We’re almost there, aren’t we!
It’s not long to go now before the end of the academic year for 2016/17. I know that some people working in the education sector are already starting to slow down, but I also know for others that this is the busiest time of the year; for example, with exams. (I have two daughters who are currently taking exams – one who is about half-way through her ‘O’ Levels/’GCSEs’ and another starting her ‘A’ Levels (it’s all very confusing though this year with new Grades). As I always say at this time of year, the next couple of months are the busiest time of the year for me every year, as I am helping with lots of cases/appeals to the Special Educational Needs & Disability (SEND) Tribunal, trying to get children and young people into appropriate school and college placements for this coming September. In this Update you will find sections entitled:
Don’t forget, to ensure that you never miss out on one, you can get my SEN updates personally by completing your email details below, using our App ‘SEN.fyi’, or by following me on one of the Social Media platforms that I use, at the bottom of this page. You can also easily share this update with others (please only do so if it may be relevant to them) by using one of the icons to the right of this page (if on a computer), at the top of this page (if on a mobile device), or on our 'SEN.fyi' App (by using the ‘share’ feature at the bottom of the page). HOW ARE WE DOING… (SEN STATS) When I said that ‘We’re Almost There!’ in the title of this update, it actually had a double-meaning to it, because this phrase not only applies to the end of the academic year, but it could also be said to apply to the change that we have been undertaking during the past few years to the new SEN framework with the introduction of the Children & Families Act 2014 and the ongoing requirement to transfer Statements of SEN to Education, Health & Care (EHC) Plans, by 1 April 2018. My anecdotal evidence, as I have said before, is varied. I do realise that often a parent only comes to see me when they are already having difficulties usually with their Local Authorities (LA), for failing to do things properly or to stick to legal timescales. Fortunately for me, at around this time of year, the Department for Education/Government usually produces their annual statistics and analysis about Statements and EHC Plans (most recently) in England. The latest version was issued on their website at the end of May 2017 and there are a number of different versions that you can find here. The webpage states: ‘This statistical first release (SFR) includes information on:
It is based on the statutory SEN2 data collection.’ I would mainly like to refer here to the last of these 4 bullet points by referring to the document entitled ‘SFR 22/2017’ which runs to just 4 pages. It makes for very interesting reading. However, I need to initially give you some background context as well. The opening section is entitled: ‘The total number of statements and EHC plans has continued to increase…’ and states as follows: 'There were 175,233 children and young people with statutory Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans and 112,057 children and young people with statements of special educational needs (SEN) maintained by local authorities as at January 2017. This gives a combined total of 287,290, an increase of 30,975 (12.1%) from 256,315 as at January 2016. The combined number of children and young people with statements and EHC plans has increased each year since 2010.’ Alongside this, the document has a graph/table dating back to 2010 which shows that, although there has was a year by year increase slightly on, initially Statements, and then, from 2015, EHC Plans, the most significant increase has been during the past year. The document then has a second (alongside another graph/table) with statements such as:
There then are 11 sections in the report dealing with things like:
There is also information about things like ‘Personal Budgets’ and ‘Mediation Cases’. However, I would like to concentrate here on the section entitled ‘Transfers from statements of SEN and learning difficulty assessments (LDAs) to EHC Plans’, which states as follows: ‘Timescales Transferring children and young people with statements and young people receiving support as a result of a learning difficulty assessment (LDA) to EHC plans will be phased. Timescales are set out in Special educational needs and disability: managing the September 2014 changes to the system. Every local authority has published a Local Transition Plan setting out the timings for transfers to the new system. There were 182,106 children and young people with statements as at January 2016. By January 2017, there were 59,545 children and young people transferred from statements to EHC plans; this is equal to 32.7% of the statements that were in place as at January 2016. By January 2017, 1,824 children and young people with statements were assessed and a decision was made not to issue an EHC plan. Between January 2016 and August 2016, there were 5,283 young people transferred from LDAs to EHC plans and 887 young people with LDAs assessed and a decision was made not to issue an EHC plan.’ I know that I have discussed the difficulties with transfers from Statements to EHC plans in my previous updates, but it does concern me to read that now, with less than a year to go until the legal deadline for children and young people to be transferred from statements to EHC Plans, we still seem to be not as far along as we should be? I do wonder whether people in the Department for Education/Government, are, metaphorically, ‘sticking their heads in the sand’, because it may be unrealistic to expect LAs to be able to properly transfer all of their statements to EHC Plans by next April 2018, without just rushing through things as ‘tick-box’ exercises, or just not being able to do them within legal timescales/in time. Is it just me that thinks like this? (If so, I apologise for taking up your time). I am sorry to go on about this issue, but it really does cause me some concern and, if not, it is only fair that I share my concerns with you. I guess we will just have to wait to see what happens… CAN THIS HELP YOU? (SEND BOOK) I was delighted to recently attend a book launch for ‘Special educational needs and disability discrimination in schools - a legal handbook’, written by Sarah Hannett, Aileen McColgan and Elizabeth Prochaska (who are all barristers at Matrix) and published by the Legal Action Group (LAG). It runs to 450 pages (including appendices) and concentrates on the new SEN framework brought about by the Children and Families Act in 2014 and talks in details about the legal requirements of EHC assessments & plans and other things such as school transport and appealing to the SEND Tribunal. LAG states: ‘The Children and Families Act 2014 introduced the biggest changes to the SEN legislative framework in over 30 years. Statements of SEN have been replaced by EHC plans to recognise that a child’s education, health and social needs should be viewed holistically and the framework now includes children and young people up to the age of 25. This practical guide covers the law and policy of SEN and disability discrimination in schools with detailed step-by-step guidance on the process for obtaining EHC plans and SEN appeals. Aimed primarily at the parents of children and young people with SEN, it is an accessible guide to the complex web of education legislation, policy and procedure. It will also be an invaluable resource for legal advisers, local authority SEN officers, teachers and professionals working in the field of education.’ I recommended it highly and can do better than to quote from the 5 out of 5 star Amazon review that I found online which states: ‘UNPICKING A TANGLED WEB: AN AUTHORITATIVE, EASY TO READ HANDBOOK FROM LAG ON A DIFFICULT AREA OF LAW Lawyers, teachers and other professionals dealing with children and young people with special educational needs will welcome this latest publication from the highly regarded Legal Action Group (LAG). True to their well-known stated aims, LAG continue to produce authoritative and meticulously researched legal texts and handbooks written by experts who actually insist that such publications should be clearly written and, ideally, understandable to lay readers as well as professionals. This new handbook is no exception. It deals with education law in the wake of the implementation of the Children and Families Act 2014, which, as far as this area of education law is concerned, has created a new legal landscape in which the ‘old’ concept of SEN, “Special Educational Needs”, in place under the Education Act 1996, has been replaced by EHC: education, health and care. Where formerly these three elements of support were dealt with separately -- compartmentalized in effect -- the concept of EHC recognizes that a child’s educational and health needs should be viewed holistically. Writing in the foreword, Tribunal Judge Jane McConnell refers to this conceptual shift as the biggest change in the legislative framework in over thirty years. The aim for local authorities (by 2018 it is hoped) will, in her words, ‘bring the process closer to the original goal of a child or young person being considered as a whole individual.’ As she further explains, the book is not intended as a simple guide to this area of practice. It is a legal handbook offering in-depth legal research and comment provided by three editors who are experts in this field. This is a reliable resource, she adds, which can be relied upon ‘to help you unpick what might be otherwise considered a tangled web of legal rights, policy and practice.’ The editors explain further that this is a book for representatives who appear on behalf of children and young people (to age 25) in the First Tier Tribunal (FTT). It meets an urgent need for a specialist text in this area of law -- one that’s as useful to parents as it is to specialist practitioners.’ So, if you or someone you know is professionally or personally involved with a child or young person with SEND, then I would urge you to purchase this and make it your ‘bible’. The book ordinarily retails for £45, I believe, but I see that on Amazon they are selling it in the paperback version for £38.43 and as a Kindle edition for £36.51 currently. Personally, I have already bought the paperback version and have also got hold of the Kindle edition as well! This is because I am still old school where I like to stick labels on to pages to look at later, but I also appreciate access to new technology with eBook versions, where I can instantly search and find a word or phrase, or have the text read out loud to me, which I can do on my Kindle or Kindle App for my phone/tablet/PC. I have also been in touch with the good people at LAG, who have kindly offered me a £10 discount to a special price of £35 for readers of my ‘SEN Updates’ and users of www.SpecialEducationalNeeds.co.uk if you order by 31 July 2017 using their flyer which you can find here. They have also put a sample chapter up on their website which is free of charge, which you can find here (it is chapter two and can be downloaded by clicking the sample chapter button). I know that the price of law texts are expensive, but this may be useful for you now, or in the future, and I know they have had also many sales of another legal handbook called: ‘Disabled Children’ through a number of parent forums and third sector groups. But for the lawyer and adviser market, I think that still remains very good value! FORTHCOMING SEN EVENTS In my last update I highlighted three events coming up, and I am glad to say that there is still enough time (just, in some) for you to attend one of these first two events below. I would recommend the following:
As I said in my last update, I hope to be at the Autism Show in London next week, so if you see me there, please stop me and say ‘hello’ if you can. (I have also found that the Centre for Child Mental Health run another 1 day event on mental health training for teachers which you can find on their website at www.childmentalhealthcentre.org). “THEY’RE THE ONLY ONES I COULD REACH!” As you may know, I have only been using a wheelchair for about 7 years now and, therefore, can often provide insights as both a non-disabled and disabled person. To end this update today, I would like to tell you a story about the day that I took possession of my electric wheelchair for the first time, which gave me a lot more independence (it is actually quite a strain to have to push yourself in a wheelchair, even for someone like me who considers himself to be quite physically fit!) I was quite excited to take possession of my electric wheelchair for the first time and to get some of my independence back again, so I decided to immediately go down to the local high street and visit Tesco to buy some flowers for my wife, Erica, something which I had not been able to do for a long while by then. So, I soon set off by myself along the pavement but, although I found a safe place to cross our road, from one pavement’s dropped kerb to one on the other side, I did not realise that I had forgotten to put on the anti-tip wheels at the back of my new chair (which are there, as they imply, to prevent you from tipping backwards). So, as I was about to roll up on to the other side (and unfortunately, as you may know from my previous updates, dropped kerbs are not always as flat as they should be), my chair tipped backwards and I immediately fell in the same way and out of my chair. Thankfully, I instinctively raised my head as I was falling, so that although I did knock my head going down, it was not as bad as it could have been. But then, to my embarrassment, I found myself the centre of attention and was helped by a number of people who came to my assistance and to find out if I was alright. They helpfully got me back into my wheelchair (I wanted to scurry away as quickly as possible, as I was a bit embarrassed, to be honest) and I carried on my with my mission to get to Tesco and buy Erica the flowers. I eventually got to Tesco and bought the flowers but then returned in my wheelchair trying to hold them without damaging them. I ultimately got back home where I presented them to Erica when she opened the door. Of course, with the intervening fall and my getting to learn how to operate the wheelchair and how to manoeuvre it, as well as time taken around Tesco (I’m afraid that since it was on my first time out by myself like this for a few years, I also took the opportunity to have a little look at other things along some of the aisles), so I only arrived back about an hour later. Erica immediately expressed some concern as to why I had taken so long. However, she saw the flowers in my hands which I then presented to her and so she immediately smiled at me and said: “These are nice; why did you buy these for me?” But exhaustedly I simply replied: “They’re the only ones I could reach!” With good wishes Douglas
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I always find it amazing how quickly the year always seems to go by!
