Support reference guide

Area SEND Inspection support for staff

Specialist Teaching Service (STS)

The STS provides SEN support and statutory support (EHCP) for children and young people with a wide range of needs. The STS also has a newly established Inclusion, Engagement Support Team to support young people with an EHCP at risk of exclusion or placement breakdown.

Useful links:

Inclusion and Engagement Support Team

SEND Specialist Teaching Service

Educational Psychology Service (EPS)

The EPS uses a consultation model to support schools with the graduated response to meeting the needs of children and young people with SEND. They also support the statutory EHCP process.

Useful links:

Educational psychology requests - Lancashire County Council

SEND Team

The SEND Team is responsible for providing statutory advice and guidance relating to new assessments and the annual review process.

Useful links:

SEN support and EHC plans

You can access the above services via the routes detailed on the links above. Alternatively, you can make enquiries to the following mailboxes which link to your locality:

Inclusion.north@lancashire.gov.uk

Inclusion.south@lancashire.gov.uk

Inclusion.east@lancashire.gov.uk

Graduated Response: Road Map of Support and Guidance

Assess: What do I know about this child / young person? What are their strengths and needs? What is their behaviour communicating to me? Which area of need is this linked to? What assess, plan, do, review is in place?

Plan: What outcomes am I working towards? What additional measures are required? What resources are required? How frequently will I measure the impact?

Review: What is the impact of the intervention? What is working well / isn't working? Why isn't it working? Has there been a change in need? Has there been an escalation of need? Why has / hasn't there been an impact? What are my next steps?

Do: EHC Needs Assessment process: Parent/Carer and young person views. What impact have the interventions made? What academic progress has been made?

Possible actions:

Assess

  • What observations have taken place? Have you sought the young person's voice? Have you discussed observations, strengths and needs with parents / carers?
  • What screening tools have you used?
  • TLP / Provision map: What reasonable adjustments am I currently making / do I require making for this child or young person? The Ordinarily Available Toolkit and GEMS will support making reasonable adjustments.
  • What universal offers are we accessing to support?
  • Could you undertake an Early Help Assessment and arrange a TAF? This may include health professionals as appropriate.
  • Other service involvement? PAST team to support the child/young person, family and school with attendance, Child and Family Wellbeing Service (CFWS) to support young person and family.

Resources:

Plan

  • Continue the graduate approach. Have you adjusted your targeted approach? This may include the type or frequency of interventions and the date to review the impact.
  • This may start to include specialist support from: Specialist Teaching Service or Educational Psychology.
  • Specialist Teaching Service: Can undertake assessments for a range of needs, provide training and INSET support and can provide ongoing work with the child / young person.
  • Educational Psychology: Become involved where there are unanswered psychological questions. There is no requirement to have EP involvement prior to an EHC needs assessment submission, however they can provide further advice and
  • Involve Health professionals where appropriate. This may include S&LT, OT, CAHMS or the School Nursing Team.
  • If the young person is at risk of permanent exclusion, you could request support from the Children's Champions.
  • Accessing the curriculum post pandemic may be a barrier to overcome. Use of the 'Stepping back into school' resource to support.
  • ·Inclusion Hubs for Primary outreach support.

If behaviours are escalating as a result of unmet needs, consider contacting the Schools' Safeguarding Team.

Resources:

Do

  • What are the child / young person's views?
  • What are the parent / carer views?
  • EHC Needs assessment request form with supporting evidence. This is a statutory process and takes 20 weeks. This is the first step where the SEND Team may become involved.

As part of this process, if an assessment is agreed by a multi-agency panel, advice will be requested from parent / carer, school, health, social care, specialist teacher (if required) and educational psychology. The family have the right to request specific advice if they feel there is an unmet need.

Resources

  • One page profile, parent / carer advice & guidance forms, EHC request forms: SEN support and EHC plans
  • SEND code of practice: 0 to 25 years - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Review

1) A decision not to assess: If this is the decision, the response letter will detail the reason behind why a decision not to assess has been issued. Revisit step 1 and 2.

2) An assessment is agreed but then a decision not to issue. The young person may have additional needs but the advice and information gathered as part of the statutory assessment indicates that specialist provision can be supported at SEN Support, through a graduated approach. Revisit step 1 and 2.

3) An assessment is agreed and a decision to issue. A draft plan will be issued to parent / carer for consultation. Once agreed, the SEND Team will consult with appropriate provision, in line with parental preference and the Local Authority view to ascertain whether the school feel they can deliver the provision in the plan. The local authority will review all consultation responses and make a final decision on placement in line with the SEND Code of Practice.

Resources

Additional useful information

  • Schools are expected to make reasonable adjustments to meet the needs of children and young people with SEND using their notional SEND budget of up to £6,000 at the SEN support level. Details of what reasonable adjustments may look like at SEN support and EHCP level can be found here: banding-document-for-sen-support-and-ehc-plan.pdf (lancashire.gov.uk). This links to Step 1 and 2 on the above road map.
  • Annual Review process: These occur annually for those over 5 and every 6 months for those under 5. Often, they won't require SEND Team, Educational Psychology or Specialist Teacher representation. The SEND Team and Educational Psychologist will make a judgement on their attendance based on the pre-review paperwork and this would usually be when there is evidence of a significant change to the young person's needs and provision.
  • The pre-review paperwork should be shared by the school/person leading the review with all attendees 2 weeks prior to the meeting so people have access to updated info/assessment/reports. This should then inform the parents and allow them to fill in their views, wishes and feelings alongside the young person.

Where needs are escalating and the young person is at risk of permanent exclusion and has an EHCP, you can access the Inclusion Engagement Support Team, consult your link EP, SEND Case Manager and Specialist Teaching Service.