Special Educational Needs Strategy undergoes fourth re-write
In fact, there is an awful lot about inclusivity without any definition of what this is and how it is to be achieved.
The background to all of this is the new Children and Families Bill which will place a duty on the city council, working with the NHS, to provide education and healthcare plans to everyone aged 0 to 25 with SEND.
The assessment process to decide the level of a person’s SEND will be simplified and councils will be expected to personalise budgets, effectively handing cash to individuals and families to decide on the level of care to be provided.
It’s a radical change, and as the draft points out the funding arrangements for children with special needs are changing significantly. But it’s far from clear whether the authors of the draft have actually understood what is happening, judging by this sentence: “The level of funding required of mainstream schools is made explicit and top up funding which is determined according to an individual’s needs rather than by designation of the school.”
In amongst all of the rhetoric, however, there are two important policy points in the draft.
The first is the use, deliberate I suppose, of the word ‘choice’ when referring to the way parents can select a school for their children. The draft states there are “appropriate schools in every part of the city” which parents “can choose”.
This is very unusual, since education law generally refers for very good reason to “parental preferences” rather than choices. Parents may think they have the right to choose a school for their children but very quickly come unstuck upon discovering that they merely have the right to express a preference.