For example, we are already now over two thirds of the way through the academic year and over one third through the chronological year (I’m afraid that I always think in academic years). In this Update you will find sections entitled:
As I always say, I know how busy everyone is, so please feel free to read just the sections that are of interest to you or read everything; the choice is always yours. Don’t forget, to ensure that you never miss out on one, you can get my SEN updates personally by completing your email details below, using our App ‘SEN.fyi’, or by following me on one of the Social Media platforms that I use, at the bottom of this page. You can also easily share this update with others (please only do so if it may be relevant to them) by using one of the icons to the right of this page (if on a computer), at the top of this page (if on a mobile device), or on our 'SEN.fyi' App (by using the ‘share’ feature at the bottom of the page). SEE, THEY LISTEN SOMETIMES (HEALTH/CARE RECOMMENDATIONS) You may recall from one of my earlier updates, that the SEND Tribunal has undertaken a pilot project in recent years in 17 Local Authority (LA) areas where, when making educational decisions, it could also then make recommendations in relation to health and social care sections of Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans. Well, following the publication of a report entitled: ‘Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, Discrimination Resolution Arrangements in England’ published on 29th March 2017, following research undertaken by the Centre for Educational Development, Appraisal and Research (CEDAR), the Government has decided to now extend the powers of the SEND Tribunal Pilot for a 2-year national trial (in England only I’m afraid). The Report itself runs to over 300 pages but the Government's response paper is just 30 pages and is split into 8 sections covering, amongst other things, ‘EHC needs assessment and plan development processes’, ‘mediation’, ‘disagreement resolution services’ and ‘appeals to the First-tier Tribunal (SEND)’. Just in case you do not have time to read it through yourself the first section is entitled: ‘Executive Summary’ and says: ‘The CEDAR Review had 6 objectives:
(Do you, like me, only count 5 objectives?) The Report goes on to state: 'Evidence suggests that where local areas have a person-centred approach (Information, Advice and Support Services) (IASS), this helps to reduce the number of disagreements and resolves them early. Evidence also suggests that mediation is effective in reducing the number of appeals to the First-tier Tribunal SEND and overall costs, especially to families. Evidence on the pilot enabling the First-tier Tribunal SEND to consider health and social care issues and make non-binding recommendations is limited, but early findings suggest that a Tribunal power improves joint working between education, health and social care partners. This Review also highlights issues with the varied LA implementation of the SEND reforms, variation in IASS, accessibility, lower usage of Disagreement Resolution Services (DRS), variation in the quality of SEND mediation and, in some cases, ineffective local complaint procedures.’ The Government then sets out its response as follows: ‘We are already providing financial and practical help to local areas to implement the SEND reforms. In addition to these, this Report sets out new steps we intend to take, including:
I couldn’t find too much information about the response to the Government’s announcement on the internet, although I did come across a news briefing from the National Autistic Society (NAS) which stated that: ‘This announcement of a national trial for the next 2 years is a step in the right direction.’ I also came across one from the Council for Disabled Children (CDC) which pointed out that of the 40,952 decision[s] from 109 local authorities, only 7% were appealed.’ It also added: ‘where families did raise complaints the top 3 main concerns reported by interviewees were; complaints being ignored, complaints taking too long, and responses that did not help put right the issue complained about.’ Speaking for myself, I also believe that this is a step in the right direction. It is very important to always look holistically at a child or a young person when deciding about their placement/provision and this should not only be restricted to looking at things through the prism of education, but should also see things in terms of health and social care. See, they listen sometimes … LET’S GO OVER THAT AGAIN, SHALL WE? (SEN LAW) It is hard to keep up with SEN law isn’t it? Even I, as someone who only practises in this area of law, find it hard sometimes to keep up with everything that is going on. Well, I am glad to say that both my and many people’s life has just been made easier. This is because, my good friend (both professionally and personally), the barrister, David Wolfe Q.C. (of Matrix) ably assisted this time by another barrister, Leon Glenister (of Landmark), has kindly allowed us to (again) reproduce their detailed analysis of SEN caselaw on our website called: ‘Special Educational Needs (and a bit more) (The Noddy Guide)’. It was launched in March 2017 and could be only downloaded as a PDF version previously. However, I am pleased to say that, with the assistance from one of my team (George Carey) I have now managed to put a copy of the text of everything also on our website, now also with hyperlinks on it to many of the written judgments in the cases referred to, which allows you to easily find that case that their analysis is talking about. You can find it here: ‘Special Educational Needs (and a bit more) (The Noddy Guide)’ (Please note though that the law is constantly changing as a result of new cases bringing brought so always bear in mind that the position may have changed by the time you read it). DON’T KEEP IT TO YOURSELF (SEN.fyi APP SHARING FEATURE) You may recall that in my Autumn ‘SEN Update’ in September 2016, I launched a (free) App called ‘SEN.fyi’, which has 6 sections entitled:
The section was entitled ‘There’s an App for That!’ In my Autumn (Half) Term update, I also highlighted the ‘News’ section entitled: ‘When I Need You’. Well, in this ‘SEN Update’, I want to highlight another feature that you may need, but which is a bit hidden, I’m afraid, but extremely useful. In addition to the six sections which I have referred to above, there is also a section (on the ‘Home;’ page) entitled ‘Alerts’, which is basically a sort of ‘timeline’ feature where it collects everything together that has been added to the App in chronological order (mainly ‘News’). You can then easily search through everything and also filter it. This means that you can see everything and ‘favourite’ what is of interest to you (by putting a highlight on each thing you need to), or only look at the things that you have not seen yet (you can even look at the things you may have already deleted, if you do like I do and sometimes delete things that you want to go back to!) Most importantly though, there is an arrow next to each bit of information which allows you to easily ‘share’ with other people any information that you have come across which may interest them (e.g. via email, text, other messaging applications, or like me, just easily record it for myself as a note, in my task/applications or, because I have a visual impairment, send it to one of the text-to speech applications that I use on my phone, so that I can listen to the information easily. I must say that I find this feature extremely useful, especially as I am constantly very busy and can therefore just favourite things I come across and store them so that I can read them later. Hopefully, you will find this useful. So if you have not already already done so, please download SEN.fyi (for free) through the Apple or Android stores by clicking on the relevant image below. As always, I would be very grateful if you would not only download it for yourself, but also recommend it to others whom you think may benefit from having it. Remember, it’s free! RECENT/FORTHCOMING SEN EVENTS In my last update I highlighted three events coming up, two of which have already passed, including the SEN Education Law and Practice Conference 2017 from Lexis Nexis (where I spoke) and the forthcoming 2017. At the Lexis event (commonly still referred to as ‘Jordans’) there were also presentations from others, including David Wolfe Q.C. about recent caselaw. In terms of forthcoming SEN events, this is the time of year when I remind people of the following:
I hope to be at the Autism Show in London, so if you see me there, please stop me and say ‘hello’ if you can. UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS I want to end this ‘SEN Update’ by telling you about something that happened to me once as a physically disabled person, which I believe illustrates the sense of frustration I feel sometimes in a very real way. It is simply about my just going up and down the stairs. I live with my family in a regular semi-detached home, with an upstairs and a downstairs. I sometimes work at home by myself when no-one else is home. Once, I was working upstairs by myself in my study with no one else in the house, but then heard the doorbell ring unexpectedly. Although I use a wheelchair most of the time, I still can ‘furniture-walk’ around my home (by holding onto things and passing from one thing supporting me to another (like ‘Tarzan’ swinging from vine to vine!). I therefore rose very slowly from my chair and carefully walked my way to the door of the study, across our landing, down the flights of stairs (being very careful to not fall, by holding the bannister and a rail put up on the wall-side). After reaching the bottom, I then manoeuvred my way a few paces through the hall and eventually reached and opened the front door. But when I opened it, there was now no one there! I still looked outside both ways, as best I could (remember I have a visual impairment), to see if I could spot the person who had just rung the doorbell, as they were perhaps still nearby, but I couldn’t see anyone. So, after a few minutes, I closed the door and slowly made my way up the stairs again and back to my study and sat myself down ready to work again. However, as soon as I did so, the doorbell rang again. I therefore had to get up again and slowly do everything one again that I have just described, in order to go all the way downstairs once more to open the door. But, you’ve guessed it, when I got there, I again found that there was nobody there, so I therefore had to make my way up again. And you probably won’t believe this but, as soon as I got back to my study and sat down again at my desk, the same thing happened once again just as I sat down (i.e. the doorbell rang). Fortunately, this time, by the time I got downstairs, (I was totally exhausted by this stage) and opened the door I found there to be someone there. But they were just someone trying to sell things door to door, which I wasn’t interested in. They had probably been knocking on the doors of other houses in the street and speaking to people, when I opened the door, so I had not seen them, but they had then spotted that I was ‘home’ and made their way back to try again, but then found that the door wasn’t opened, so made their way to the door of another house in the street, where I couldn’t see them when I opened the door and looked out, but they had seen me again and came back for another go. If only I’d have known though that it was just someone trying to sell me something that I didn’t need in the first place when the doorbell rang the first time, I probably wouldn’t have bothered to try and answer the door. I am glad to say though now that I have learned my lesson from this and now try to always switch the downstairs lights on and off from the upstairs switch to indicate to a person outside that there is someone in the house so that they will wait. But I’m afraid that, this still does not always work, so I am now hoping to install a doorbell that will allow me to answer and speak to the person through my phone. Talk about frustrating! With best wishes Douglas Firstly, as I always like to say at this time of year, for those of us who work in the academic world, we are now just past the half-way point of the year.
