Plymouth SEND Strategy 2023-2026 (2025 refresh)
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Plymouth SEND Strategy 2023 – 2026
2025 Refresh
In June 2023, shortly after the launch of the SEND Strategy 2023 - 2026, Plymouth received a Local Area SEND inspection. This resulted in an Improvement Plan to address six Priority Action Areas and three further Improvement Areas. Plymouth is now over 18-months into delivery of the SEND Improvement Plan with the majority the original actions completed. However, alongside the few actions that remain to be completed are additional recommendations and next steps following monitoring discussions (Deep Dives and Stocktakes) and our own Critical Review undertaken in January 2025. Since the inspection Plymouth has embarked on a learning and self-reflection journey. This has resulted in a need to undertake a refresh of the SEND Strategy before embarking on a full redevelopment of a new five-year strategy later in 2026. The current review of the SEND Strategy acknowledges that the six existing priorities remain relevant as do the actions also identified. This refresh therefore focusses on aligning the remaining SEND Improvement Plan actions and further recommendations with the existing priorities and actions within the SEND Strategy. By bringing the SEND Strategy and SEND Improvement Plan together the Local Area Partnership will have a strengthened plan of action to ensure there is a positive SEND experience in Plymouth. It also means that children, young people, parents and carers will have a streamlined and holistic view of the activity that needs to be addressed by the Local Area Partnership. The remainder of this document lists the existing priorities and actions as illustrated in the SEND Strategy and in blue text now includes the remaining actions and further recommendations identified through the recent reviews of the Local Area progress. Those priorities with a lilac highlight are taken from the Local Area SEND Improvement Plan priorities and have been aligned with the SEND Strategy priorities. Underpinning this, a revised implementation plan has been produced to monitor the delivery of all the actions. This will be routinely reported to the newly revised SEND Strategy Delivery Board. Report Authors: Hannah McGuigan & Lisa McDonald (May 2025)
Plymouth SEND Strategy 2023 – 2026 Page 2 of 16
Our Priorities
Working with Plymouth Parent Carer Voice and Plymouth’s SEND Strategy Delivery Board we have identified a set of strategic priorities for 2023-2026 for the Local Area partnership including education, health and care. We have embedded the major national policy developments including SEND and AP Green Paper and used the new SEND Inspection Framework to embed the emerging national policy imperatives. Our Self Evaluation Framework for SEND (Sef) has encompassed the emerging priorities in the following six themes to enable us to understand the progress that we have achieved and development needs:
• Early Identification and Support • Inclusion • SEND Pathway • SEND Sufficiency and Provision • Transitions • Managing Money and Resources
These strategic priorities build on the work and progress which has taken place over the last 18 months and are designed to strengthen our SEND system further, at pace. Progress against the priorities and associated actions will be reported through the SEND Strategy Delivery Board. This will take the form of a quarterly report from the Local Authority and from Health.
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Our Shared Vision
Priority One: Early Identification and Support
Vision:
We will ensure that children’s needs are identified, assessed and supported both early in life and when issues arise.
Outcomes: Priority Action Area 2 of the Local Area Improvement Plan: The Local Area Partnership works together and shares information to enable the earlier identification of children and young people with SEND who are at risk of increased vulnerability and negative outcomes. Our early help and intervention support results in families being supported at first need with fewer needing an Education Care and Health needs assessment.
Parent carers and young people know when SEN Support is in place and are involved in creating and reviewing their SEN Support Plan. Priority Action Area 6b of the Local Area Improvement Plan: The Local Area Partnership will improve the consistency of the support offered to children and young people with SEND by ensuring all children and young people benefit from a consistently applied graduated response. The Graduated Approach is understood and used by all parents, carers and professionals when supporting families. Parents understand the system better and know how to access support. The ordinarily available provision is well understood. Needs drive support. A Parent/Carer friendly version of the Graduated Approach in Plymouth is in place.
