SEND Green Paper 2022 – Some Critical Insights

The launch of the SEND Review Green Paper (HM Government, 2022a) raised significant concerns as to the future direction of SEND provision and potential implications for children, families, schools, communities and support services.

These include the de-professionalisation of Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCos), the disempowerment of parents and children, the question of post-16 provision, a proposed increase in bureaucracy and a lack of reference to inclusive leadership .

It also raises the issue of The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) provides not only that children with disabilities should not be discriminated against but also that they should be able to participate in the general education system.

Background to SEND policy and provision

We agree with the words of the then Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi (HM Government, 2022a), “Too many parents and carers of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) feel they aren’t heard. They are frustrated, and often feel there is no one held accountable for their children’s outcomes in the different parts of the system”. The Government’s review (HM Government, 2022a) has identified the following three key challenges facing the SEND and alternative provision system:

1. The challenges and negative experiences families and professionals have in navigating the SEND system and alternative provision is not a positive experience for too many children, young people and their families
2. Outcomes for children and young people with SEND or in alternative provision are consistently worse than their peers across every measure
3. Despite the continuing and unprecedented investment, the system is not financially sustainable

But we know there are others.

Eleven years on from Support and Aspiration, eight years from the Children and Families Act and seven from the revised Code of Practice- what has changed? Whilst the Code of Practice (DfE, 2015) outlined a skeleton approach, it was left to schools to work out the details. Some schools took the opportunity and had the resource to develop innovative support and practice. However, for many there has been significant variation in identifying and meeting needs. Education receives policy from the top down, with many well-founded directives and aims, including rhetoric but never any clear detailed guidance or direction on ‘how to’.

We would add these as additional key challenges to be considered by the Green Paper: 

• Inconsistency of funding allocation and inconsistency of reform delivery when working across a range of LAs (MATs)
• Inequity and inconsistency across the sector – not enough of the right types of places across the system for each child
• Ineffective integration of education and health care systems
• Parents, families and schools in conflict with each other rather than working together
• Lack of accountability in the system structure so some schools, particularly those with mixed academisation, have the option of not taking children with SEN
• Too many children ending up in Alternative Provision where their needs are not being met

In 2019 several reports were published, adding insight and evidence of the UK Government’s ineffective education policy and provision for Disabled children, young people, and those with Special Educational Needs (SEN). They included: The Audit Commission report, ‘Support for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities in England’ (2019), ‘The Parliamentary Education Select Committee Report on SEND’ (2019) and an insightful piece in the Special Needs Jungle, warning a further SEND Review risked kicking the issue into the long grass.

So, what does this Green Paper offer? Can it really be that by simplifying the EHCP process and establishing a common passport for post 16, our complex, overly bureaucratic and adversarial system has found its Holy Grail?

The next four sections each speak from their author’s professional position. We hope our words provide insight and knowledge to enable your voice to be heard, for you to be a proactive part of this critical consultation process.

The role of the SENCo

School SENCos have a strategic role in schools to improve SEND provision and practice and to reduce barriers to learning; as such they should be part of the school’s leadership team.

Whilst all teachers are teachers of SEND, the SENCo is responsible for the operation of the schools SEND policy, to oversee practice and coordinate provision, to advise on best practice and to liaise with staff, families, and outside professionals. It is a statutory role within maintained schools set out within Section 67 of the Children and Families Act 2014 and since 2009 new SENCos must complete the National Award for Special Educational Needs Coordination (NASENCo) within three years of taking up the role.

The NASENCo is a post graduate qualification which recognises the role of the SENCo as a strategic leader in schools. It includes 60 masters credits and as the National College for Teaching and Leadership suggests, ‘it would be difficult to achieve the aims of the Award at a lower level’ (2014, p.3). Members of Leading Learning for SEND have their NASENCo provision quality assured on a three yearly basis to ensure statutory requirements are met and to maintain the quality of provision across the country. The award prepares SENCos for their role in terms of their professional knowledge and understanding, leadership and personal and professional qualities. In so doing, SENCos are trained to think critically and to solve problems in innovative ways, essential skills when working with children with additional needs.

The SEND Green Paper  (HM Government, 2022a) proposes to remove this statutory requirement and to instead offer a SENCo National Professional Qualification (NPQ) thus bringing the award into a suite of standardised school leadership qualifications.