In this update, you find sections entitled:
As I also always say, I know how busy everyone is, so please feel free to read just the sections that are of interest to you or read everything; the choice is always yours. Don’t forget, to ensure that you never miss out on one, you can get my SEN updates personally by completing your email details below, using our App ‘SEN.fyi’, or by following me on one of the Social Media platforms that I use, at the bottom of this page. You can also easily share this update with others (please only do so if it may be relevant to them) by using one of the icons to the right of this page (if on a computer), at the top of this page (if on a mobile device), or on our 'SEN.fyi' App (by using the ‘share’ feature at the bottom of the page). IT’S MY RIGHT TO BE WRONG (CAPACITY ISSUES) I have increasingly noticed over the past few years that many people (some of whom I thought would know better) seem to have a hard time coming to terms with the issue of young people with SEN having the mental capacity and ability to make decisions about their own lives. Please do not get me wrong, mental capacity has always been a major cause for concern where young people with SEN are the subject, but the law states clearly that there is always an assumption of capacity for them, unless all practical steps have been taken to help them, without success. Importantly, there is also a difference between someone having no capacity and them making unwise decisions. In essence, if someone is deemed to have capacity, they have the legal right to make a decision, even if you or I think that they are making the wrong choice. For example, just because a young person with SEN makes a decision, which their parents or others may not have made, this does not automatically mean that they lack capacity. Obviously, in some situations, a young person with SEN (perhaps with Severe Learning Difficulties) may not have capacity, but in other cases, it may not be so clear-cut. This was very much brought home to me recently, when I attended a workshop on mental capacity run by the Council for Disabled Children (CDC) at the end of January 2017 (more about which I refer to below). The person running the workshop pointed out to us that mental capacity also means having the ability to make a single decision at a single time. She also said that time constraints in life when growing up can sometimes mean that young people with SEN may not have had the same experiences of making decisions as other young people, even simple decisions such as what to wear, what to eat, etc. It was highlighted to us that even simple everyday decisions that we need to take can sometimes actually be quite complex when they are broken down into their component parts or steps; and our decisions are usually based on past experiences of what works/does not work, including any mistakes that we have made, but that we have been able to learn from. She stressed that we should presume that everyone can make their own decisions, unless it is proved otherwise. Young people with SEN are not to be judged as incapable of making a decision unless all practical steps have been taken to help them to do so, without success. Finally, it was said that when it comes to deciding whether or not someone has capacity, it is really a functional test on how a decision is made. The focus should not be on the consequences of that decision. One thing I gained from the workshop that really struck home for me was an understanding that we should give young people with SEN the chance to build up their resilience in life, by allowing them to take risks and make mistakes sometimes. This was also brilliantly demonstrated to us through the session also being an interactive one, where role play was used with the assistance of a drama group, which included a young person with SEN and her mother (who did not have SEN). I would highly encourage people to see this workshop for themselves if they get the chance; I believe it is a workshop that is also given around the country by CDC. Even though I have experience professionally of dealing with capacity issues, it was very interesting for me to see things from a different perspective. I was so taken by this that when I came home that evening, over dinner, I discussed the capacity issue with my 18 year old daughter, Tali (who does not have SEN). All of my three children (or should I say young people now) are in their late teens currently. I explained to Tali in detail the scenario that had been demonstrated to us by the drama group, where an 18 year old young woman with SEN had wanted to do a particular course of study at college that was different to the one that her mother wanted her to do (she wanted to do a course on hairdressing, but her mother wanted her to do business studies). The young woman also wanted to go to a party that weekend with her 17 year old sister (who did not have SEN) and get drunk. Although her mother was dead set against both ideas for her at first, but did not seem too perturbed about her sister going out and getting drunk (remember the sister was still under 18, but the young woman with SEN was already 18). It was only when the dispute between the mother and the daughter was mediated by a third party that the young woman with SEN clearly demonstrated to her mother that she had actually carefully thought out all of the implications of both decisions and how to deal with them (e.g. wanting to do a job which she enjoyed and also the fact that she would know that she could suffer through drinking, had made arrangements to get home, etc). We eventually saw her mother come round and accept she should allow her to do these things - she even reminded herself that she was also young once! But I was then very surprised when my daughter (remember, although I have been advocating for children and young people’s rights for many years, to my children I am just a ‘grumpy old dad’!) said that the mother was right to try and impose her will on her daughter as she had SEN and was therefore vulnerable, even though I pointed out that the young woman with SEN was already 18 (the same age as my daughter) and stressed that, objectively, she did seem to have the capacity to make her own decisions, even if they seemed mistaken. Strange, but true! It is very interesting when tables seem to be turned like this and it is actually your own teenage daughter who seems to be more overprotective towards a young person with SEN than you are. I had to stress a number of times the fact that it was only by being allowed to make these decisions that a young person (even with SEN) would be able to build up resilience and be able to learn from their own mistakes. I even pointed out that by effectively ‘wrapping her up in cotton wool’, we could be actually doing the young woman with SEN a disservice in the long run. There is probably not very much more for me to say about this issue, but I believe it is important for me to raise it here with you, as I feel it is quite thought-provoking. I would also just say that it may be very interesting if, during the next few days or weeks, you have this same kind of conversation with various family members (especially teenage children) and/or friends or colleagues, to see what their responses are. Remember, it is a right to be wrong sometimes. GOT A STORY TO TELL? (THE LENEHAN INQUIRY) The CDC conference was chaired by their Director, Dame Christine Lenehan, who has recently completed a review into the care of children with learning disabilities, entitled ‘These Are Our Children’, where she was asked by the Department of Health to take a strategic overview and recommend practical action that can be taken to coordinate care, support and treatment for children and young people with complex needs and behaviours involving mental health problems and learning disabilities and/or autism. Dame Lenehan’s report makes 11 recommendations for Government departments and partners at a national level on how to improve the system. The report runs to 37 pages and, if this is something that concerns you, I would encourage you to read it for yourselves here: ‘These Are Our Children’ However, during the conference, hot off the press, Dame Lenehan also announced that she had also just been asked by the Government to lead a further independent review into the experiences and outcomes of children and young people in residential special schools and colleges, which would report back this summer (2017). As she said in a letter that was handed out to all delegates: ‘These children and young people are some of the most vulnerable in the country’ and ‘the review will recommend the practical action that government departments and other agencies can take to support positive experiences and outcomes for these children and young people.’ At the end of her letter she said that, to ensure her review was informed by as wide a range of views as possible, she was launching a ‘Call For Evidence’ and wanted to hear from a range of people, including those working in residential special schools and colleges, children and young people attending residential special schools and colleges and their parents & carers, and children, young people and adults who have left residential special schools and colleges. She also said that she wants to hear from local authorities, representative bodies across the sector, and academics with an interest in this area. I know that my SEN updates are read by a very wide assortment of people, from parents and carers of children and young people with SEN (and those representing them), as well those working in education, health or care areas. I therefore strongly encourage people to send their stories/views to Dame Lenehan at [email protected] (by 17 March 2017). You can find out more information here. CRISIS, WHAT CRISIS? (FUNDING DIFFICULTIES) Unless you have been living in an alternative universe, or have not been watching or listening to the news of late, you cannot have failed to notice that there is now widespread concern about funding difficulties for the NHS and local authorities, which are having a severe impact on their services. Many people are calling it a ‘crisis’. This is something that really bothers me because, although I sincerely believe that appropriate specialist provision should be made for children and young people with SEN or disabilities, it would be unrealistic of me to not also take into account that this is sometimes quite complex and involve expensive provision, which will sometimes have an impact on the financial ability of services to be provided for other children and young people. That being said, I am often astounded by how money is sometimes wasted, or at least not used as efficiently as it perhaps could be, especially as some disputes could be resolved at a much earlier stage through collaboration or ‘Working Together’; for example, between parents and carers (and those representing them) and professionals (and those representing them), or between different services (like local authorities and the NHS). It also uneases me when people only seem to take a short-term view of things, rather than more of a long-term view (e.g. more provision now may be more costly now, but less costly in the long term, whereas less provision now may be less costly now but more costly later [e.g. the cost of adult social care or welfare benefits]). But I also appreciate that budgets are often set for a financial year (from April to March) and we need to consider realistic situations, not just hypothetical ones. To be honest, I do not think that there is a ‘right’ answer to all of this that will satisfy everyone. What I think we all have to acknowledge though, is the fact that our public services are under great strain at the moment, so I think it is even more important for all of us to try to appreciate the difficulties being faced by ‘the other side’, whether that be parents and carers to professionals, or professionals to parents and carers. I also know that saying something like this, is often much easier than actually doing it, but I really do feel that the sooner we all accept that we are all in this together (where have I heard that before!), the sooner we can try to find a way to get through all of this successfully. RECENT/FORTHCOMING SEN EVENTS As I have already referred to above, I attended a Council for Disabled Children (CDC) conference in January 2017, entitled: ‘SEND: New Challenges, New Opportunities’. We heard from a selection of speakers including, amongst others, people from the Department for Education, from NHS England, from the SEND Tribunal, and from Ofsted/the Care Quality Commission (CQC). It is always interesting for me to hear perspectives and information by people from other disciplines, such as health and care, rather than only from the area which I know best (i.e. education). I am also grateful to CDC for letting me/all delegates have a ‘goody bag’ to take away, which included a number of resources they had produced, including guides to relevant issues and examples of good practice. In terms of forthcoming SEN events, this is the time of year when I remind people about the following events coming up:
As seems usual now, I will again be speaking this year at the Jordan’s Conference. My presentation this year is entitled ‘All That Glitters Is Not Gold’ and I am using it as a chance for me to help people take stock of where we are, now we are well over halfway through the transition from the old SEN framework to the new SEN framework (which began in September 2014 and is due to be completed by April 2018). If you are at one of these events and see me, please say ‘hello’ if you can. WHEN YOUR WORLD TURNS UPSIDE DOWN Although I was only formally diagnosed with having a physical disability myself (Cerebellar Ataxia) about 13 years ago, when I was 37 years old (yes, I am now 50!), I only started having to use a wheelchair to get around about seven years ago. As I had no experience of knowing how best to use a manual wheelchair and there did not seem to be any training available to me (e.g. I had not been in an accident, so was not in a hospital where help may have been made available to me), I used my professional knowledge of helping children with disabilities to try and help myself. I was very fortunate to meet someone called Roy Wild and be allowed to join one of the training sessions (over two days) run by his organisation called Go Kids Go! (formerly known as the Association of Wheelchair Children). They kindly allowed me to come on one of their two day courses for children, even though I was an adult! I remember the course fondly. There were only about 10 of us there and, as you can probably guess, the other nine participants were children - either disabled children who also needed to learn how to use a wheelchair for the first time like me, or siblings who also needed to understand how to use a wheelchair, so that they could help them if they needed to. It was quite an intensive two days during which we learned many things, such as:
and even
I have many stories I could recount for you, but here are just two… I vividly remember lunchtime on the first day. I thought that I would be able to take a nap in a quiet corner (my condition causes me fatigue). I was quickly woken up by one of the children who said that they wanted to play wheelchair rugby, but were one short and wanted me to join them and make up the numbers. I have never played something so dangerous before though! They all seemed more than happy to crash their wheelchairs into one another in order to get hold of the ball, so that they could try and score in their opponent’s goal. I came away with the backs of my hands cut and bleeding – it was that dangerous! However, the most memorable thing for me was learning how we should react to avoid a head injury if we fell backwards in our wheelchair. On the morning of the first day, our trainer (a physiotherapist called Owen McGhee) gently explained to us that he would soon approach each one of us in turn and gently lower us backwards in our wheelchairs. He told us that, as soon as we felt our sense of gravity change, we should lift our heads up/forward, so that when the chair fell backwards to the floor, we would not hit our heads on the ground, which could cause us concussion. Owen subsequently did this to us all one by one and I remember my turn being gently pulled over backwards, lifting my head when I felt my centre of gravity change and then eventually seeing the world upside down. That afternoon of the first day, he said that he was going to do the same thing to us again, but quicker this time. On the morning of the second day, he again explained to us that he would be pulling us backwards again and he did it quicker still. I didn’t know what to expect, but we all started to somehow react more quickly. Then, on the last afternoon, I remember quietly sitting in my wheelchair waiting for the next session to begin, when I suddenly felt myself being tipped backwards without any warning. I now almost instinctively lifted my head up, as I felt the back of my chair crash to the ground and roll me out. The last thing that I remember was me seeing everything upside down and Owen’s legs walking away from me. I didn’t see that one coming! With best wishes Douglas Firstly, let me say Happy New Year and wish you a good and peaceful 2017.