There will be an increased awareness of Early Help, intervention and inclusion across the city in all key professional roles. Children, young people and their families are able to access immediate advice and support.
“We have a duty to help our children and young people to have a Bright Future. Our vision is that
children and young people in Plymouth grow up healthy and happy, safe and able to aspire and
achieve, living in resilient families and communities, able to take advantage of a broad range of opportunities. Our aim is that no Plymouth child should find that their life chances are defined or limited by the circumstances of their birth or early childhood experiences. If problems emerge, we will step in and seek to work effectively alongside families to improve outcomes. We need to do this
better and faster, across our local authority, schools, and health providers, community sector and
statutory services, to ensure that we shift resource and focus to be able to benefit more of our children, more of the time focusing on prevention and earlier identification of need. Over time we
want to be able to reduce the need for intensive crisis management for a minority. We are
aspirational about tackling the corrosive root causes and impact of deprivation.”
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Priority Number
Action
P1/001 Launch the Plymouth Education and Advice Line so that children, young people and their families can access immediate support to discuss their worries and concerns. We will monitor key themes or concerns and adapt the Local Offer as required to improve access to support and advice.
Additional recommendation from monitoring discussions – 6.6 Sufficient emphasis is to be made on the critical role of practitioners in providing information and support to enable children, young people and their families to make informed choices, participate in their plans and know how to access services.
P1/002 Ensure that all Education Health Care Needs Assessments are responded to within the statutory expected timeframes and that a tracker system is in place and consistently used keeping parents informed of progress.
P1/003 During Academic Year 2022/23 carry out regular SENCO briefings on the Graduated Approach and provide focused training support where needed for all Early Years, Schools and Further Education settings and use the Graduated Approach in their daily practice. This will mean that parents and carers feel better supported.
P1/004 Work with Early Years settings to develop guidance for applications for delayed entry to school and applications to place children out of year group that fully considers the longer- term implications for children with SEND.
P1/005 Work with Plymouth Parent Carer Voice to ensure that co-production takes place for all key services pertaining to early help and identification i.e. policy changes and is represented at all key decision-making points with a focus on improving the Local Offer.
P1/006 Achieve an increased awareness in early years, education, health and care settings of inclusion issues and strategies / interventions. This will support vulnerable children and young people and adults with learning difficulties. Local data will be used to focus on high need areas.
Critical Review Next Steps Improvement Area 9.1 - Agree how we use the JSNA information to inform the next stages of the plan.
P1/007 To ensure that all early years and school SENCOs and SENCO leads are aware of the need to review their SEN support plans as well as all Education Health and Care Plans; this will be delivered as part of SENCO support and Graduated Approach training.
Critical Review Next Steps Priority Action Area 3.1- Place Based Working Group evidence of delivery of the Ordinarily Available Provision to be strengthened.
P1/008 Utilising trend data on attendance, absence and exclusions we will work with schools to ensure that children’s SEN and care status are fully considered in relation to school policies, including behaviour and safeguarding practice.
Additional recommendation from monitoring discussions 3.3 Demonstrate that the actions taken have had an impact in reducing permanent exclusions and suspensions of pupils with EHCPs.
P1/009 To continue to develop high quality health pathways for Early Years to enable early identification of needs and improved outcomes. Priority areas include continuation of partnership working between Salt, Public Health Nursing, (Health Visiting) Portage and all partners in Early Years settings.
Critical Review Next Steps Priority Action Area 6.3 - Improve links with midwifery.
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Additional recommendation from monitoring discussions Priority Action Area 3.2 - Improve primary school liaison with partners such as Mast and how its work fits with the development of services delivered by statutory agencies and within the overall published offer of support in Plymouth.
Priority Action Area 2.1
Leaders across the Local Area will develop and implement a clear programme of partnership training on thresholds relating to vulnerability and risk across different concerns e.g. attendance, health, neglect, complex health and multiple needs.