No detail is given as to what level the NPQ will be, how many masters credits it will include, or how generic such a qualification might be. This is of concern because the public are being asked to respond to the consultation ‘to what extent do you agree or disagree that we should introduce a new mandatory SENCo NPQ to replace the NASENCo’ (p.44) without knowing what such an award would look like or how this change may impact on the quality of SENCos in schools or their professionalism.

It is important to recognise that the proposal for a new SENCo NPQ has been referred to in the government’s ‘Opportunity for All’ education White Paper as a statement of policy (HMGovernment, 2022b, p.20). Although the White Paper states that the government ‘will consult’ on introducing the reformed qualification it comes across as a ‘done deal’, indeed a ‘SENCo NPQ (subject to consultation)’ (p.20) is already listed as part of England’s teacher development system.

SENCos play a key role in schools to support the strategic development of SEND provision and ultimately to improve outcomes for children. As such it is inherently important for SENCos to be valued in their role and to have the opportunity to engage with specialist training that develops leadership skills at masters level in terms of problem solving, critical thinking and reflexive analysis as applied to the SENCo role (rather than generic leadership skills).

Stakeholders are being asked to agree or not agree to the introduction of a SENCo NPQ without any supporting information and as such may as well be doing so blindfolded placing absolute trust in the government to do the right thing for SEND.

SEND in practice

  

For many SENCos in the sector, the post-pandemic normal has come to mean online, back-to-back reviews, multi-disciplinary meetings and decoding novel EHCP paperwork formats from all around the country. There are many different configurations; when paperwork is a large part of your role, you learn to appreciate the administrative details of an EHCP. It is with this professional attention to detail that a salient point about the SEN Green Paper can be made. A document which, in its ministerial foreword, describes its grand ambition as to create a financially stable 'single national system' (HM Government, 2022, p.6) instead runs the risk of being remembered primarily for creating a sigh of relief, not for changing the world, but for creating a single piece of paperwork for staff to use. A carrot to the stick of de-professionalising perhaps?

In relation to the lived experience of these young people, their parents and the professionals many of us work with, the Green Paper is notable for what it doesn’t say. Its fundamental language makes no reference to neurodiversity affirming practice, seeking instead to present a common shorthand for 'pupils with SEN'. This community, whose voice is typified by its diversity and emerging resistance to ablism, is still presented as a deficit population associated with underachievement (Gorard & Smith, 2004) awaiting improvement by outside intervention.

As has been identified in the recent NATSPEC response to the Green Paper , a troubling gap is the lack of reference to post-16 and transition elements of the SEN experience. Further education, sometimes unfairly called the 'Cinderella sector' (Petrie 2022) for being last to the ball, only with the help of the fairy godmother, is once again forgotten.

Many families live in fear of the day that transition will come and local authorities begin the dance that denotes funding will end and the party is over. They will want to hear what the government intends to do to make social care and external services a viable proposition for the young people with the most complex needs. In so doing, acknowledging that SEN education does not stand alone, it inhabits a unique intersection of services (mental health, social care and health). If we are to improve one, we must improve the others and as the Education Select Committee Report on SEND (ibid) states, there is ample work to be done.

And yet, for the most significant overhaul of this system since 2014, commentary is limited about what education is, how it might work, what it could look like or how it should be improved. The Education Endowment Foundation recently released guidance for SEN education in mainstream schools drawn arguably, from the largest meta-analysis of research done in this field and yet there is no reference to this major work or any attempt to present a strategy beyond the discourse of procedural reform.

Overhauling processes to make them less adversarial is laudable but process without principle can only impact the surface of what is a much deeper critical problem.

Now more than ever, as SEN practitioners, we find ourselves supporting families and students who are working through the compressed trauma of COVID and the long shadow it has cast. In this spirit the Green Paper represented an opportunity to deliver a manifesto of regeneration and recovery.

The references to inclusion dashboards, mandatory mediation and tailored offers whilst at surface level might appear sensible, even supportive. However, without guiding pedagogical principals that take into account the wider systems they inhabit, these recommendations may find themselves contributing to a perfect storm of overspend and scrutiny for local authorities. Instead of making the system less adversarial, they could promote a culture of competing professional territories that will mandate a financial 'snap back' instead of build back.

This Green Paper, as it stands, only begins to address these issues, and as we approach the consultation deadline, that request for extra time to engage critically with these proposals seems more essential than ever.