This is my first update for the chronological year 2017 - in this update, you find sections entitled:
As I always say, I know how busy everyone is, so please feel free to either just read the sections that are of interest to you or read everything; the choice is always yours. Don’t forget, to ensure that you never miss out on one, you can get my SEN updates personally by completing your email details below, using our App ‘SEN.fyi’, or by following me on one of the Social Media platforms that I use at the bottom of this page. You can also easily share this update with others (please only do so if it may be relevant to them) by using one of the icons to the right of this page (if on a computer), at the top of this page (if on a mobile device), or on our 'SEN.fyi' App (by using the ‘share’ feature at the bottom of the page). WE’RE WATCHING YOU (JOINT OFSTED/CQC INSPECTIONS) From April last year, Ofsted and CQC (the Care Quality Commission) now jointly inspect local areas, to see how well they are fulfilling their responsibilities to children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). This was following the Government issuing a document entitled: ‘The Framework for the Inspection of Local Areas’ Effectiveness in Identifying and Meeting the Needs of Children and Young People Who Have Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities’. It is a fairly short document, running to just 12 pages and, aside from explaining about ‘Inspections of Local Areas and Providers’, it also explains other things, including chapters entitled: ‘The Purpose of Inspections’, ‘The Focus of Inspections’ and ‘Conduct During Inspections’. It states that: “The inspection leads to a published report that:
It adds: “It is important to note that these inspections will evaluate how effectively the local area meets its responsibilities, and not just the local authority. The local area includes the local authority, clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), public health, NHS England for specialist services, early year’s settings, schools and further education providers.” During an inspection, inspectors are supposed to visit providers (e.g. nurseries, schools, colleges and specialist services, such as Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services [CAMHS]). Inspections are supposed to be constructive for local areas, as well as to be able to hold them to account. Inspectors will provide a ‘Written Statement Of Action’ if they find that something is ‘not fit for purpose’, which will make recommendations as to how to improve things. The local area should then make these changes. Things that inspections look at include (this is not an exhaustive list):
One of the things that inspections focus on are how well the local area communicates with children & young people and their parents or carers, to ensure that these primary users are clear about the identification and assessment process and the criteria used to make decisions. In my last update for Autumn (Half) Term 2016/17, which was published on 4th November 2016, I explained how the day before I had attended a conference held by the Westminster Education Forum entitled: ‘Policy priorities for SEND - implementing local area inspections, raising educational outcomes and extending support for families’. There were two main sessions. The first session was a joint presentation entitled ‘Implementing the new joint Ofsted-CQC local area inspections’, which was given by Joanna Hall, from Ofsted/HMI and Nigel Thompson, from the CQC. They both made it clear to the audience that they want to get as many people involved as possible when inspecting areas, because they want to look at the way people work together to improve outcomes as they want everyone now to work in partnership. (They also made the point that they were not inspecting individual institutions) I understand that there have so far been 13 reports issued thus far (as of 13th December 2016), but you can find out more here. WORD ON THE STREET (LEE SCOTT REPORT) Which leads me on nicely to this section. I know that many years ago there was widespread media attention over the publication of the Scott report (about the Government selling arms to Iraq), but there was also another lesser-publicised Scott report published last year (by the Government) written by Lee Scott, published in November 2016, entitled: ‘SEND: The Schools and Colleges Experience (A Report to the Secretary of State for Education)’. This was also a short report, running to just 13 pages. In his introduction, Lee Scott (an ex-MP and well-known advocate about SEND for many years) said that he had spent 2½ months speaking to parents, young people, schools and colleges and had also met with a range of individuals who provide services and support directly to families. He stated: ‘It is important that this report is seen clearly for what it is. I have not undertaken a long-term, scientific study of the national landscape, nor can I claim that I have heard from a representative sample of parents and young people. Discussion did not follow a set structure, but was deliberately open to allow people to express themselves without constraint, which I believe helped to ensure that what I heard was frank and real. The nature of the work that I did, and the time I was able to devote to it, necessarily meant I had to rely on a limited sample. That said, it was apparent that some of the same themes arose in a number of discussions and written representations I received, and my report focuses on these.’ His key themes covered ‘Communication’,’ The Right Level Of Support’, ‘Funding’, ‘Legislation’, ‘The Voluntary And Community Sector’, ‘The Link Between Education And Health’, and ‘Age 19 Upwards’. The best summary that I could find was on the Council for Disabled Children (CDC) website, which stated: ‘Lee Scott has years of experience working with young people with SEND and has been an advocate for disability campaigns, including the UK Autism Foundation. His fieldwork put him in touch with more than 200 parents and young people. In summary, his findings were:
When reading the report myself, I was most struck by what Scott said about ‘Communication’, so I have quoted some of it here, as follows: ‘Communication I think this lies at the heart of things. I was pleased to hear several examples of families who had had good experiences of the system. A common theme was that, when families were properly engaged, this often led to trust and understanding. Where that was achieved, the quality of support for children and young people was higher, and families had a more realistic understanding of what a school, college, or local authority could provide. In some ways, this is even more important for children and young people with SEND who did not have Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans. For those children and young people, who are on SEN support (i.e. support provided by schools and colleges where needs are not severe enough to warrant an EHC plan) sometimes it’s less clear what the child’s or young people’s needs are, or schools and colleges may not always identify and understand their needs in the same way their parents do. Communication works both ways – it’s not just about being nice to each other, it’s about being clear, honest, and assertive. It’s also about empathy – something that isn’t always easy to achieve, if, for example, you’ve had no personal experience of caring for a child with SEND, or if you have little understanding of the issues faced by children who are adopted and their parents. … The fact that some people are getting this right means that it’s possible for others too. It’s not really about funding – it’s about culture and systems. It would be good to find ways of capturing and replicating good practice in this area. I also feel that it’s important that the government, and other leadership agencies, continue to send out strong messages about the importance of good communication with families. Improvement in this area, across all agencies and in every area, would go a long way to making a reality of the ‘person- centred’ approach the SEND system is trying to achieve. It has the power to be transformative.’ The report has received both praise and criticism. For example, the Council for Disabled Children (CDC) said: ‘This is a useful addition to the information we have about the lives of children and their families and the recommendations should be taken seriously.’ However, I also read one criticism, which stated: “Anyone who thinks that dialogue alone is now the way to resolve our problems should reconsider, in the same terms with which Oscar Wilde viewed marriage: if the Children and Families Act was the triumph of imagination over intelligence, the Code of Practice is the triumph of hope over experience” ADLZ Insight Blog For my part, I see this new SEND framework (can I call it ‘new’ still, given that we are now in 2017 and it came into force in September 2014?), as still a ‘Work In Progress’… JOIN MY TEAM (SOLICITOR VACANCY) People often compliment me about the fact that I always keep a very dedicated team around me, albeit a small one - by choice, as I like to keep it that way, as it allows me to continue to provide a highly personal and specialised service to people. I am hoping this year to add another solicitor to my team to help me with our ever increasing, exciting and varied casework. This will be a fantastic opportunity for someone with ambition who wants to develop their potential and will ideally suit someone who has already worked for one or two firms (maybe in other areas of law), but who now wishes to settle at our firm for the long-term and develop a name for themselves in our highly specialist area of law. If you, or somebody you know, may be a suitable candidate then I would be pleased to hear from you or them. I have listed on our Vacancy Page the skills that are required, together with other details. Many thanks. RECENT/FORTHCOMING SEN EVENTS I have discussed above the topic of ‘Inspections’ that was raised at the Westminster Education Forum in early November 2016; but, at the end of November, as I was at a hearing that day, a colleague of mine attended the annual Education Law Conference, run by 11KBW, a set of Barrister’s Chambers. I understand that one part of the conference focused on SEND issues and I believe that there was discussion at one point about whether or not it was right for EHC plans for 19-25 year olds to be allowed to overlap issues of education with social care, particularly for young people with learning difficulties in care who may seem to fall into both categories. I am not going to spend time here expanding on this, as I was not there personally; but I am sure that this is an issue for many people coming at it from differing perspectives and therefore I just wanted to mention it here. In terms of forthcoming SEN events, the only things that I have noticed coming up in the next couple of months are the:
I will be speaking again this year for Jordans (for the 13th time!) so if you are there, or at the CDC conference in Leeds, and see me, please stop by and say ‘hello’ if you can. TWO HEADS ARE BETTER THAN ONE In November 2016, I successfully completed my 7th annual 5-day international bike ride to raise funds for Norwood, a charity that supports children and young people with disabilities, using my specially modified recumbent trike. As you probably already know, I have a degenerative, neurological condition (Cerebellar Ataxia). Five years ago, my life was changed, as with my friends, Paul (Tuhrim) and Stephen (Harrison), to support me, I went on my first (and I thought last) international bike ride across southern Israel. Since then, I have cycled with (various flavours of) ‘Team Douglas’ across Sri Lanka, Madagascar and Israel (twice) and then twice more across Israel with my son, Zachi; something that I never dreamed of. By doing this, we have now raised well over £150,000 for Norwood. This time we (including Zachi) cycled across northern Israel again, up the steep climbs of Golan Heights, over Mount Tabor and across the spectacular mountain pass from Ein Herod to Nordia. But this time was a very special ride for me as, not only did I do it again with Zachi, but I was joined this time also by my friend Sam (Cohen), who also has a degenerative condition called Usher Syndrome. This means that Sam was born with partial-hearing, but has progressively also lost all of his sight over the years, so that he is now totally blind. Imagine cycling blindfolded on the back of a tandem controlled by someone else, but also having a pair of earplugs in so you can’t hear very well. Frightening, isn’t it? It took a little while for us to convince Sam that he could and should do this ride (he cycled with another friend of ours called Ashley [Fulton]). I warned him from the start that it would be one of the best experiences that he would ever have in life and that, once he had done it, his life would never be the same again. Well, I can happily confirm to you now that, having seen it with my own eyes, Sam’s life has been totally transformed, first in the few months leading up to the ride, then the week of the ride itself. Although there is no doubting the effort he put in, the sense of achievement it gave him and the great week he had, for me, one of the nicest things was that, as a surprise, Paul and Stephen also flew Sam’s wife out to see him come in at the end. In fact, Sam has now got a very busy social life, going to the gym and also ‘Spinning’ classes every week; he is now even signed up and preparing to run a half-marathon next year, tethered to Stephen! As I put it at the end of our fundraising page, this time entitled ‘Team Sam and Douglas’: “Two teams, two disabilities, two people on two bikes … This time we are making twice the effort!” So you see, it’s better when you do it twice… With best wishes Douglas This is my last update for 2016 (the chronological year, not the academic year), so you will not now hear from me again until the Spring Term 2016/17.
In this SEN Update, you find sections entitled:
As I always say, I know how busy everyone is, so please feel free to read just the sections that are of interest to you or read everything; the choice is always yours. Don’t forget, to ensure that you never miss out, you can get my SEN updates by completing your email details below, reading it on our ‘SEN.fyi’ App, or by following me on one of the Social Media platforms that I use, which are at the bottom of this page. You can also easily share this update with others (please only do so if it may be relevant to them), by using one of the icons to the right of this page (if on a computer), at the top of this page (if on a mobile device), or on our 'SEN.fyi' App (by using the ‘Share’ feature at the bottom of the page). CH, CH, CH, CHANGES (ASSESSMENT LEVELS) If you work in a school or are otherwise involved in education (as a parent or professional), you will probably be aware that over the past couple of years there have been a number of changes to assessment levels. There were a number of changes during the 2014/15 and 2015/16 academic years, with the ultimate aim of there no longer being any National Curriculum levels and schools being responsible for determining their own broad and balanced curriculum. The idea was to slim down the framework for schools to be allowed to assess pupils’ achievement levels in a more personalised and localised way. Unfortunately, there were also a number of common misconceptions about the activities that schools were now required to undertake. Helpfully, the Department of Education (‘DfE’) prepared a document entitled ‘Running a School: Myths and Facts’ which was released in September 2015, which you can find in full for yourself, but the point was made that national tests and teacher assessments in 2015/16 would be the last time National Curriculum levels were reported. Fast forward to now, a year or so later, as the point of this section of my update is not to look at past changes, but to look at potential future changes to assessment levels, particularly for those children with SEN who may fall below more standard levels. As some of you will already know, the Government recently held a review (The Rochford Review) chaired by Diane Rochford, the Executive Headteacher of John F Kennedy Academy in Newham, to look at statutory assessment arrangements for pupils working below standard National Curriculum levels. The aim of the review, as set out by the DfE, was stated as: “The review group brought together expertise in assessment, special educational needs and working with disadvantaged pupils. The purpose was to advise the Minister of State for Schools on solutions for assessing the abilities of pupils who don’t meet the standards required to take the national curriculum tests.” Last month (October 2015), the review group set out its recommendations in a final report (in December 2015, the review group had already published recommendations for an interim statutory solution at pre-Key Stage 1 and 2, following consultation with representative stakeholders, which schools had used as an interim statutory solution in 2016 to assess pupils working below the standard of National Curriculum tests and above the Performance scales (‘P scales’)). However, I know that many people will just want to have a quick summary of the review’s findings/recommendations, so I did a little searching around on your behalf and found an article on the SchoolsWeek website that I think neatly summarises things. Their summary states as follows: “Taking account of views from Ofsted, Ofqual, the National Network of Parent Carer Forums and the Council for Disabled Children, and 1,700 responses from an online survey, the report makes the following 10 recommendations: 1. The statutory requirement to assess SEN pupils using P scales should be removed. P scales were “designed to sit alongside, and complement, the old national curriculum, which was significantly different to the new one”. As such, 78 per cent of online respondents felt the P levels were no longer fit for purpose (although 32 per cent thought they should be revised against only 21 per cent who wanted a new framework – see recommendation 2.) The report said there were “serious concerns” that many schools were using P scales as a curriculum, instead of as an assessment tool, thereby making activities too narrow. 