Priority Action Area 2.2
Leaders across the Local Area will develop and implement clear system wide processes and procedures to ensure children at risk are identified and safeguarded early, and to prevent escalating vulnerability.
Priority Two: Inclusion
Vision:
We will ensure that across Plymouth there is a commitment to deliver inclusive services and support for and with children, young people and adults with SEND. Plymouth is committed to inclusion in mainstream settings, and we firmly believe every teacher is a teacher of special needs.
Therefore, building the capabilities of our mainstream schools to support more children and young people with SEND will ensure more children can attend a local school. Strengthening the capacity of our maintained school system to support more children in mainstream and meeting need at the lowest level is at the core of our strategy.
Outcomes:
There will be a reduction in the number of children and young people with SEND placed in specialist provision and out of Plymouth high-cost placements.
Our early years’, schools’ and Further Education Colleges’ confidence to work with and support our children and young people with SEND grows.
We will focus on those children with an EHCP and without a school place and ensure provision is secured.
We aim for a reduction in the number of children and young people accessing Alternative Provision arrangements and those who are Not in Employment Education or Training (Neet).
We aim for no permanent exclusions of children and young people with SEND and a reduction in suspensions.
Priority Action Area 3: The Local Area Partnership work together to reduce the likelihood of exclusion for pupils with an EHCP.
We aim for the highest possible attendance, working in partnership and with ambition, for all our children with SEND.
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Priority Number
Action
P2/001 Working with Schools to develop and agree an Education and Inclusion strategy. To co-produce and promote, including with early years settings and schools, a Plymouth wide self-assessment tool for inclusion. This will cover best practice for children and young people with SEND and across all categories of need this will consider how health services can support inclusion.
Additional recommendations from Monitoring discussions Priority Action Area 3.3 - Communicate and disseminate the Place Based Plan.
Improvement Area 9.3
Leaders within Plymouth City Council, school and colleges will publish and implement a SEND and Alternative Provision sufficiency strategy.
P2/002 Ensure that 100% of Annual Reviews of Education Health and Care Plans take place each year and that there is an improved focus on co-produced Smart outcomes and that this is embedded across all key statutory partners. This includes the timeliness of any amendments within the plan.
Additional recommendation from monitoring discussions Priority Action Area 6.9 - Following the review the EHCP and annual review process and embedding regular
quality assurance activity, improve the timeliness of EHCP annual reviews. - Ensure that health services have access to the most recent version of an EHCP,
particularly if they have not been part of an annual review. - Health should be invited to reviews, and health services need to ensure they share
information about their involvement with education settings.
P2/003 Introduce and embed a revised multi-agency Quality Assurance process across the partnership reviewing the quality of Annual Reviews so that each agency is held to account for local service improvements and that the experience of the child is understood.
Additional recommendation from monitoring discussions Priority Action Area 6.9
– Following the review the EHCP and annual review process and embedding regular quality assurance activity, improve the audit outcomes of the EHCP annual reviews and amended plans.
- Provide reports on how well children and young people are achieving the outcomes in their EHCPs.
- Preparation for adulthood outcomes to be clearer within EHCPs and reviews.
P2/004 To embed processes and tracking systems to ensure that there are no children and young people with SEND without a school place or provision for more than 6 weeks and that those known to the service are reviewed through the Children Missing Out on Education processes.
Additional recommendation from monitoring discussions Priority Action Area 3 - Include evidence to show how the length of time children missing education has been reduced.
P2/005 To co-produce a multi-agency training package for Social Care staff on SEND and inclusion and for SEND teams on Social Care. This will enable better understanding and delivery of services to families across the system this will include all services from Early Years through to specialist services.
Additional recommendation from monitoring discussions 8.1 Ensure the involvement of children, young people, parents and carers in the training of staff.
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Priority Action Area 2.1
Leaders across the Local Area will develop and implement a clear programme of partnership training on thresholds relating to vulnerability and risk across different concerns e.g. attendance, health, neglect, complex health and multiple needs.
