SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) reforms

The Children and Families Act (CFA) 2014, in force from September 2014, places new statutory duties for inclusive approaches and person-centred planning to permeate all practice. The reforms will require significant changes to policy, procedure and practice in supporting disabled students in further education colleges. Do your staff and governors know about these duties and are they ready to meet them?

In a nutshell, the key principles underlying the SEND reforms are to:

• enable young people and their parents to better participate in decision-making
• ensure more effective collaboration with partners in education, health and social care
• focus on inclusive practices, removing barriers to learning
• better help young people to prepare for adulthood and the world of work.

The reforms will:

• give greater control to disabled young people, so that they are ‘authors of their own life stories’.
• provide flexibility for personal budgets
• ensure more coherent and holistic planning takes place. Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plans replace previous statements and assessments.
• achieve improved outcomes
• provide a more transparent picture of what education and training is available. Local Authorities, with support from education providers, will publish a comprehensive picture of ‘local offer’.

Two resources you should be aware of:

• Further Education; guide to the 0 to 25 SEND Code of Practice
• Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice 0 – 25 years

Both the Code of Practice (CoP) and the FE guide to the CoP states that colleges must use their ‘best endeavors’ and ‘should be aware of effective practice in the sector’.  Both set out expectations for inclusive approaches and person-centred planning to permeate all practice, regardless of whether a student has an EHC plan or not.

What this means for colleges

The SEND reforms require a whole-college approach to students with disabilities and learning difficulties. All in the college community need to understand the implications of these reforms; governors, teaching and non-teaching staff, young people and parents, for example.

In recent AoC / DfE surveys, only half of colleges felt confident that teaching staff would be able to implement the new requirements.

This term I have been busy running awareness sessions; for senior staff, teaching staff, learning support staff and governors, for example. I will be updating my website shortly with publicity for these workshops. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you are interested in me delivering training at your organisation. My contact details can be found here