The parental perspective

Initial feedback on the SEND Green Paper by families is one of distrust, triggered by some identified ‘red-flags’. A delay of six weeks to make the consultation accessible to the very people it was aimed at, then extending the deadline by only three, sent a clear message from government about the true value of the SEND agenda and the input of SEND service users and their families.

Those families who know the system are deeply sceptical. Observations of “déjà vu” were quick to surface. Indeed, the regurgitation of rhetoric between 2011 and 2022 was clear, permeating the entire Paper, for example:

• “Too often the experiences and outcomes of children and young people are poor. Children and young people with SEN have consistently worse outcomes than their peers across every measure” 2022
• “Currently, life chances for the approximately two million children and young people in England who are identified as having a special educational need (SEN), or who are disabled, are disproportionately poor” 2011

Families say the glaring omission of any 16-25 focus within the Paper, exemplifies the system’s diminished interest in young people or their futures, believing ‘optics’ rather than ‘life outcomes’ have become the priority within education. GCSE results, Ofsted reports, budgets.: these are the yardsticks by which the ‘business of education’ is ultimately measured, not the ability by all its students to go on and lead independent, productive and fulfilling lives, contributing to an inclusive society.

Families want to ensure that accessing the SEND system will result in their young people realising their potential.  They want to be confident that the poorer outcomes across every measure between SEND students and their non-SEND peers will be understood and addressed, and that the growing gap be finally closed.  Simply ‘reworking’ reforms every decade or so, without review or accountability for the failings of previous years, or indeed the lessons learned from them, serves to further undermine families’ confidence and trust in the SEND system.

This is exemplified in one of the key messages of the Green Paper, ‘making the system less adversarial’.  Families welcome this objective. However, the introduction of a ‘tailored list’ of educational options to be offered to families by local authorities, is contradictory and raised immediate concerns.

There was an absence of detail within the consultation about ‘who’ decides what options comprise the list, or ‘what’ criteria informs that decision. Consultation question 5 asks how parents and local authorities might work together to create a suitable list of options to choose from.  However, the wording within the paper suggests this decision is already made: “In order to support parents and carers to express an informed preference of a suitable placement, they will be provided with a tailored list of settings based on the local inclusion plan, including mainstream, specialist and independent, that are appropriate to meet the child or young person’s needs”.

This approach suggests another ‘done deal’ in terms of available choice, contradicting the philosophy of co-production entirely. This is especially evident by the introduction of ‘mandatory’ mediation [MM], a process the education select committee deemed unworkable a decade ago, and in this case seems to serve to ‘persuade’ families to accept their now much reduced choice.

Families rightly question “What has changed so much for the better, that mandatory mediation is suddenly a good idea?” The answer is nothing and it’s not.  MM will add an additional layer of stress for families and perpetuate the adversarial experience. But it goes further. If MM does not work, the Green Paper proposes to add a further layer of bureaucracy, in the form of an independent review panel, a multi-agency panel to ‘resolve’ decision disputes, something families identify as code for ‘obtaining compliance’.

This will further contribute to the very delays the reforms aim to reduce.  It will make redress harder, not ‘more streamlined’ for families, delaying - not decreasing - tribunal numbers, that 96% of the time are upheld in favour of the family. Families view this proposal as an increased mandate for local government to dictate a child’s education, further diminishing the family voice and choice, imposing its will according to its budget. 

Families feel the SENCo role they value so highly, is also at risk within these reforms, with the SENCo qualification and status diluted within the senior leadership framework, so their advocacy power for SEND students is further diminished. For the families who are ‘equipped’, this will not hold them back. However, for the many who are not experts in SEND law, nor have the emotional, social or economic capital to challenge an extended redress system without the strength and expertise SENCos provide, children and families who already have little voice, are at risk of being further silenced.

These changes feed into the co-production agenda that families feel is being systematically eroded before it has ever been properly established.

Co-production acknowledges families as experts on their children and holds them as equal and valued partners in the construction their child’s education for their best outcome.  However, tailored lists, diminishment of the SENCo role and qualification, and increased layers of bureaucracy within the redress process, highlight inconsistencies in intention that clearly say otherwise.

Post-16 challenges and empowerment

Earlier this year, there were indicators the Green Paper would focus on the social model approach, with references to learner empowerment, learner aspirations, community development, access, and post 16 opportunities for SEND alongside a significant push for reasonable adjustments in mainstream schooling. It was hoped this new policy would have a clear connection in both aims and priority action areas to UNCRPD Article 24. Yet, it seems these progressive aims and references were never in the minds of the drafters.