Critical Review Next Steps Priority Action Area 2.1 - Further work ongoing to change the front door from April 2025. Thresholds document to be made available on the Local Offer and continue communication through the Schools Bulletin.
P2/006 To review the services for our Neet children and ensure that this priority group are supported within SEN services.
P2/007 To review the current use of Alternative Provision arrangements and reduce these where possible. To review the Alternative Provision framework and recommission this service with a revised framework.
P2/008 Working with Inclusion Teams to ensure that the voice and experience of the child is understood in the context of inclusion and share at the Plymouth SEND Strategy Delivery Board and Plymouth Education Board.
Critical Review Next Steps Priority Action Areas1.2, 1.3 and 1.5
Monitor the Co-production Plan implementation throughout the local area partnership; Continue to monitor the use of the Ten Wishes throughout all schools; Continue to monitor the representativeness of Cyp&F voice.
Additional recommendation from monitoring discussions Priority Action Areas 1.2 to 1.5.
- Ensure there is sufficient emphasis on listening to the voice of children and young
people and evidencing how this is reflected in their individual plans as well as shaping the development of services, - Ask about personal safety, - Build the Ten Wishes into the Learning Framework, - Improve the voice of the child/young person and involvement in new EHCPs and
EHCP reviews, health assessments and plans and transitions to Adult Services plans, - Engage children and young people in service reviews and challenges (e.g.
understanding emotionally based school avoidance), - Continue to develop the data dashboard to incorporate feedback from C&Yp and
families, transitions to Adult Services and consider the extent to which it covers services to children and young people with all types of SEND, - The child and young person’s voice is evident in new EHCPs issued and the review
of existing EHCPs.
P2/009 To ensure that the Local Offer provides up to date, relevant information regarding universal and specialist services for parents and carers to easily access.
Critical Review Next Steps
Priority Action Area 6.1 - Continue to monitor the quality of available information on the Local Offer.
Priority Action Area 4 - Ensure appropriate information is shared with children, young people, parents and carers to support a less common diagnosis.
Priority Action Area 6.5 – Review the use and helpfulness of the Healthy Child Programme information and Public Health Nurse information.
Additional recommendation from monitoring discussions
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5.5 Transitions - Ensure the Preparation for Adulthood section sets out clearly (i) the pathways for transitioning from children to adult health and social care service and pre-16 education to post 16 education or employment (ii) the services and people across education, health and social care, housing and employment services who can help with transitions.
Priority Action Area 3
- Clarify the Local Offer and produce a flowchart or pathway to help schools and families navigate the support across the partnership to prevent exclusion.
- Set out clearly in the Local Offer and regular newsletters and briefings the roles of different services supporting emotional wellbeing and behaviour, how they work together and information to signpost schools to the most appropriate service.
P2/010 To carry out SEN reviews in priority schools where the achievement gap for children with SEN is the greatest and higher levels of exclusion.
P2/011 With schools develop a high-quality development pathway for SENCO’s and staff specialising in working with children with SEND; articulate and implement universal training for school staff.
Priority Action Area 3.2
Plymouth City Council will confirm and publish the Local Authority and Partnership offer of support and services available to schools at the early help stage for SEND and EHCP pupils at risk of exclusion. e.g. additional help for pupils subject to frequent suspensions and low attendance.
Priority Action Area 3.3
School and college leaders will develop adjusted curriculum routes in their schools for those pupils with EHCPs who need the additional support to ensure their needs are met and risk of exclusion is prevented.
Priority Three: SEND Pathway
Vision:
We will ensure that children and young people with SEND, and their families can access the right support from services - easily and quickly.
Outcome:
Priority Action Area 4: Devon Integrated Care Board works with partners to risk assess children on waiting lists, ensuring that those with multiple needs get the earliest support possible. Priority Action Area 6a: Leaders across health, social care and education have improved the consistency of the support offered to children and young people with SEND by ensuring all children receive the mandated checks in line with the Healthy Child programme.
