Issue - meetings
SEND Improvement Plan
Meeting: 29/06/2021 - Tower Hamlets Health and Wellbeing Board (Item 1)
1 SEND Improvement Plan PDF 129 KB
Additional documents:
Minutes:
The Board received a briefing that provided an update on Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) improvement work, looking at the priority areas and the key issues, main activities, and current challenges for each. The main points raised as part of the discussion may be summarised as follows:
The Board:
v Noted the importance of the transition for children and young people with SEND especially with regards to the provision for these students at key stage 3 and key stage 4 e.g. Young peoples’ annual reviews at Year 9 do not routinely make adequate plans for transition to adulthood and any appropriate services.
v Noted that it is recognised that there is a need to improve the understanding of projected future demand for SEND and specialist education provision in particular has been identified as an area for coproduction with the parents and carers.
v Noted that senior leaders recognise the importance of continued investment in the early identification and considerable joint work has been delivered in order that families remain known to services, to ensure that no child with additional needs is missed.
v Noted that that effective processes are in place to ensure that vulnerable children with additional needs, including those where there are safeguarding concerns, are kept in view by services.
v Observed however that SEND is not systematically considered as a relevant need by all parts of the workforce. This is borne out in how consistently services outside of Education monitor and record information around SEND status which has the potential to negatively impact on efforts to identify and meet need in a timely way.
v Agreed therefore that it is important to keep the momentum going on the improvement journey. In particular Education Health and Care Plans (EHCP) are an area of concern as whilst progress has been made both in the working through the backlog that had built up due to Covid and the aim is to have all of those outstanding cases resolved by before the start of the next school year. However, the overall timeliness of plans issued is 27% (this includes the backlog) with the timeliness of plans since October at 53% therefore this needs to be considered as it impacts on the overview of this service and therefore the quality of annual reviews.
v Acknowledged that going forward that it was important to (i) strengthen the understanding of SEND priorities for all partners across the local area so that all parts of the system work together to address issues and drive improvement; (ii) secure the commitment of partners around areas of work which are ‘in development’ and would benefit from a more joined up approach; and (iii) support partners to deliver key messages to wider staff and colleagues about their role in delivering the best possible services and outcomes for children and young people with SEND.
v Noted that SEND Local Offer focus group with parents and young people is meeting on termly ... view the full minutes text for item 1
Meeting: 06/04/2021 - Tower Hamlets Health and Wellbeing Board (Item 4)
4 SEND Improvement Plan PDF 128 KB
Additional documents:
Minutes:
The Board received and noted a briefing that provided an update on SEND improvement work, looking at the priority areas and the key issues, main activities, and current challenges for each. The main points arising from the discussions on this item may be summarised as follows:
The Board:
v Noted in response to concerns raised that the Borough was looking to increase the resources available within Tower Hamlets so as to reduce the need for SEND students to be in placements in schools outside of Tower Hamlets.
v Noted that there is considerable thought going into the concept of transitional safeguarding and looking at other safeguarding needs in context and not just looking at it from children's point of view at 17 and an adult at 18. Which it was felt showed that Tower Hamlets has considerable ambition in terms of looking forward in regard to this issue.
v Noted with regard to EHC plans, and the timescales the current annual figure is around 15.8% of plans are completed within the 20 weeks which is way below where it should be. However, when looking at the monthly figures it is getting better, so a large part of those delays are historic cases which are part of the backlog and they will always be late. Whereas the more recent referrals into the system are being sorted in a much timelier way. Therefore whilst that is good, there is still a way to go to clear that backlog; to keep that timeliness on trend; and to strengthen our approach to SEND..