“Overcrowded special schools are being pushed towards crisis point”, the latest damning Ofsted SEND inspection has revealed.
Derbyshire council has also been criticised for sitting on more than £20 million of capital funding to address high-needs issues – as parents feel they have “no option” other than to educate their children at home.
Ofsted and Care Quality Commission inspectors found “widespread and/or systemic failings” at the area’s local authority and health services – giving it the lowest rating for a SEND inspection.
They had significant concerns about the experiences and outcomes” of children with special needs.
A lack of capacity meant leaders reporting “their overcrowded [special] schools are being pushed towards crisis points”.
The report also said a “lack of a clearly defined joint strategy for SEND” is leading to schools and trusts “filling the void with their own strategies and resources”.
‘Crisis’
Margaret Mulholland, of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the findings “perfectly encapsulate the crisis in provision for children with special educational needs”.
“Additional special school places are welcome, but it takes time to build capacity, and in most cases it will be a new generation of pupils that benefit.
“We need to take action now to support oversubscribed special schools, as well as mainstream schools, to provide for the growing numbers of children with special educational needs.”
Council papers, published in July, show Derbyshire has been allocated about £26 million in SEND capital funding by the government since 2021. Of that, just £6.7 million has been earmarked for projects in the area.
The inspection found schools are struggling to accommodate SEND children, leading to increasing numbers “being suspended and/or excluded, or placed on a part-time timetable”.
Parents have also been left feeling “they have no option other than to electively home educate their child” amid place shortages.
Spending ‘will do little’
Inspectors ordered the area partnership to “urgently” tackle the issue, arguing that recent spending announcements for additional special school places “will do little to address the significant number of children… currently out of education”.
Families told inspectors they were “in crisis”, amid two-year waits to have their child’s needs assessed and “significant delays” to education, health and care plans (EHCPs).
The EHCPs issued to youngsters were also branded “poor”, with some “finalised without contributions from health or social care professionals”.
“Area leaders have started to address the issues of timeliness and the quality of [the] plans. However, their work in this area is yet to demonstrate impact.”
Archway Learning Trust CEO Sian Hampton said the one Derbyshire school she runs has witnessed its specialist resource provision grow “exponentially”.
In 2020, the secondary had 64 pupils with EHCPs on its books. The figure has since leapt 323 per cent to 271 this year.
“We have had to stretch our provision to meet the needs of our young people.
“We’re now looking at EHCPs much more creatively… [to see] if it’s more impactful for that child to get particular adjustments in the lessons, rather than having someone following them around all the time, which is expensive.”
3 in 10 areas have lowest rating
Of the 45 areas that have so far been inspected since Ofsted launched its new SEND inspection framework last year, 13 (29 per cent) have been given the lowest rating. Meanwhile, just 12 (27 per cent) were handed top marks.
Rotherham, whose inspection report was also published today, is one of those.
Its services were found to “typically lead to positive experiences and outcomes” for SEND children – despite it being signed up to the controversial government bailout programme for its high-needs deficit.
Professor Dean Howells, of the NHS Derby and Derbyshire Integrated Care Board, apologised “to children, parents and carers on behalf of the Derbyshire Local Area Partnership for the failings this report has identified”.
Alison Noble, the council’s director for children’s services, added that the authority is “making a multi-million-pound investment in employing more specialist staff, improving efficiency around assessments and creating more special needs school places”.
Matt Keer, an expert at the Special Needs Jungle website, said most councils have allocated their capital funding “rapidly”, adding Derbyshire was “an outlier”.
The council is a member of the f40 group of local authorities, which are “among the worst funded in the country” per pupil. Schools forum papers from January show Derbyshire had a £4.8 million high-needs deficit, which is “expected to increase”.
Responding to a parliamentary question, schools minister Catherine McKinnell said the Department for Education has appointed a SEND adviser “to work collaboratively with an NHS England Adviser to challenge, support and work alongside the local area partnership to improve its services”.
The regional team all also establish “systems to track progress against all improvements identified in the published report”