2. The interim pre-key stage standards ought to be made permanent. While the old 1 to 8 P Levels were given on a “best fit” basis by teachers, the new interim pre-key stage standards require teachers to assess each pupil against specific “the pupil can…” sentences. Using different codes, teachers assess each child as either “below”, “at” or “above” the interim “pupil can” standard. These will now remain the key measure for all students doing subject-specific learning. 3. For those pupils not doing subject-specific learning, statutory assessment should be limited to the area of “cognition and learning”. 4. Assessing pupils against the following 7 aspects of cognition and learning should be a statutory duty, and reported to parents, carers and inspectors. (See recommendation 9 for more on this). The 7 aspects are: • responsiveness • curiosity • discovery • anticipation • persistence • initiation • investigation 5. Schools should decide their own approach to making these cognition and learning assessments. The members of the Rochford Review did “not feel it would be appropriate to prescribe any particular method or approach for assessing these pupils.” 6. Teacher training – both initially and while in the profession – should give teachers a better understanding of working with pupils who are “below the standard of national curriculum tests”. 7. Schools should work collaboratively to share good practice and should seek support from other schools if needed. 8. Schools should ensure quality assurance of SEND assessment through school governance and peer review. 9. Of the assessment data from the seven areas of cognition and learning, there “should be no requirement to submit this to the DfE”. But schools must be able to “provide evidence to support conversations with parents and carers, inspectors, regional school commissioners, LAs and governors”. 10. Further work needs to be done on supporting children with English as an additional language.” From what I have seen, the recommendations seem to have been broadly welcomed, although there are criticisms also; for example, some people have concerns that the recommendations allow for progress to be untracked by the DfE, which seems to imply that it may be acceptable to not chart the progress of children at lower levels, which one critic I saw called ‘unforgiveable’. But I cannot tell you what is going to happen and I am sure that the question of assessment levels (whether they be National Curriculum levels or P-levels) is a bit ‘Marmite’ (i.e. you either love them or hate them). So we will just have to wait and see what happens… IF YOU DON’T KNOW ME BY NOW (PREPARING EHC PLANS) As most of you know, the transferring of Statements of SEN to Education, Health & Care (‘EHC’) plans, which started when the new SEN Framework came into effect in September 2014, is due to be completed by 1 April 2018. So we are now more than half way through the process. I know that there has been some concern recently about some Local Authorities ‘outsourcing’ the drafting of EHC plans and sometimes using standardised wording (see one article entitled: “Not co-production: Was your child’s Education, Health and Care plan outsourced?”) Earlier this year (in April 2016) the DfE set up a dedicated website entitled ‘EHCP Journeys’, which has a number of resources for people producing EHC plans, such as to find out how to support parents and young people through the EHC process and including checklists to rate and improve delivery. You can read and watch people’s experiences and journeys through the EHC process. The ‘Home’ page states: “This website shows the EHC process from the perspective of families and aims to support areas to improve local services. Please explore the range of content and resources and reflect on the parts of the process most relevant to you or your organisation.” I am also aware that the Council for Disabled Children (CDC) has been working on an EHC plan project (together with the Independent Support Programme and the DfE’s SEND Advisor Team) to identify examples of best practice in EHC assessment/plans from across the country. I believe that this is coming very soon and will be on the CDC resources page imminently. WHEN I NEED YOU (SEN.fyi App) If you are a regular reader of my updates, you may recall that in my last SEN update for Autumn Term 2016/17, I launched a new free App called ‘SEN.fyi’, which provides SEN News, (these) Updates, FAQs, Info, Law and even (cartoon) videos. As I have said, I have tried to make ‘SEN.fyi’ as easy to use as possible. Even if I say so myself, it is quite incredible now to have an App on your phone or tablet with so much information about SEN, not only all in one place, but also so easy and quick to access; especially as you can carry it about in your pocket/bag (I do not think that anyone but me would probably spend their time coming up with something as specialised as this and also then give it away for free!) I am really delighted that so many people have contacted me (either directly, or indirectly through the survey I always have at the end of my updates) to say how much they are enjoying and using the App. I am very pleased that so many people have already downloaded and started using the App (I get statistics about this sort of thing I’m afraid!). But I thought I would use this section of my update to not only shamelessly plug the App, but to bring to your attention another feature it has, known as the ‘Timeline’, which I myself have been using very regularly and which I am finding extremely useful to know what is going on. This is because it provides the user with a timeline (hence its name) of everything that has been published recently that you are interested in (which you pick in ‘Settings’). You can then easily ‘Favourite’, ‘Share’ or ‘Search’ for things. As an example, I now almost routinely check the ‘News’ section of the App every morning (when I wake up) and evening (before I go to sleep) to see what is happening about SEN. I must admit that I am continually finding things out which would otherwise have passed me by. I either read articles/posts there and then (if I have time), or ‘Favourite’ them in order to quickly come back to later (if I don’t have time the time there and then), to keep up-to-date with issues that interest me and to mark them out for future reference (or ‘Share’ them with others quickly and easily). I can also ‘Search’ for particular words, to see what people have said about specific issues. Of course, this is just the way that I am using the SEN.fyi App, but as it is so helpful, I thought I would share this with you, in case it is also useful to you. You can download SEN.fyi (for free) through the Apple or Android App stores by clicking on the relevant image below. As always, I would be very grateful if you would only not only download it for yourself (if you haven't yet done so and I think it could help you), but also recommend it to others whom you think may benefit from having it. RECENT/FORTHCOMING SEN EVENTS In my last SEN update, one of the forthcoming SEN events that I discussed was the Westminster Education Forum being held on 3 November 2016 (yesterday), entitled ‘Policy priorities for SEND - implementing local area inspections, raising educational outcomes and extending support for families’. So, as I attended myself, I am able to report to you on a few things now ‘hot off the press’. The keynote speech was given by Dr Adam Boddison, the new Chief Executive of nasen, who previously was director of the Centre for Professional Education at Warwick University. His talk was entitled: ‘The outlook for children and young adults with SEND - remaining challenges and next steps going forward’. Amongst other things, he said that data from July 2016 obtained by SchoolsWeek (again) found that only 18.2% of Statements of SEN had been transferred to EHCPs by then, so they had calculated that, on this figure if projected forward, it will theoretically take a further 5 ½ years more to complete these transfers, so it could still be going on until March 2020! (He did also point out that the DfE says that people are getting better by now, so things will get quicker and LAs should still meet their target, in theory, but he also said that there were huge variations between different areas). I was particularly impressed by two other speakers as well. First there was Janet Thompson, the Deputy Chair of the Rochford Review and Headteacher of the Dorothy Goodman School in Leicestershire. She was clearly very knowledgeable about SEN issues and responded to criticisms of the report), such as that it would allow for lower aspirations (which she said was wrong, but the key was to focus on 'stage' not 'age'); that it was disruptive (which she said was missing a trick, as it was important to input when the whole assessment system was changing as well for subject-specific learners); and that data was not going to be reported widely enough (where she said that P-scales were not a curriculum, but had become that way and it was not just about ticking boxes and we needed to look at thing leading to supported living, obtaining employment, etc. The second was Anne Heavey, an Education Policy Advisor at ATL, who spoke about ‘Assessing SEND provision for pupils in mainstream schools - current state of play’. She gave us a number of statistics from surveys, which seemed to show that 72% of people feel that things are not yet working and 56% of pupils with mental health problems are not having their needs met. She ended by saying we need more time, more money and more training. In terms of forthcoming SEN events, the only things that I have noticed coming up soon are the:
I am sorry that all these events seem to be being held quite soon, but there aren’t many things being held in December 2016 (probably because of Christmas!). STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH YOU Let me first thank those of you who have contacted me (mainly through my surveys) after my last few SEN updates, where I have shared some of my (hopefully) humorous stories about was has happened to me as a disabled person using a wheelchair in recent years. I was particularly touched by comments about my last story: ‘If I Fall, Will You Catch Me?’ – about my falling out of my wheelchair once when I hit a bump in the pavement (on just one of many occasions), including one comment from someone who said that they found it to be ‘heart-warming’. Given the fact that most of the responses I receive are anonymous, it really means something to me to know that I am now also touching people on an emotional level, not just a legal or educational level. So I am going to share another funny story with you in this update about what happened to me once. A few years ago, my wife (Erica) and I were staying with some people in a hotel overnight for professional purposes; where its open-plan restaurant/breakfast area was slightly sunken on a lower floor a few steps below the ground floor, which you could see clearly from the reception level. As I could not access it easily in my wheelchair, unlike the others who could just walk down the few steps to it, I had to go around the breakfast area and down a long corridor by myself where staff had told me that I could access it via a ‘platform’ lift (a ‘platform’ lift is a more lightweight lift which buildings can put in place more easily than a fully-blown traditional lift and helps people avoid using the stairs between different floors or levels – you also need to keep the floor/level button pushed down until you arrive otherwise you stop moving). The ‘platform’ lift was contained in a ‘shaft’ like a normal lift, but with hinged glass doors, although it only needed to travel a few metres. So far, so good. My diversion took me a few extra minutes to negotiate (by which time Erica and the others had been seated at a table where they could see the lift, waiting for me to arrive and join them) and I managed to call it up successfully (it must have been used previously by someone to get down to the restaurant/breakfast level – probably by staff taking something down and then coming up again via the stairs as, if it was another wheelchair-user, I am not sure how they had got back up again and I hadn’t spotted anyone other than me that morning using a wheelchair?). I got into the lift alright by myself and then pushed (and held) the button in it, to allow me to go down. However, unfortunately the lift stopped working about half way down and, as the lower lift door which opened out onto the breakfast area was in glass, Erica and the others could then see that I was stuck, but could now only see my legs, seemingly dangling, behind the glass door! They must have thought at first that I had taken my hand off the button, so the lift had stopped moving. But, after a few minutes, when I appeared to be stuck there, they realised that something must be wrong and Erica came to ask me if I was alright; from outside the lift through the glass door, probably looking like she was speaking to just a pair of legs! When I told her that I was stuck, she summonsed assistance from a member of staff, who also then came over and spoke to my legs through the glass door! He told me that I needed to keep my hand on the button to make the lift move, as if I didn’t know this already, since I have been using ‘platform’ lifts for years and probably hundreds more times than he had ever used them! (I always have to keep smiling and allow myself to be patronised in these type of situations, as some people just assume that because I am physically disabled and using a wheelchair, that I must also be mentally impaired in some way. So sometimes I have to allow myself to be spoken to very slowly and gently, so that the person talking to me this way can feel that I properly understand something – I put it down to their having a disability not me! [Although, to be fair, remember that he was speaking to a disembodied set of legs through a glass door.]) The problem was easily rectified by someone going to the top level and re-summonsing the lift, which allowed me to then successfully do the trip again and move between the floors (it actually only took about 15-20 seconds). But, unfortunately, it took staff quite a while to get the lift working again and get me down to meet the others in the breakfast area, by which time many people were now clearly aware that there had been a problem for me – the poor disabled guy! I am sure that Erica and the others thought nothing of it and have already forgotten about it, but I often think of that occasion, especially when I am using another ‘platform’ lift somewhere. I can see the funny side of something like this and I’m sure that you can also imagine it visually for yourself and realise that it was probably quite a bizarre sight for not only Erica, the staff and our colleagues, but also for the other hotel guests who, before I arrived at breakfast, could only see my legs through the glass door... See, some things that happen to me, whilst perhaps not amusing at the time, are often very funny to reflect on afterwards! With best wishes Douglas Hi, welcome back after the summer break.
