announced in February<\/a>, more funding and universal support are to be given to mainstream schools to accommodate children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (Send).<\/p>\nThe schools minister told the Guardian that institutions such as Thomas Lord Audley are doing many things that will become national policy under the new system.<\/p>\n
Georgia Gould wants the approach taken at Thomas Lord Audley to be followed by all schools in the UK. Photograph: Graeme Robertson\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat they are doing here is a really powerful example of best practice,\u201d Gould said, explaining how the school engages with families and pupils a year or more in advance of entry, and draws up bespoke plans for pupils\u2019 needs similar to the government\u2019s proposed digital records to track and share day-to-day support for children with special needs, called individual support plans.<\/p>\n
Gould said: \u201cPart of the work we are trying to do, to transform the system towards inclusion, is to take the best practices from schools like this, and make sure that people can see the evidence and the impact they have on things like attendance \u2026 And then we want to spread that practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, schools want to do everything in their power to support children and it\u2019s important that they get a blueprint to be able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hope is that the new tiers of support and national standards will be in place by 2030, when the government wants education, health and care plans (EHCPs) \u2013 which many families now use to access support \u2013 to be narrowed down to those with the most profound educational needs and disabilities.<\/p>\n
But the government\u2019s white paper will allow existing EHCPs to remain in place after 2030. In doing so it may have created a surge of applications from families who fear missing out if they don\u2019t get in before that deadline. That surge means the legacy of EHCPs will absorb funding desperately needed by the new system of support that does not require parents to jump through legal hoops.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really determined to put that support in place so parents don\u2019t need to fight and battle and go through a bureaucratic process,\u201d Gould said, highlighting evidence she has seen from Rochdale schools that offer early intervention for speech and language difficulties.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve seen an 85% reduction in referrals for speech and language support because they were able to meet much more of that need at a universal level earlier on, and then those children who did go for an assessment were ones who really needed that specialist extra support. There are models that show this is possible, so we want that early support to be available to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018We want that early support to be available to everyone\u2019: Georgia Gould chats to a Thomas Lord Audley pupil. Photograph: Graeme Robertson\/The Guardian<\/p>\n
Simon Essex, the executive head of Thomas Lord Audley<\/a>, said the school had earned the trust of parents in Colchester so that it is now oversubscribed.<\/p>\n\u201cWe want to serve our community,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want any young people who live nearby who can\u2019t come here because we can\u2019t meet their needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s our goal, and if that attracts others then we will work hard with the local authority to make it work. That\u2019s why I\u2019m hoping that the funding the government will bring will enable all schools to have the same mindset that we have for these young people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Georgia Gould is in a race against time. And the minister responsible for overhauling England\u2019s special educational needs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-762282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}