Priority Action Area 7: Leaders across the Partnership have addressed long waiting times for children and young people requesting support from health services.
There is a reduction of delays in families accessing Health services such as initial assessments for neuro diverse presentations, and speech and language therapy assessments.
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There is an improvement in the waiting times for specific health services where there is the greatest demand and a timely response for children, young people, their families and carers.
Joint working and joint commissioning arrangements are in place that recognise the value of working together to provide a seamless and effective service which will benefit the community and prevent children and young people falling through the gaps.
We will have clear partnership and decision-making arrangements to jointly commission services for children and young people, with mechanisms for agreeing priorities for the commissioning of services.
The Local Offer will be improved and enable families in understanding and navigating their needs.
There will be a reduction in the duplication of meetings and families will only need to tell their story once using technology to broaden access and coordination of our work.
Short break and respite opportunities for children and adults are available and meet the needs of families.
Children and young people with an EHCP will have their primary need clearly and accurately identified as a result of evidence gathered in professional advice.
Health advice will be high quality and provided in a timely way to contribute to the EHC process that includes the Annual Review.
Health commissioned services for SEND will meet statutory requirements and the needs of the local area by delivering integrated effective and quality pathways. Children and young people with SEND will have their health needs met at the right time, in the right place, by the right person through integrated pathways.
There are clear pathways to support joint working between partner agencies and families to enable early and appropriate identification of SEND across all settings.
The system will understand the impact of services/provision on the outcomes for children and young people through agreed system measures and outcomes across the partnership.
Priority Number
Action
P3/001 We will review the Short Breaks offer that is available to Plymouth families with the aim of increasing the amount and variety of provision to meet the individual needs of children.
Critical Review Next Steps Priority Action Area 5.3 - Families and those supporting them are clearly telling us that where they have direct payments there is not the sufficiency of appropriate services to meet the identified needs.
Priority Action Area 5.8
Plymouth City Council will ensure that there are sufficient overnight respite short breaks to support families of children with disabilities. A plan will be developed and delivered with commissioning arrangements identified.
P3/002 Working with Plymouth Parent Carer Voice and NHS Devon Integrated Care Board to agree the necessary changes on the Local Offer. To relaunch the Local Offer and ensure that reach and performance data is reviewed quarterly at the SEND Strategy
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Delivery Board meeting. To ensure that the Local Offer remains well resourced, updated and is reported as a high priority asset for our SEND parents and carers.
P3/003 Plymouth Council to develop its workforce strategy with partners, ensuring that all key delivery roles working with children and young people with SEND have access to and receive appropriate training.
P3/004 To ensure that Health are represented at key panels e.g., Single Multi Agency Panel (Smap) so that joint decisions are made in a consistent, timely and efficient manner.
P3/005 Plymouth’s SEND Improvement plan is delivered against key statutory measures and operational metrics are improved for each community in Plymouth.
P3/006 The profile of SEND in the wider community will be raised by developing a SEND Communications Strategy with partners. This will use a ‘values’-based approach to engage with providers and the community on the positive impact disabled people can make on the workforce and society.
P3/007 All staff within the Virtual School will work closely with the locality SEND teams and Children in Care teams to ensure that all Children in Care are attending school and are appropriately supported.
Additional Recommendations from Monitoring discussions Priority Action Area 5 - Provide attendance reporting for children with an EHCP who are educated outside of Plymouth.
Priority Action Area 5.1
The Virtual School will develop and implement workshops for Foster Parents, Residential Carers and Social Workers to develop knowledge and confidence in getting the best out of Personal Education Plans and EHCP reviews.
P3/008 Every school will have a nominated Educational Psychologist to support each setting in identifying whole school and individual case specific approaches for supporting SEND pupils in their mainstream setting.