If you are reading this update on our website, the observant amongst you may notice that, whilst our website seems the same, the structure is actually slightly different, as it now has a couple of new pages/sections on it and it also has more accessibility features. Overall, I have tried to simplify things even more. (You can read more in the section: ‘NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL REAL ACCESSIBILITY’). In this update you will find sections entitled:
As I always say, I know how busy everyone is, so please feel free to read just the sections that are of interest to you, or read everything; the choice is always yours. Don’t forget, to ensure that you never miss out, you can get my SEN updates by completing your email details below, using our new App (‘SEN.fyi’), or by following me on one of the Social Media platforms that I use listed at the bottom of this page. You can also easily share this update with others (please only do so if it may be relevant to them), by using one of the icons to the right of this page (if on a computer), at the top of this page (if on a mobile device), or on our new 'SEN.fyi' App (by using the ‘share’ feature at the bottom of the page). THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT! As you may know, I have successfully represented parents of children and young people with SEN for over two decades now. As a solicitor now specialising exclusively in SEN and as a physically disabled person myself for most of that time, I have always tried to help anyone involved with children and young people with SEN or disabilities (whether that be personally or professionally). But I realised a long time ago that I couldn’t help everyone personally so, many years ago, I set up this website, www.SpecialEducationalNeeds.co.uk, with as much free information on it as possible. By 2015, the site was receiving over 1 million page downloads a year – I must have done something right! So now, continuing this theme and as the logical next step for me to try and help people, I have decided to create a free App for Smartphones and Tablets entitled ‘SEN.fyi’. By putting everything about SEN in one place, I hope that I can help people always have relevant and important information to hand when they need it and thereby ultimately help more children and young people with SEN or disabilities. You can download ’SEN.fyi’ (for free) through the relevant App Stores (it is available for iOS for iPhones/iPads and also for Android for Smartphones or Tablets) by clicking on the relevant image below. In the App, you will find six sections dedicated to:
The App includes a copy of my eBook: ‘A Guide To The SEND Code of Practice [Updated for 2016/17]’, which contains a copy of the Code itself (see more below under ‘YOU CAN’T GET BETTER THAN FREE…’). There is also the ability to choose (in Settings) whether you want to be notified of any updates and which. I have tried to make ‘SEN.fyi’ as simple as possible to use, so I have only put in the main things that I feel people need to know. I will add to the sections as time goes on. I have put the App together with the help of Piota (which stands for ‘Put It On The App’), who build high quality apps for schools and educational institutions throughout the UK. I understand that the interest in school apps has increased exponentially in recent years, as times are changing and schools are looking to streamline processes and update operations in new and intelligent ways. Piota create sleek and individualised Apps that help schools and parents communicate effortlessly and in real-time. If you work in a school or educational institution, I encourage you to see what Piota can do to help you. Finally, as you probably already realise, the ‘Updates’ section of the App contains these types of ‘SEN Updates’, which means that you no longer have to read them on our website (although you can still do that, if you want to!). I genuinely hope that ‘SEN.fyi’ helps people - I have done all the hard work so they don’t have to! P.S. I would be so grateful if you could recommend ‘SEN.fyi’ to others – here are the links again… YOU CAN’T GET BETTER THAN FREE… It probably feels a long time ago now, but the new SEN framework only came into force a couple of years ago in September 2014. If you have followed me at any point since, you know that, over the summer of 2014, I wrote an eBook entitled ‘A Guide to the SEND Code of Practice’ to help everyone prepare for the changes (with the tagline: ‘The Guide that the Government should have written but didn’t!'). My Guide was written as an eBook only, as it contained a lot of internal and external hyperlinking and the whole of the Code of Practice, which would allow people to quickly and easily find information they needed and have it to hand. From the comments that I have received from people, both personally and by email, I am very flattered when I hear many people refer to it now as their ‘bible’. I updated the Guide for the academic year 2015/16 and have now done so again for 2016/17. Although it sold previously (for £4.99), given that I am now including a copy of the Guide in our free ‘SEN.fyii’ App, I have decided to to now also give it away for free (yes, you heard me correctly, 'free'!). I should say that the version of the Guide in the App is a PDF copy, but the interlinking will still work, provided you open it in a dedicated PDF reader (I recommend ‘Adobe Reader’). However, if you want to get the eBook version to read on a dedicated eBook reader, you will need to download a copy through our website here, or get it on one of the eBook stores like the Kindle store, iBookstore or Google Playstore. There is no catch, I genuinely am giving my Guide away for free now, as I really want to help as many people as I can. NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL REAL ACCESSIBILITY I have always tried to keep the needs of people in mind at all times. I work very hard to make our services as accessible to as many people as possible and I am also committed to trying to provide accessible online services. I have now made our website even more accessible through a service called ‘Browsealoud’, which provides easy speech and translation tools and can be accessed from all devices. To use the accessibility options, you just need to click on the orange speaker button at the top right hand side of the page (if using a computer) or at the bottom right hand corner (if using a mobile device). Browsealoud has a range of features to make our website more accessible by doing the following:
There is also an mp3 facility (which converts text to audiofiles for offline listening) and you can use custom settings that are built in to suit individual needs and preferences. These accessibility features allow access to:
Now, that’s what I call real accessibility! FORTHCOMING SEN EVENTS In terms of forthcoming SEN events (I am afraid that there is nothing to report today on events that I have been to), the only things that have caught my eye are as follows:
As always, please say ‘hello’ if you see me at one of these events. IF I FALL, WILL YOU CATCH ME? As a wheelchair-user, I could recount for you countless times that I have fallen out (or rather been thrown out) of my wheelchair! This usually happens when I hit a ridge in the pavement, or attempt to go up a ‘dropped-kerb’ unsuccessfully; it may surprise you to learn that, although we’ve improved as a society regarding accessibility over the years, I still find myself sometimes using a dropped-kerb to get down from the pavement on one side of the road but then finding that there is no dropped-kerb for me to get up on the pavement again on the other side of the road, requiring me to travel on the road dodging moving vehicles before I can eventually find another dropped-kerb to get back onto the pavement (sometimes at some considerable distance!). But to end this update, I want to share with you just one story that happened to me a few months ago... That day, I had decided to try and get by myself to the local high street (I know that for most of you this is a normal every day event, but for me it is something which has to be planned out meticulously with military precision, such as the route and pavements I have to take) in order to just get some cash out from the ATM (unfortunately, ATMs are also usually placed a bit high for me to operate when sitting in my wheelchair). Anyway, on this occasion, I managed to successfully get to the ATM and take some money out. I was riding back to my office when I had to cross a road. Having checked to make sure that no cars were coming, I managed to get down from the pavement onto the road using a dropped-kerb, but when I reached the other side of the road, the dropped-kerb there had a ridge, so that when I went to mount the pavement again, my wheelchair hit the bottom of the kerb and stayed there, flinging me forwards and out of the wheelchair. The way that I flew through the air with my face forwards must have looked quite spectacular. I remember feeling that it was all happening in slow motion and realising, as I moved through the air, that any second I would hit the ground face first and would probably smash my glasses and injure myself. However, just as I was about to hit the pavement, I suddenly felt two hands appear under me that caught me just before I hit the ground. It was like a miracle; I was just stopped a few inches from the ground and, although it probably only lasted a few seconds, it felt like I was stuck there for a long time. I could hear the man whose hands had caught me struggling to lift me back into my wheelchair. However, again almost miraculously, another pair of male hands then appeared under me from the other side and together the two men pulled me back upright and into my wheelchair. I then saw that it was two builder-type men who had saved me, but when I had sorted myself out and thanked them both profusely for what they had done, they both just replied, almost nonchalantly, that it was ‘nothing’. I know that this may sound funny to you, but I really feel that my being physically disabled, sometimes meaning that other people have to come to my rescue, allows me to experience goodness from people that I may not otherwise see. So, if I fall, will you catch me? With best wishes Douglas We are now almost at the end of the academic year for 2015/16, so many of you working in the educational field may be starting to slow down already.
Actually, this next month or so is the busiest time for me every year, with my helping with lots of appeals to the Special Educational Needs & Disability (SEND) Tribunal, trying to get children and young people into appropriate school or college placements for September! In this update you will find sections entitled:
As I always say, I know how busy everyone is, so please feel free to read just the sections that are of interest to you or read everything; the choice is always yours. (Don’t forget, to ensure that you never miss out on one, you can get my SEN updates personally by completing your email details below, or by following me on one of the Social Media platforms that I use, at the bottom of this page. You can also easily share this update with others (please only do this if it may be relevant to them), by using one of the icons to the right of this page (if on a computer) or at the top of this page (if on a mobile device)). SEND TRIBUNAL UPDATE [2016] As I referred to in my Summer Term 2015/16 SEN update, in this update I am providing more detailed information about what is happening at the SEND Tribunal, just like I did at about this time last year. Like last year, I was lucky enough to this year again attend the Jordans SEN Annual Conference in March 2016, where I heard from the Deputy President of the First-tier Tribunal (Health, Education and Social Care), Judge Meleri Tudur (at Jordans), and also her successor as the Lead Judge for SEND cases, Tribunal Judge Jane McConnell (at both Jordans and at an Open Day held at the Tribunal’s administrative offices (in Darlington) the next month in April). As I did in my SEND Tribunal Update for 2015, I have again split this section into two parts to deal with both presentations. As I know that information about the SEND Tribunal may only be of interest to some people reading this update but not to others, rather than setting it out in full here, I have created a more detailed version of this update which you can read by clicking here. CHANGES TO FUTURE SEN UPDATES If you have been reading my SEN updates for a while now (some people even tell me that they have been following me now for over a decade), then you will know that I always try to write them in such a way, so that they will be useful/of interest to everyone, whether or not they work in the field of SEN/education. For example, people working in the SEN/education field often tell me that they enjoy hearing my analysis of things, reading the information that I have provided them with (sometimes with links), or hearing about recent and forthcoming SEN events (as this tells them about something they would not otherwise have heard of or, if they cannot go to an event, to hear about things from me afterwards if I have been able to go). Other people tell me how they simply enjoy reading my updates, as they like me telling my personal stories, particularly if sharing my perspective of things as a disabled person. I am thinking about changing future SEN updates a little bit (don’t worry, it won’t change that much) but, before I do so, it would be useful for me to hear from you, as to what sort of things you would like me to include, so please let me know quickly by telling me here. Many thanks. RECENT/FORTHCOMING SEN EVENTS The last couple of months have been very busy for me as ever (tell me something new!), so I was not able to get to every event that I would have liked to. However, I was able to attend the Transition Event run by Progress Magazine at the end of May. There were a mixture of inspirational and practical speakers. I most enjoyed hearing from one, Huw Davies, the Chief Executive of the British Association for Supported Employment, who provided us with information about employment support being provided to young people with SEN/disabilities. Huw said that there was a real need for inspiring role models to encourage young people to dream and aspire to things, rather than just saying that something is unrealistic for them. He also made the point that work is possible and positive for many of us, but we are often caught up with low expectations and low aspirations which often means that, by the age of 26, disabled people are more likely to be unemployed. Huw added that we should be looking more towards attainable work, the growth of personal budgets to use for job coaches and, most importantly, considering a presumption of employability for disabled young people leading to sustainable employment. He also made the point that everyone was able to work with the right job and right support and that we now needed to look towards full inclusion and providing real jobs which are valued and not just tokenistic ones. Huw also said that sometimes the best thing is for young people to learn about work through supported internships, as they often learn best in ‘situ’ under real job conditions, for things like time keeping/dress codes/learning how to do deal real work. Finally, Huw also said that, as well as the effect on young people with SEN/disability, there would be an impact on employers too, because it would increase the morale of their workforce. Wise words. In terms of forthcoming events, I know that things are now winding down for the summer so that, as far as I know, the only events in the next month or so which I think would be useful for you are the following:
IT’S NOT A PATCH ON ME! Unfortunately, as well as causing me mobility and coordination difficulties which requires me to use a wheelchair, my condition of Cerebellar Ataxia also causes me a great deal of double vision. I needed an operation on one eye many years ago to correct a very severe squint that I had developed. Unfortunately, as mine is a deteriorating condition, in the past few years my double vision has been getting much worse (although I am still trying to put off for as long as possible the time when I will need a further operation on my other eye). Earlier this year, as things have been getting increasingly difficult for me, I decided that I would start using an eye patch over one eye, to try and reduce the double vision (as I would then be only looking through one eye, which allows me to see things in single vision). At first, I only started using the eye patch at home and in the presence of my small team at work. However, during the past couple of months, I decided that, rather than trying to ‘bluff’ people (I have always realised that other people cannot see what I can see!) I would start using an eye patch in public more, when I needed to. I had already scoured the internet, to buy and try many different eye patches (it can be very expensive being disabled you know) until I settled on getting one (and now a collection of many brightly coloured ones) from the appropriately named ‘The World's Best Eye Patch’ website. I also resigned myself to having to hear the pirate/parrot jokes from people but found, interestingly, that most people seeing me with my eye patch on for the first time either seemed to actively try and avoid speaking to me or, if they did have to speak to me, tried to not say anything about my wearing it - it was like the proverbial ‘elephant in the room’. That being said, there were some funny situations, for example, when a good friend of mine, passing me with my eye patch on for the first time, put on a stereotypical pirate accent (“Ahoy Matey!”) but then returned to me a few minutes later to apologise. I mischievously just replied to him: “It’s alright, I’ll just get my parrot to come and speak to you next time!”. The nicest thing that happened to me though, was when I was approached by a young boy of only about 7 or 8 years old with a lollipop in his mouth. He literally just came up to me and said: “Hello 'Mr Man with an eye patch' – why are you wearing that?” I simply replied: “It’s because my eyes don’t work properly.” “OK” he said and then just walked away! I love it that children can often be the most direct to you, but so willing to just accept things as normal… See, things look better sometimes with one eye! With best wishes Douglas I hope that you had a good break.