For families there is a sense that continued lack of clarity about what support their children receive and a failing in the system to embrace the cultural change of higher aspirations for children with SEND continues (Lamb, 2022). The post -16 world, transition and funding for SEND progression has been discussed, researched and written about for many years in both policy and practice contexts. Yet presently, disabled young people are not getting the careers advice that enables them to pursue their ambitions and achieve their aspirations alongside their nondisabled peers.

During the second reading of the Education (Careers Guidance in Schools) Bill in the House of Lords, Lord Chris Holmes stated (Holmes, 2022): “Data for this is clear, the progression rate, measuring the number of pupils progressing from school to higher education, was 47.5% for pupils with no identified Special Education Needs (SEN). However, progression rates for pupils with SEN ranged from 20.8% for pupils receiving extra or different help in school (SEN Support) to just 8.4% for pupils which a statement of SEN or Education, Health and Care plan (EHCP).”

At present, young people remain entitled to an EHCP if they are 16-25 and in education or training. This includes apprenticeships and supported internships as well as further education. But if a young person with additional needs has been able to make it to university, they no longer have any statutory support at all. The option, for those aware, is to apply for Disabled Student’s Allowance (DSA). A recent national study by Disabled Students UK (2022), a study by Brown and Gibson (2022) and a government report by Lord Chris Holmes (2022) all emphasise disparities, complexities, inefficiencies and failings in the DSA system plus related FE or HE provision. Holmes’s report has highlighted the following- (Weale, 2022):

“ …just 29% of students in England and Wales with a known disability received the allowance in 2019/20 while those who have been through the application process complained of bureaucracy, long delays, inconsistent quality of support and a lack of communication. “A nightmare,” said one student, “a full-time job” said another describing the challenge of coordinating support which is rarely in place at the start of a course and can take months to secure, delaying students’ progress and putting them at an unfair disadvantage.”

DSUK’s research noted (2022): “Just 23.1 per cent of disabled students received the support they needed over the pandemic, with many saying they felt “left behind”, “alienated”, and “forgotten” and Brown and Gibson (2022) logged ineffective communication, administrative burden and inaccessible learning environment as barriers to post 16 progression.

Pages 15, 38 and 53 of the Green Paper pick up on post-16 transition, there is repetition and whilst FE and Employment are clearly on the page, Higher Education is noted by its limited reference. One is also left with questions regarding purpose and further bureaucracy, when reading about the new common transfer file and adjustment passports to improve transition at further education and ensure young people with SEND are prepared for employment and higher education” (HM Government 2022a).

Leaving home for the first time can be exciting, but it is also a very stressful time in the life of a young person and their family. If a young person with SEND is entering a new educational situation where they are not known and where resources for their equal education experience have not been fully considered, it is a recipe for anxiety, depression, drop-out and failure. That is surely not what a progressive and/or user-informed policy aspires to. 

Given the timeliness of recent research and national studies we hope these evidence-based sources provide readers and users of our SEND system with the necessary in feeding back, their views and progressive ideas into the consultation process.

SEND Leadership – Led by the few?

Leading special educational needs and disability provision in schools is complex, to the extent that many leaders and teachers leave support for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged to a very small team of qualified and unqualified practitioners led by the SENCo.

If this persists in schools, there is every possibility that the aims of the current Schools Bill (2022) and SEND Review (2022) in securing the best educational opportunity for all children will fail.

The complexity of leading SEND needs to be strategic, and accessible for all leaders.  The following model, based on a research project in 454 schools, published by the National College for Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services (2012), is offered as a solution.

Vision

Successful leaders are driven by a set of core values and beliefs around the entitlements and expectations for all pupils, especially those identified with SEND. They model these values in their interactions with pupils, staff, parents and other professionals engaged in the education and care of these pupils – particularly in relation to:

• the expectations for pupils’ progress and achievement
• the positive engagement with parents
• valuing and providing a wide range of learning opportunities for pupils.