P3/009 We will ensure that we keep our SEND children at the heart of our decisions and that the local pathway and provision is understood across all services e.g. Early Help, Social Care teams. All new Social Workers and Early Help Workers will have an induction programme with the SEND teams. We will link closely with the planned neighbourhood focused family hubs.
Critical Review Next Steps Priority Action Area 1.1 – Continue to build relationships between SEND families and Strategic Leadership within the city.
P3/010 Year 9 Annual Reviews will include the opportunity to raise awareness of accessing a learning disability Annual Health Check and requesting to join their Gp learning disability register.
P3/011 Develop our Neurodiversity transformation programme which will see a shift from diagnostic dependency to needs based, consistent approach to referral and assessment and greater emphasis on support available for families at an earlier opportunity through the pilot test of change key workers.
P3/012 Analyse the high Semh profile (primary area of need) in Plymouth and review the pathway through focused audits to identify what areas of improvement are needed across the system.
Priority Action Area 4.1
Devon Icb will establish a task and finish group to co-produce, test and implement a clinical prioritisation tool to ensure those children with multiple needs/services get the earliest support.
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Priority Action Area 4.3
Devon Icb will co-produce with system partners robust information sharing agreement that will triangulate information across the Partnership to provide intelligence to identify children and young people who need multi-agency intervention before crisis occurs.
Priority Action Area 6.3
Lsw will optimise the interfaces between organisations around notifications to ensure families are offered the reviews.
Priority Action Area 6.5
Lsw will develop a resource to support and provide information for parents and carers to understand the Healthy Child Programme and what Public Health Nurses provide.
Improvement Area 7.3
Devon Icb will develop and implement system wide standardised communication for any child or young person on a health waiting list. This will be developed with children, young people, families and education to ensure it captures information required by them.
Improvement Area 7.7
Devon Icb will continue system wide neurodiversity gamechanger work which optimises service delivery and identifies areas of investment to support demand.
- Appoint to navigator roles, key workers to provide support to families while
waiting for assessment.
- Finalise and launch integrated assessment pathway for health services that provide
neurodiversity services.
- Articulate the ordinarily available provision pathway and offer as part of the
graduated approach
Priority Four: SEND Sufficiency and Provision
Vision:
To ensure that the education provision for all children and young people with SEND is increased so that our children can stay in Plymouth and thrive in their local communities. This includes access to Health services, Early Years, Post-16, and adults with Learning Disabilities (Ld).
Outcomes:
Priority Action Area 8: Leaders must ensure that all social care, health and education practitioners have the training they need to provide consistent identification, care and support for children and young people with SEND.
Priority Action Area 9: Leaders should use the information available to them to plan ahead, ensuring the right services and support are in place to meet the future needs of children and young people with SEND in Plymouth.
We will have a clear evidence base that supports the allocation of funding to further develop our specialist provision and services.
A joint commissioning strategy for children and young people with SEND and adults with Ld will be in place.
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More of our young people are accessing further education opportunities in mainstream settings.
Priority Action Area 5: Plymouth County Council leaders should ensure that children and young people with SEND who also have social care needs get the care and support they need. Particularly, a) vulnerable children living in residential special schools and children’s homes at a distance, and b) children receiving short breaks without effective oversight and review including reassessment when needs escalate.
Priority Number
Action
P4/001 Develop, and then deliver against, the Plymouth Council SEND Sufficiency Strategy via a specific task group to ensure that there is an increase in local provision in key areas and that efficiencies of spend are realised.
P4/002 To develop our Semh offer to support children to stay in mainstream provision. Working with Inclusion Leads and our Educational Psychologists we will engage specialist support to work at an earlier stage with children to stabilise placements and prevent exclusion.
Priority Action Area 5
Additional recommendation from monitoring discussions – We will provide evidence that heath and communication needs are clearly set out in relevant plans such as EHCPs and Care Plans.
Improvement Area 9.1
Leaders across the Local Area will draw on the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment to ensure there is a clear overview of each year group age of children and young people is developed and is used to inform decision making. This must include prevalence of different SEND needs.