It’s always amazing isn’t it, how quickly the year/academic year seems to go by? So, if you haven't done so already, you should probably be planning your summer holidays by now! In this update you will find sections entitled:
As I always say, I know how busy everyone is, so please feel free to read just the sections that are of interest to you or read everything; the choice is always yours. (Don’t forget, to ensure that you never miss out on one, you can get my SEN updates personally by completing your email details below, or by following me on one of the Social Media platforms that I use, at the bottom of this page. You can also easily share this update with others (please only do this if it may be relevant to them), by using one of the icons to the right of this page (if on a computer) or at the top of this page (if on a mobile device). I’m afraid that the first two sections of this Update are quite technical and detailed, as they concern ‘Phase Transfers’ (between stages of schooling) and Post-16/Post-19 education and training. As such, they may only be appreciated by those people who are concerned now (or in the future) with one of these issues. So I really don’t mind if you want to skip over them if you think that they do not concern you; although they may be worth quickly perusing still, just in case they may be of help to someone you know who you can share them with. TIME TO MOVE ON (PHASE TRANSFERS) It also amazes me that, whilst there is a good few years to prepare for transfers between Primary and Secondary school, or between Secondary school and Post-16 education (and less for transfers between Post-16 and Post-19 and even less for transfers to Infant/Primary school), there always seems to be such a last minute rush every year to deal with the transfers themselves. For example, those of you involved with children and young people with Statements of SEN/Education, Health & Care (EHC) Plans, are probably already aware that, for many years, there has been a statutory legal deadline of 15 February for Statements (and now also EHC plans) to be amended by their Local Authority (LA) in Year 6, ahead of a transfer from Primary to Secondary school that September. This is supposed to allow sufficient time to appeal to the Special Educational Needs & Disability (SEND) Tribunal, if they dispute the school or placement named. However, the problem with this, is that a normal appeal to the Tribunal usually takes about six months or more, due to the following:
*[The frequent need for parents to also appeal against other parts of the EHC plan as well, in order to justify a change of placement/the school wanted, is one of the most commonly misunderstood issues and is often not realised by many parents/young people until the day of the hearing itself when the Tribunal themselves say that, as a consequence, they are now restricted in what they can do!] The 15 February deadline was decided upon arbitrarily many years ago, when appeals usually took around three to four months (a different/shorter timetable was followed at that time). This meant that, theoretically at least, appeals about transfers to Secondary school would usually be heard by the Tribunal before the end of the academic year in July (although I recall that there were a few that had to be heard in the Autumn term still). Over the years though, appeals have become more complicated and now also follow a different/longer timetable. This means that, since the Tribunal does not usually hear appeals in August (as it is hard to get witnesses together during the summer holidays), if the Tribunal were to follow its normal timetable of 20/24 weeks, then the hearing of the appeal regarding the appropriate Secondary school that a child should attend in September, would not be heard until October/November. This would leave many parents in the unenviable position of having to decide whether to send their child to a Secondary school proposed by the LA, which they consider inappropriate (or may not want them to go to for other reasons), or to keep them out of school and educate them at home (or extend their summer holidays), in the interim. Neither of these options are satisfactory, as they all have their advantages and disadvantages. To try and rectify this, in recent years the Tribunal has adopted an ‘expedited’ (i.e. shorter) timetable of 12-weeks from registration to hearing. This means that, even if parents leave it until the last minute of the two-month appeal deadline in which to appeal (i.e. by mid-April if they have received an amended Statement/EHCP by mid-February), these appeals should still, theoretically, be heard by the end of the academic year in July. “That all seems fine” I hear you say. But it gets worse… As I am sure that some of you will already have noticed, the difficulty now is that, in appeals concerning EHC plans, if parents leave appealing until the last minute, but then also extend the time in which to appeal by 30 days, because they have obtained a certificate of mediation close to that deadline (perhaps they are waiting for a report or similar), then the Tribunal is going to struggle to hear the appeal before the end of the academic year, if still trying to keep to a 12-week timetable. So the Tribunal has now also been agreeing to sit in August where possible or necessary, to ensure that everyone knows where the child is going to Secondary school in September. But it gets even worse… In respect of Post-16 transfers, there has never been a legal deadline for LAs to name new school placements for Statements and Statements couldn’t name other placements anyway, aside from schools (e.g. colleges). They also only went up to 19 years old. As for EHC plans (which, theoretically, go up to 25 years old), from this (academic) year onwards, the legal deadline for LAs to amend them to name a college/placement for the forthcoming September in respect of Post-16 transfers, is only by 31 March in the academic year before (or at least five months prior to the transfers). This means that young people (if they are over 16 and are deemed to have ‘mental capacity’), or usually their parents (if they are over 16 and are deemed not to have ‘mental capacity’), may then not have enough time to appeal to the Tribunal by the end of the academic year in July/by the beginning of September. Last year (where the legal deadline was even worse, as it was two months later, by 31 May), the Tribunal decided to automatically apply a 7-week timetable for Post-16 appeals, so that they could be heard by the end of July/in August). Following concerns expressed by a number of people (mainly LAs), as to how they were expected to deal with appeals like this in such a short space of time, the Tribunal has said that this year, they will instead automatically apply a 12-week timetable also to these types of appeal, but will be willing to hear more expedited appeals within 7-weeks, provided both sides agree to it. It’s all a bit of a mess really isn’t it? From my perspective, anecdotally, a number of LAs are still struggling at the moment with carrying out transfers from Statements to EHC plans and regarding amending Statements/EHC plans in relation to Secondary transfers and Post-16 (and over) transfers. So there is not much more I can say about this, apart from the fact that I am currently trying to help as many parents/young people as I can, who have found themselves in these kinds of situations. Which leads me on nicely to talking more substantively about Post-16/Post-19 transfers.... “IT’S LIKE FALLING OFF A CLIFF…” (POST-16/POST-19) I am afraid that there is also an added complication for young people seeking Post-16/Post-19 support for education or training, but who have an LDA (‘Learning Difficulties Assessment’, sometimes referred to as a ‘Learning Disabilities Assessment’). If a young person (i.e. someone who has turned 16 by the end of the academic year in question), wishes to continue in education or training but still has an LDA, which have usually been given to those young people who have left school to go to college or similar (as you cannot still have a Statement Post-16 unless you are remaining in a ‘school’), according to the statutory Transition Guidance, that LDA needs to be transferred to an EHC plan by 1 September 2016. Remember, I have just said that there are only statutory requirements for EHC plans to be amended to name a Post-16 placement by 31 March in the academic year before transfer so, unfortunately, there may be a bit of a ‘car-crash’ in this academic year, because of the difficulties with everyone trying to do the things that they are required to do by the given deadlines. This is not me being critical for the sake of it, as I realise that many LAs are over-stretched at the moment and that many LA officers are working very hard to do everything that they have to do within deadlines. However, I also see the parents of young people and young people themselves who are very worried about their future. As I have said before in these Updates, I am not sure that the Government thought all of this out properly when they brought in the new SEN legislation/framework a couple of years ago. They should have realised that, not only would people struggle to identify what they needed to do and when (and have trouble fitting everything in under the new system), but this would also be taking place against a backdrop of austerity measures and public funding cuts. This may need a bit of a re-think, but so much attention is now being focused at the moment on transferring Statements to EHC plans. As I said above, it is all a bit of a mess really. The issue here for me is also a wider one, as I am concerned that we seem to be prepared to spend so much money getting the right educational and therapeutic support for a child during their early years, Primary and Secondary schooling, but when they turn Post-16 and, particularly, Post-19, it feels like they are just ‘falling off a cliff’, as there is then no appropriate provision made for them. What a waste. I have already written a FAQ page for this website about Post-16 provision, which you can find here. However, I am conscious that there are many people out there who are desperate for information about LDAs and transfers, so I have asked my colleagues, Joshua Garrod and Alberto Antonelli, to also write a separate page about this, which you can find here. RECENT/FORTHCOMING SEN EVENTS As you know from my last update, things have been fairly quiet during the Spring Term in terms of SEN events, although there was one exception, being the Jordan’s SEN Annual Conference, now in its 21st year, on 10 March 2016, where I spoke again (for the 14th time!) We were entertained by very good presentations from two Tribunal Judges, Judge Meleri Tudur and Tribunal Judge Jane McConnell, who, respectively, spoke about the latest statistics/issues for the Tribunal and what the Tribunal is seeing ‘on the ground’ (which I will explain more about in my next Summer (Half-Term) SEN Update for 2015/16). We also received an excellent update from David Wolfe QC on SEN caselaw over the past year and heard more about EHC plans from His Honour Judge Simon Oliver and also received a perspective from the charitable sector from Elaine Maxwell, the new Chair of IPSEA (Independent Parents for Special Educational Advice). As ever, I learnt a lot from attending the event. It was probably best put by one of the delegates when they said afterwards: “[It is] the best training conference in SEND.” So, if you are professionally involved in SEN, I strongly urge those of you who can afford it (I am afraid that it is quite expensive) to attend next year. In terms of forthcoming events in the next few months, I would highlight the following:
“NOW YOU SEE ME, NOW YOU DON’T!” Unfortunately, over recent years, I have found that people invariably miss seeing me when I am in my wheelchair, probably because I am not at their eye level. This can result in, at best, people sometimes knocking into me accidentally in crowded situations or, at worst, people failing to see me when I am rolling down the pavement in front of them (usually because their eyes are focused on their mobile phones as they are walking), or sometimes, more dangerously, when I am crossing roads. This became very noticeable to me at the end of last year when I found that, especially in the dark, cars would not see me waiting at zebra crossings ready to cross and so just go through them at speed, or even when I was already starting to cross them. (Frighteningly, on one occasion, a car came skidding to a halt just before it would have hit me, when I was already on the crossing - I cannot be sure whether the driver just didn’t see me because he/she was looking too far ahead, or if he/she had their eyes/mind elsewhere, perhaps also on a mobile phone!) As you are probably aware if you have read my Updates before, I always like to be quite proactive about things so, reluctantly, I invested last year in a bright luminous yellow jacket, which I made myself wear during the Winter/early Spring, to give me the best chance of being seen. Since then, I have had to put up with a lot of teasing from those around me, saying things to me, like I now look like a security guard (to which I like to reply “And don’t you feel safe now?”), or making other comments, such as “Couldn’t you find anything brighter?” (to which I like to reply “Do you think that I really like having to wear this?”). But I am sure that it has helped people to see me more. So I guess it’s a case of: “Now you see me, now you don’t!” With best wishes Douglas Well, for those who work in the academic world, we are now at the half way point of the year.