The vision is apparent in both informal and formal communications – staff meetings, conversations in corridors, meetings with parents and other agencies. Effective leaders are reflective thinkers, who are constantly evaluating, questioning, and challenging current school practices and culture. They embed their belief that ALL children can achieve and make progress constantly. They demonstrate:

• a core moral purpose
• consistent message and role-modelling
• knowledge and context of community
• accountability and responsibility
• self-awareness and ability to reflect
• risk-taking and innovation

Commitment

Successful leaders reflect their values and commitment to the pupils through their behaviours as leaders and managers. They are relentless in securing the most appropriate provision. They commit to providing high quality resources and engage specialist staff where appropriate. They invest in ensuring effective strategies and systems are in place to track pupils’ progress. They have a strategic view of what is needed to skill their workforce to improve inclusion, are committed to constant development of staff and successfully deploy appropriate staff to meet the needs of the individual. They ensure that time is committed in staff meetings and elsewhere to discussion and dialogue about improving provision for vulnerable pupils. They value the engagement with parents by committing time and resource to ensuring effective structured conversations can take place within and outside the school day. Above all, they secure the commitment of all staff and ensure that their commitment is underpinned by a sense of collective responsibility for the achievement of all pupils.

Collaboration

Successful provision to ensure that pupils identified with SEND progress and achieve wider outcomes requires a culture of collaboration – with and between staff, parents, and other agencies. Effective collaboration relies on leaders in and across schools working together with a sense of collective responsibility for vulnerable learners and pupils identified with SEND. It also means that leaders are outward facing. They look beyond their own school, they show an appreciation and understanding that all schools are different, and that strengths and good practice can be shared. Effective leaders’ model shared working practices in school and between schools and phases of education. In the successful schools, leadership is both a collaborative and distributed activity.

Communication

The successful leadership of SEND relies on effective communications at a range of levels – with pupils; parents and carers; with staff in and between schools; and with other services/agencies. Successful leaders are good at engaging others. They nurture relationships with pupils and their parents/carers. They are good listeners and can demonstrate that they value the contribution of others. They invest time in communicating with parents.

Effective leaders articulate and communicate a vision which they encourage others to share and develop. They actively encourage formal and informal dialogue about strategies to improve the achievement for all pupils. They share information about pupils’ attainment and progress and celebrate achievement. Through their communications they give value to wider outcomes as well as those reported in performance tables.

The wording and general tone of this Green Paper suggests strategic, inclusive and collaborative forms of leadership, as per this model, have been overlooked. Successful leaders in schools today work closely with their seminal stakeholders- parents, pupils, teachers and community leaders.

If the education system is to push forward for genuine inclusive change and related societal progression, then our school community leaders need to hear that message from their own leaders. Without that guidance, a fragmented disconnected model of practice will emerge and with it the continuation of a system where SEND provision is delivered by the few.

References

Achievement for All: Leadership matters (ioe.ac.uk)

Brown, Z and Gibson, S, (2022), Moving into a new socially just and equal ‘normal’- the lessons Higher Education must learn from its disabled students, British Education Studies Association annual conference.

Disabled Students UK, (2022), Going back is not a choice, DSUK publications

Gorard, S. & Smith, E. (2004) 'What is 'underachievement' at school?'. School Leadership and Management, 24 (2), pp. 205-225. 

https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/education-careers-guidance-in-schools-bill/

HM Government (2022a) SEND Review: Right support. Right place. Right time. Department for Education London: HM Staionery Office.

HMGovernment (2022b) Opportunity for All: Strong schools with great teachers for your child. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office. Available.

Holmes, C. (2022a), Report onto the Disabled Students Allowance, House of Lords, 9^th March, Available at https://lordchrisholmes.com/report-disabled-students-allowance-dsa/

Holmes, C. (2022b), Extending careers advice for the benefit of our young people, Linkedin, 4^th March, Available at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/extending-careers-advice-benefit-all-our-young-people-chris-holmes/

Lamb, B. (2022), Will the SEND Review Green Paper deliver lasting improvements for disabled children and families, Teaching Times, March 1^st, Available at https://www.specialneedsjungle.com/brian-lamb-send-review-Green-Paper-improvements-disabled-children-families/

National College for Teaching and Leadership (2014) National Award for SEN Co-ordination. Learning Outcomes. Gov.UK: National College for Teaching and Leadership

Petrie, J. (2021) How Grimm is Further Education?, FE News. Available at: https://www.fenews.co.uk/exclusive/how-grimm-is-further-education/ (Accessed: 1 July 2022).  

Special Educational Needs in Mainstream Schools (2021) EEF. Available at: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/guidance-reports/send (Accessed: 1 July 2022). 

Weale, S. (2022), Just 29% of students in England with disabilities receiving DSA allowance, The Guardian, 10^th March, Available at:  https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/mar/10/just-29-of-students-in-england-with-disabilities-receiving-dsa-allowance-analysis?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other