P4/003 Plymouth Council to collate accurate data by locality for all SEND educational and/or residential packages to ensure analysis by setting or categorisation of need to drive improvement areas to reduce high cost and out of area placements.
Additional recommendation from monitoring discussions Priority Action Area 5 - Ensure that future assurance reports to the Plymouth SEND Improvement Board also make reference to the children and young people in residential placements that are not covered by social care visits and monitoring.
P4//004 For Health and the Local Authority to work together within and across partners, to secure cost-effective commissioning of placements outside of Plymouth reviewing placement profiles to develop local provision where possible. With a recognition that placements outside of Plymouth may still be required for a small number of children in exceptional circumstances.
P4/005 Services within Health, and particularly those significantly impacted by Covid, e.g., direct therapies such as Physiotherapy and Speech and Language, are undergoing Reset and Recovery programmes.
Improvement Area 9.2
All leaders across the local area will review the annual Plymouth Parent Carer Voice survey to ensure all leaders understand what services children and young people with SEND, and their parents and carers feel is needed both now and in the future.
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Priority Five: Transitions and Preparation for Adulthood
Vision:
Transitions: We will ensure that transitions between phases of education or changes in provision and support across all ages are smooth and supportive.
Preparation for Adulthood: We expect that young people with SEND should have equal life chances as they move into adulthood. This includes employment and higher education, housing options and independent living, good health, friends, relationships, community inclusion and choice and control over their lives and support.
Outcomes:
For children or young people moving from one phase of education to another transition will be timely, well planned and person centred.
A 14 to 25 co-produced pathway that includes Education, Health and Care will be in place which ensures a person-centred approach based on individual outcomes.
A review of the courses offered post 16 to ensure variety and inclusivity will be carried out.
We will have increased employment and training opportunities for young people and adults with SEND through improved engagement in our communities measured by a reduction of young people who are Not in Employment, Education or Training (Neet) with an EHCP.
An increase of our young people accessing mainstream provision thereby increasing their potential to build strong community ties.
Awareness of SEND will be extended amongst our employers and post 16 providers.
Increased multi-agency oversight of transition to adulthood (including health, housing, education, community safety, children and adult social care).
Priority Number
Action
P5/001 To ensure that 100% of Annual Reviews for children in transition years are held by end of Autumn Term each year and are attended by an officer from the Council.
P5/002 To ensure that 100% of Year 9 Annual Reviews have taken place by end of Spring term.
Additional recommendations from Monitoring discussions – 6.9 Improve the annual review of EHCPs from year 9 onwards to comply with the SEND Code of Practice ensuring amended plans include clear outcomes across education, training and employment, health and social care that prepare young people for adulthood (see the SEND Code of Practice and transitions to adulthood).
P5/003 To provide training to all SENCOs across Plymouth for Year 9 Annual Reviews to ensure that school led Annual Reviews are of high quality and focus on future goals and preparation for adulthood outcomes.
P5/004 To continue to build our strategic relationships with Further Education Colleges to ensure that more of our SEND young people can successfully access courses and
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independent learning in their local community and are engaged with their future plans by the end of the Spring term.
Priority Action Area 5
Critical Review Next Steps - Develop an understanding of permanency planning for Cyp and support that may be required for parents/carers when Cyp turns 18.
Priority Six: Managing Money and Resources
Introduction to Finance and the budget for supporting our SEND children in Plymouth
The Dedicated Schools Grant (Dsg) for 2022-23 for Plymouth is £245.844m, this is the money we receive to support Education in Plymouth. The Dsg comprises four blocks of grant:
1. the Schools Block which is funding for mainstream schools; 2. the High Needs Block, which for 2022-23 is £42.558m for pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities; and 3. the Central Schools Service Block which provides funding of some local authority services for schools to support maintained schools; and 4. the Early Years Block
The High Needs Block has not seen an overspend unlike the picture nationally. Plymouth City Council has seen an increase in spending on Independent or non-maintained special schools (Inmss) like many of its statistical neighbours.