In this update you will find sections entitled:
As I always say, I know how busy everyone is, so please feel free to read just the sections that are of interest to you, or read everything; the choice is always yours. (Don’t forget, to ensure that you never miss out on one, you can get my SEN updates personally by completing your email details, or by following me on one of the Social Media platforms that I use, at the bottom of this page. You can also easily share this update with others (please only do this if it may be relevant to them), by using one of the icons to the right of this page (if on a computer) or at the top of this page (if on a mobile device)). TRANSFER REVIEWS (AGAIN) The first section of my last update for the beginning of Spring Term 2015/16 was entitled: ‘MORE OF THE SAME? (TRANSFERS OF STATEMENTS TO EHC PLANS)’ and, as far as I am aware, things seems to be falling into a bit of a pattern now in terms of transitioning. So I was a bit surprised to find afterwards, that many people (both parents and professionals) said to me that they actually wanted even more information if possible. In fact, I even received a message from someone who follows me on Twitter which said: “@douglassilas Please could you spend an entire update on Transition reviews!’ What should & shouldn't happen?' We are ALL desperate” As you may recall, my colleague, Aoife Murray, prepared a dedicated page at the beginning of the year entitled ‘Transitioning Statements to EHC Plans’ which neatly summarises things. Rather than me writing too much here (as I am conscious that not everyone who reads these updates will be interested in this issue) I suggest that, if you are interested, you read that page again. However, it may be helpful for me to remind you of the some of the relevant (statutory) Guidance that has been given regarding ‘Transfer Reviews’ themselves. Aoife's summary provides a useful overview of this issue and I therefore quote here from the relevant part of this where it states as follows (I have updated it where necessary):
I hope this provides relevant information and allows people to look at things in more detail if they are interested. You will also find a helpful timetable at the end of the Government’s Transitional Guidance which you may wish to read. ‘PINTERESTING’ (AGAIN) The second section of my last update was entitled: ‘P'INTERESTING, ISN’T IT?’. I was pleased to see that some people followed me or ‘re-pinned’ some of the information that I had ‘pinned’ on our Pinteresting page, based on our ‘Types of SEN/Disability’ pages. I have therefore decided to now do the same in relation to our pages on ‘SEN/Education Info’ (which I have also updated to provide more information) and, again, I have tried to make each of the issues that we have written about as accessible as possible, to as many people as possible, by using the format of ‘Questions and Answers’ and interlinking pages where more detail is written about a term/word used. Please have a look at our Pinterest page now, in case there is something you can find there which may be of help to you, which you can then easily ‘repin’ for others, or ‘follow’ one of our ‘boards’ to be automatically updated, as I will be adding more information to it over time if I believe it can help other people. Again, if you come across something that you feel can benefit other people as well, please forward me the link by email here so I may be able to share it with others. With many thanks in advance. JUST ONE MORE LEFT … I cannot believe how time goes by so quickly (or maybe I am just getting older!) There is now only one of my training sessions left to run at my offices for this academic year entitled ‘Learning By Doing (LBD): The New SEN Framework (One Year On)’. Just as a reminder, it takes a closer look at the new SEN framework, one year on, considers the main issues and advises people on how to avoid difficulties. It runs from 9.00 am to 1.00 pm and is made up of two main sessions as follows: The New SEN World (1 Year On)
Specific Issues
These two sessions are then followed by a third session called ‘Ask Douglas’ where I will answer any questions about SEN law (think of it as free legal advice!). Please note that places are limited to 15 delegates per day and my training is CPD accredited for all types of professionals. I am also again offering a 10% discount per place to the first three people reading this update that book for each seminar using the promo code ‘SEN10’ (this cannot be used with any other offer). I have attached a flyer for those receiving this update email to make your lives easier, otherwise you can download one by clicking on the image above. I hope that you will be able to join me. If this is something of interest to you and you want to book a place, click here: www.SpecialEducationalNeeds.co.uk/Training RECENT/FORTHCOMING SEN EVENTS In terms of recent SEN events, I am afraid that I haven't been anywhere of note since the beginning of 2016 so there is no information for me to share with you for now. However, in terms of forthcoming SEN events, there are two events fairly soon which you may want to attend and one a long way off that you may wish to put in your diary now, as follows:
As I said in this section of my last update, I will be speaking again this year at the Jordan’s Conference. My presentation this year is entitled ‘Working Better’ and will cover problems and solutions I have identified which will help people to hopefully work both more efficiently and effectively. In fact, when I wrote it, I found that I had enough material for three presentations, so there will be more coming if I am allowed to speak again! “TAMING THE EMAIL BEAST!” Just in case you aren’t able to make it to the Jordan’s conference personally this year, I thought that you might like to hear about one of the problems I have identified that I will be speaking about, which I have entitled: ‘Taming The Email Beast.’ We now spend so much of our time being controlled by our technology, rather than us controlling it, with emails being a prime example of this. In fact, I was reading recently that, nowadays, people spend approximately 30% of their working day just dealing with emails (i.e. 3 hours in every 10 hours!). Frightening isn’t it? Although people spend a lot of time reading, deleting, or filing their emails, they usually just find more emails then filling up their inbox, so the task is constant and relentless. I will therefore be giving tips and strategies about what you may be able to do about this, which can hopefully help people solve (or at least reduce) this problem. So, given that this update overall is trying to respond to things that people are either asking me directly or perhaps unconsciously, it probably seems apt that I have called it: 'Who Says That I Don’t Listen!’ With best wishes Douglas Firstly, let me say Happy New Year to everyone and wish you for a good and peaceful 2016. This is my first update for the ‘chronological’ year 2016.
In this update you will find sections entitled:
As I always say, I know how busy everyone is, so please feel free to read just the sections that are of interest to you, or read everything; the choice is always yours. (Don’t forget, to ensure that you never miss out on one, you can get my SEN updates personally by completing your email details, or by following me on one of the Social Media platforms that I use, at the bottom of this page. You can also easily share this update with others (please only do this if it may be relevant to them), by using one of the icons to the right of this page (if on a computer) or at the top of this page (if on a mobile device)). MORE OF THE SAME? (TRANSFERS OF STATEMENTS TO EHC PLANS) Since the new SEN framework came into force in September 2014, nearly a year and a half ago now, after difficulties with initial changes, we now all seem to be falling into a general and steady pattern of doing things. As you may know from my previous SEN updates, one of the main issues that has taken up the most time for parents and professionals concerned with children and young people with Statements of SEN, is going through the transfer process to convert their Statement into an Education, Health & Care (EHC) Plan. This is known as a ‘Transfer Review’ (individually) with timescales set by Government or in the Local Authority’s (LA’s) ‘Transition Plan’ (generally). As you may also know, I write a regular legal ‘Question & Answer’ column for SEN Magazine. Over the past year or so, I have been exploring some of the new issues that have been brought in by the new SEN framework, such as ‘Personal Budgets’; ‘Post-16 Issues’; ‘Outcomes’; 'Working Together’ and these further issues of ‘Transferring Statements to EHC Plans’ and ‘Transfer Reviews’ (as well as looking at the new SEN framework initially and then again one year on). Although I specialise exclusively in SEN, I deal with a wide range of cases. During this past year though, the most asked about issue that I have had from parents coming to see me, is the question of ensuring whether they/the LA are transferring their child’s statement to an EHC plan properly. Unfortunately, when the new SEN framework was brought in, the Government probably issued unrealistic timescales to convert the 230,000 or so Statements to EHC plans, between September 2014 and April 2018. Obviously, with the substantial funding cuts that there have been during the last few years (which have resulted in many experienced people losing their jobs and some services closing), there has been the combined effect with these legal changes, of many people now trying to do too much, with too little and now, often, too late. Since September 2014, no new Statements have been issued and any assessments that have been requested or carried out, have been considered EHC needs assessments, which either lead to an EHC plan being issued or one of the following scenarios:
This is the same as it was before and therefore parents (or the young person themselves if they are now over 16), can appeal against any of these decisions to the SEND Tribunal. However, there have been increasing difficulties with transfers. LAs now have the requirement to transfer all children and young people with Statements to EHC plans, either during a set time, or in priority order (which is too long and detailed to go into here). Importantly, all Statements must be transferred to EHC plans where a significant review of the Statement would have normally taken place at a time in their educational career (e.g. a move of school, particularly from primary to secondary school or from secondary school to a Post-16 institution). I could spend this whole update telling you what should and should not happen with transfers, especially as I am seeing both parents and LAs making similar mistakes time and time again. But this would probably only be of interest to those of you who are actively engaged in the process now or in the near future. Also, I now often have to advise parents based on their individual circumstances, albeit within the wider context, as well as more strategically (and funnily enough, even though they know that I only represent parents, I have even been asked questions by LA officers themselves about what the best way to do things is!) Suffice it to say, I strongly encourage everyone to familiarise themselves more with the statutory requirements and non-statutory expectations relating to the transfer of Statements to EHC plans or relating to the transfer of different groups, or to seek advice specifically. You will also find a helpful timetable at the end of the Government’s Transitional Guidance which you may wish to read. I hope that we are not just going to do more of the same now and thereby sacrifice quality for expediency just to meet targets – like the old adage says: ‘If something is worth doing, it is worth doing well”… ‘PINTEREST’ING, ISN’T IT? As has become well known during these past few years, our website has become a useful resource site for people wanting to find out more about different Types of SEN/Disability. I have tried to make each of the conditions that we have written about as accessible as possible, to as many people as possible, by using a format of ‘questions and answers’, interlinking pages where more details are written about a term/word used and even putting an audio file people can play on every page. A few years ago, I also created links to other organisations where people could go, to find out further information. Well, if you follow what I do, you will know that I am a great lover of technology as a way of helping people (and myself) get information or do things which helps them/others and I have found Social Media platforms like ‘Twitter’ and ‘Facebook’ and ‘YouTube’ to be very useful. I have been noticing in the past year that people are increasingly using another Social Media platform, called ‘Pinterest’, to find or share information. So, I have now set up a specific ‘Pinterest’ page for each condition (which is linked to at the end of each of our current pages), where there are ‘pins’ to some useful organisations/websites that you can visit to find out more information. As always, I hope that this helps people. I am also hoping to add to our ‘Pinterest’ pages in due course so, if you also find useful things on the internet which you believe may help other people, please forward me the link by email here, so I can share it. With my thanks in advance. I’M TRAINING ONCE MORE… Thanks to all of you who attended one of my training seminars during the Autumn Term 2015/16 entitled ‘Learning By Doing (LBD): The New SEN Framework (One Year On)’. Although during the Spring Term, I become very busy with cases (e.g. Secondary Transfer Appeals, transfers to Post-16 institutions, or other types of SEN cases/appeals) I have decided to put on another two seminars this term, one during the first half of the Spring Term on Wednesday 3 February 2016 and another during the second half of the Spring Term on Thursday 17 March 2016. Please note that again, places are limited to 15 delegates per session, and that all training is CPD accredited. You can download the flyer by clicking on the image below. And once more, I am offering a 10% discount per place to the first three people reading this update that book for each seminar, using the promo code ‘SEN10’. If this is something of interest to you or you want to find out more information/book a place, click here: www.SpecialEducationalNeeds.co.uk/Training RECENT/FORTHCOMING SEN EVENTS The last few months have been quite busy for me and the only SEN event that I managed to attend was ‘The SEND Framework: Compliance & Best Practice 2015’ run by Optimus Education at the end of November 2015. As always, I enjoy attending other conferences/seminars and hearing other speakers, as I always learn something new. You also have an opportunity to reflect on your own work/cases when away from your offices (it’s funny isn’t it that you often get your best ideas when doing something different away from your desk!) In terms of forthcoming SEN events, the only things that have caught my attention during the Spring Term are:
Once again, I will be speaking at the Jordan’s Conference (this will actually be my 12th year speaking there!) So, if you are there, please stop by and say ‘hello’ if you can. “I’VE DONE IT AGAIN!” It’s amazing how things work out sometimes, isn’t it? In November 2015, I successfully completed my 6th annual 5-day international bike ride to raise funds for Norwood, a charity that supports children and young people with disabilities, using a specially modified recumbent trike. This time I was riding 400 km from the middle of the Negev Desert up to the big hills of Jerusalem (again in Israel). I am glad to also be able to report now that I managed to raise the £15,000 target that I was hoping to for Norwood. I also wish to thank those of you who read this update who kindly sponsored me. I must say though that this was probably the most ‘challenging’ ride that I have ever done. It even included riding up one of the biggest mountains (assisted by a professional cyclist) on the 4th day of the ride. Also, for the second time, I did this ride with my 18 year-old son, Zachi. Although he did not ride up the mountain himself that afternoon, he helped me considerably by passing me at one point in a van with a beat-box loudly playing out the song ‘Eye of the Tiger’ which was the theme tune to one of the ‘Rocky’ films, which motivated me to keep going to the top. See, people sometimes help you in all sorts of ways! So now what? With best wishes Douglas |
by Douglas Silas, specialist SEN Solicitor
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July 2017
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