education Act it is not an effective use of public
funding to pay for travel assistance as well.
- What other boroughs have introduced this and how has
it worked? In Waltham Forest this has not been effective. However,
in Barking & Dagenham this is working well with pick up points
making it easier to manage the length of time a young person is on
a bus.
- Rising demand is showing projections of 8-10% for
EHCP’s what has this been in previous years? In Enfield this
has been around 6-8% but this has increased nationally.
- Is there a concern that there will potentially be an
increase due to the Pandemic and if so, what provisions are being
made for this? There is expected to be an increase due to Covid
where children have not been in school. Some programmes that have
been put forward through Schools Forum; Speech and Language Hub,
changes in nurture groups and the work on autism and these will
have an impact. The local authority is currently looking to develop
a data dashboard to provide a better understanding. There is an
operational SEN group and SEN board and all issues and concerns are
highlighted as they arise to allow a rigorous response to the
demands.
- Why is there a sharp increase between 2018/19 and
2019/20 of home to school transport costs? A large part of this is
out of borough provision. There were children with more complex
autism and insufficient places within the borough for children with
such complexity of need. More analysis is needed as to why Enfield
has a higher proportion of children with complex needs.
- Pupils needs are decreasing in Enfield but the number
of children with SEND are increasing. Given there are extra places
in some primary and secondary schools as pupils numbers are down is
there opportunity for more SEND pupils to attend mainstream
schools? Officers advised that it is expected that in future pupil
numbers will increase. Where there are decreasing pupils’
numbers in some schools looking to see if there can be more
resource provision within those schools.
- Following a request for timelines on increasing
provision in borough the following was confirmed: 14 additional
places at Suffolk’s School for this year; another local
school a further 23 places for this year, 70 further places at
Salmons Brook School for 2022, Fern House an additional 22 places
for this year and looking at moving staff from a building to a
school to utilise these premises for more complex autism creates
around 22 places hopefully this year. By 2022 there will be 110 new
places will be created but hopefully this figure will be
higher.
Officers were thanked for their
report