Vision:
To ensure the effective and efficient management of SEN funding available through the Dedicated Schools Grant, to maximise the impact of the available resource and the best outcomes for our children and young people.
Outcomes:
Priority Action Area 1: Leaders, including Plymouth City Council, Devon Integrated Care Board, and school and college leaders must put children and young people with SEND at the heart of all improvement plans by ensuring they contain clear oversight and tracking to measure the direct impact on children, young people and their families.
To reduce the costs to the Dedicated Schools Grant and associated Council revenue budgets through the completion of the SEND Sufficiency Strategy in partnership with all stakeholders.
To establish a High Needs Block budget tracking system to support teams in better understanding spend and subsequently to identify new opportunities for refocusing investment on early help or more local provision.
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Priority Number
Action
P5/001 Develop a joint commissioning protocol with Health that ensures commissioning decisions on specialist placements outside of the LA area will be made with all agencies supporting the child or adult with Learning Disabilities. These placements will only be made on the evidence that the child or adult’s needs cannot be met locally and agreed at the Multi Agency Resource Panel.
P5/002 To work collaboratively with schools and colleges to agree a consistent way of funding schools/settings where the number of high needs pupils attending cannot be reflected adequately in their formula funding.
P5/003 To review the commissioning arrangements for Support Centre provision to ensure cost efficiencies are realised.
P5/004 To refine the Dsg forecasting processes to ensure that the system is dynamic and responsive to changes throughout the year.
P6/005 To review future feasibility projects for the expansion of existing special schools and other specialist resource provision.
P5/006 To establish a financial tracking system for SEND across the system to further explore alternative ways to manage the High Needs Block for EHCPs.
P5/007 To introduce a new commissioning framework for Alternative Provision.
P5/008 Children’s and Adult Services to coproduce a financial dashboard to ensure robust transition planning for this cohort alongside clear financial forecasts.
Recommendation from monitoring discussions – 5.5 Ensure any protocols and procedures being developed require that relevant services are aware of the identity, numbers and needs of children transitioning to adult services.
Priority Action Area 2.3
Critical Review Next Steps
Provide quantitative data on impact measures to evidence the success of the Transitions Portal.
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Additional Actions:
The following actions have yet to be aligned to the existing SEND Strategy priorities and actions:
Critical Review Next Steps
Priority Action Area 2.2
Ensure that Family Hubs provide an effective service for SEND families including neurodiversity and waiting well services for families.
Support for family hub practitioners to understand the Ordinarily Available Provision better.
Priority 4
• Undertake Mystery Shopper activity. • Include the effectiveness of information sharing within the Ppcv survey.
Priority Action Area 6b
Information Sharing - Ensure there is a documented rationale where EHCP paperwork is not shared with all parents who hold parental responsibility.
Additional Recommendations from Monitoring discussions
Priority Action Area 2 & 6b
• Gathering feedback on the quality of the EHCP process experience from families who have recently gone through it. • Gain feedback from schools on how helpful the EHCP is in meeting the child’s needs. • Ensure the protocols and procedures being developed reflect the Nice standards for transitioning to adult health and social care services and the requirements in the National Framework for Children and Young People’s Continuing Care 2016 - para 111 onwards.
Priority Action Area 3.1
Address the issue that young people have told us about how they feel in relation to a lack of inclusive practice and understanding of the need to take reasonable adjustment to take account of their special educational needs.
Priority 5
• Develop action plan for children with complex needs at or near the thresholds of Continuing Care within priority 5 (include multi agency meetings and regular dip sampling). • Evidence how improvements in the resolution processes (informal and formal escalation) have helped improve the child or young person’s circumstances. Provide data (e.g. number of occasions improvements have been made following reviews) alongside case studies which tell the story behind the data.
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