Our single answer question forms have now closed
Answering the questions in the SEND Review is not straightforward. There are complicated issues to consider if you want to do it properly. Below we have ponder points that you can use to help you answer the consultation
Even though our single answer forms have closed, you can still answer the consultation on the main Department for Education website or email your responses to: SENDReview.CONSULTATION@EDUCATION.GOV.UK
A good idea is to:
- copy and paste the following prompts into the form below and add your answers under each one,
- copy and paste them into a notes app or word doc to answer, then paste the whole lot into the form below
So here is Question 13, as stated on the Government website:
- To what extent do you agree or disagree that this new vision for alternative provision will result in improved outcomes for children and young people? (Chapter 4)
To help you answer this, you can read the first part of our post here. However, we have also included tips from the post below.
What does this mean?
The DfE has big plans for alternative provision - that's not just the PRU, but includes hospital schools, EOTAS and other kinds of education provision not within the system. They include:
- Make alternative provision an “integral part of local SEND systems” requiring new local SEND partnerships to “plan and deliver an alternative provision service focused on early intervention”
- Stop funding following the pupil, so AP schools know what their budgets will be. The Green paper says this will help them "deliver a service focused on early intervention”
- Make all AP schools part of multi-academy trusts, delivering “evidence-led services based on best practice” plus open new alternative provision free schools “where they are most needed”
- Create a different “performance framework” (from mainstream expectations) with “robust standards focused on progress, re-integration into mainstream education or sustainable post-16 destinations”
- Make sure it’s clear where pupils are moving to and why they are moving including alternative provision.
- Investigate the use of unregistered provision which may include some used in EOTAS packages and by other home educators.
These are discussed in greater detail in our article on Chapter 4
Ponder Points:
- Are these proposals the right ones?
- Should it be a statutory requirement that a child should not be moved to AP without having a statutory assessment?
- How should nurture be used in mainstream as part of early intervention?
- What role should AP practitioners have in early intervention?
- Should “early intervention” and “alternative provision” even be used in the same sentence?
- Are these proposals giving academies an easy route for “managed moves” of “troublesome” pupils out of mainstream?
- How should the DfE regulate unregistered alternative provision?
- What other ideas do you have to overhaul AP?
- Why do some children need to have EOTAS packages (registered or unregistered?)
- Why is the focus on behaviour as the root problem, without acknowledgement of the cause of the behaviour?
- Why is the focus on managing the child’s behaviour, not meeting the child’s needs?
- Why is the focus on the responsibility of the child to improve, not on the setting to improve its early identification?
- Why is the focus on keeping the child in mainstream or AP instead of considering they may need a more nurturing or specialist environment?
- How will ‘strong behaviour cultures’ help children who have SEND? What evidence is there that blanket behavioural policies are appropriate and helpful for children with SEND?
- Who will decide what is in the best interests of the child when parental involvement doesn’t even get a mention.
- Where is the consideration of children with medical needs? Are they to be subjected to strong behaviour cultures too?
- Who are we confidently serving through this vision for AP and to what extent?
- Which young people are going to benefit; whose ‘best interests’ are being fulfilled?
- Is this about facilitating, ‘a calm, orderly, safe, and supportive school’ outlined in the White Paper for all children, or a legitimised way hive off the problematic child?
Go back to the main SEND Review Resources page to see all the questions
