In November 2023, Hampshire County Council launched the Transforming SEND Programme. Building on the earlier High Needs Transformation Workstreams, it presented a bold new vision for ‘all children and young people with SEND in Hampshire to be empowered to achieve outstanding outcomes’. This is to be achieved over the following practical framework:
- building a shared culture of inclusion;
- adopting a consistent approach;
- working within budgetary constraints;
- being responsive to changing needs.
The model developed by Hampshire County Council prompts the question of whether we all need to rethink inclusion at a local level.
Building a shared culture of inclusion
As a local authority, inclusion and inclusive education settings are the expectation of Hampshire County Council. Headteachers new to the county have an induction covering the principles of inclusion for the authority, including:
- all [children and young people] being able to access a good education;
- strong pathways for every child;
- access to high-quality provision which meets needs and diminishes barriers to participation and engagement;
- commitment to early intervention and prevention;
- commitment to partnership working.
This commitment to inclusion is demonstrated in the approach to using specialist provision across the county. There are 27 special schools for children and young people with the most complex needs, with an additional 60 resourced provisions attached to mainstream schools.
The authority chooses to use resourced provisions rather than designated units to support their values of inclusion. Within a resourced provision, children are expected to have a balance of input from the specialist resource and time alongside peers in the mainstream classroom. As an authority, it was agreed that children learn best when integrated with peers and that resourced provisions offer this balance.