Vulnerable Learners Update

The new arrangements for admission into our state funded specialist provision and special schools are starting this month.

They provide a streamlined front door approach rather than the 45 different special school panels that have operated up until now. With the increase in resourced based specialist provisions in Warwickshire, it made sense to pull together the information about criteria and process in one place. All of our special schools including DIscovery Academy and the enhanced resource provisions are included. We hope you find the information about the criteria and process helpful. The county admission panel will meet monthly and you will find the terms of reference in the guidance.  Special school heads are involved as members on a rolling programme and we would welcome volunteers from mainstream schools, especially those with an ERP.

Please contact julieliggett@warwickshire.gov.uk if you would like to be on the rolling membership programme of this or any of the panels. We have found that this usually requires your involvement only two to three times a year.

A copy of the guidance was circulated to all headteachers at the end of last term by email and an electronic version will be available shortly on the SEND Local Offer website. 

Specialist Teaching Services

During 2015/16 commissioning reviews took place across our specialist teaching teams. The SEND reform programme, vulnerable learners strategy and pressures on funding in schools and the local authority drove the change. They ensure that the model of delivering SEND specialist teaching services to schools meets the needs of our population and settings, provides value for money and is evidence based.

This work identified that historic ways of organising support services in specialist silos are no longer fit for purpose. The capacity of settings, schools and their SENCOs have increased significantly, enabling them to meet the needs of a far greater proportion of children and young people in-house.  

External specialist teaching services, on the other hand, are called upon to meet the needs of those with more complex, overlapping conditions, regardless of whether there are diagnoses.  Structures need to be more flexible and the staff equipped to meet this more complex profile. SENCOs value specialist support for their strategic role in ensuring identification, assessment, provision mapping, staff training and coaching, evidencing outcomes is in place in the school.

To ensure the WES delivery model meets the needs of schools, we are seeking head teachers and or SENCOs to join a reference group to guide this work this term. To register an interest or to find out more please contact pattate@warwickshire.gov.uk

Ill Health Team

A report was brought to Schools Forum in December 2015 outlining the need to consider the funding for this team. This was in light of the fact that the team cannot meet its statutory duty with the current DSG funding.  In May 2016 Schools Forum supported the local authority’s preferred option in line with the approach taken by most LAs which was for recouping AWPU if provision was made for the pupil by the Ill Health team for a period exceeding 6 weeks. Thus invoicing the school where the pupil is on roll for the AWPU beyond this time.

There was also a recommendation to implement a pilot of a post-16 service, not as an alternative to the current arrangements but instead an additional service that schools could buy into if they wish to.

During the autumn term the Lead for Ill Health will be writing to all schools with details about the new invoicing arrangements which will commence in 2017.

SEND Training Programme, conferences and SENCO network meetings

The complete menu of events for 2016 -17 have been brought together in the brochure “Training courses for working with vulnerable learners”. These will be hand delivered by VL staff working in your schools in the next couple of weeks.

An electronic version with easy access to booking is available on the WES portal and in future will be in the SENCO section of the SEND Local Offer.