DfE ministerial appointments and portfolios

Yesterday (13 July), the Department for Education confirmed new ministerial portfolios. Will Quince MP is Minister of State for School Standards. Alongside responsibility for school standards, qualifications, and curriculum, he retains responsibility for the SEND Review reforms, including the AP proposals set out in the green paper. Brendan Clarke-Smith MP is Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Children and Families and will have formal responsibility for AP, children’s social care, early years and more. Ministers will be working together to ensure the department delivers on the commitments set out in green paper. For a full breakdown of ministerial portfolios, please see the ‘Our Ministers’ section of the DfE page at: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-education.

Share your views on SEND and Alternative Provision reforms

With less than 2 weeks until the SEND and AP green paper consultation closes (deadline is 22 July), now is the time to reflect on the proposals and share your response before it’s too late. Resources are available to help you understand the proposals, these can be found at: https://sendreview.campaign.gov.uk/. These resources include question and answer sessions that cover mandatory mediation, behaviour, accountability, school SEND budgets and teacher training. You can respond to the consultation by visiting: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/send-review-right-support-right-place-right-time.

Call for Evidence into the use of Unregistered Alternative Provision

As part of the SEND and AP green paper, the DfE committed to review and improve oversight and accountability for unregistered alternative provision settings. To inform and support a national vision and delivery model for alternative provision, the department has now launched a call for evidence. It is predominantly aimed at commissioners, including schools and local authorities, as well as unregistered providers who deliver the education. It asks those with a practical understanding of how these provisions are arranged and operate to share their views. The call for evidence closes Friday 30 September. Further information is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/understanding-the-use-of-unregistered-alternative-provision.

 

I am writing to inform you that the government announced The Power of Music to Change Lives: A National Plan for Music Education yesterday morning. This is a joint Department for Education and Department for Digital Culture Media and Sport strategy, which builds on the work of the previous Plan published in 2011.

The Plan was developed with the expert guidance of the expert advisory panel. Our panel included David Stanley BEM, the government’s Arts and Culture Disability and Access Ambassador, plus leaders across the music education sector and wider music industry. We have also built on the contributions of thousands of young people, parents, and others in our Call for Evidence consultation in 2020. Our Call for Evidence report highlight the need for music to be more inclusive, in particular for pupils with SEND and pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, and the power of new technology to improve access.

Our vision is to enable all children and young people to learn to sing, play an instrument and create music together, and progress their musical interests and talents, including professionally. The plan is also clear that music education should be fully inclusive, so that all music educators:

  • commit to achieving greater access and more opportunity, and identifying and removing barriers
  • take action to support increasing access, opportunity, participation, and progression of groups that are currently under-represented in music
  • support understanding of inclusive music education and skills development among music teachers and others.

As part of the Plan, the Government is announcing new investment of £25 million capital funding from Autumn 2023, to purchase of musical instruments and technology, including adaptive instruments and equipment that helps children and young people with disabilities make music. We also want to establish a new centre for excellence focussed on inclusion in 2024, with additional funding to be announced later. We also expect every Music Hub in the country to have an Inclusion Strategy and appoint an Inclusion lead by 2024. I provide a more detailed summary at the end of this email.

You may also be interested the case studies and resources published with the plan (this includes posters promoting music education for young people).

If you think the plan is of interest to your members or networks, do feel free to publicise via your social media and other channels.

In the meantime, if you have any immediate questions about the plan, do let us know.

With best wishes, 

Stefano

Stefano Pozzi

Assistant Director, EBacc and Arts Unit – humanities and arts lead

Curriculum and General Qualifications Directorate, DfE

In March 2022, we announced that we would be working with councils to secure effective and sustainable management of local high needs systems  - including through a new delivering better value (DBV) programme, backed by £85 million over 3 years, which will provide dedicated support and funding to 55 local authorities facing significant challenges to reform their high needs systems, with the aim of improving delivery of SEND services for children and young people while securing the sustainability of local services. The first phase of the DBV programme is to be delivered through a contract. 

 

We are now delighted to announce that Newton Europe, in collaboration with the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), will deliver this contract from 2022-23.Newton works as a transformation and improvement partner to local authorities and CIPFA is the local government accounting standard setter in the UK. Between them, they have worked with hundreds of public sector organisations, particularly local authorities, have a comprehensive understanding of children’s services and the SEND agenda, and have set out an approach that is: 

 

  • Outcomes-focussed. Both organisations have worked extensively alongside local authorities to transform how services are delivered. Their focus is always on improving resident outcomes and ways of working, and consequently sustainably improving financial performance. 
  • Evidence-based, data-driven and delivery-focussed. Newton and CIPFA take a partnership approach to working with local authorities to create robust plans which will have a measurable and sustainable difference, and as delivery partners understand the challenges associated with implementing change. 
  • Rooted in co-production: The organisations believe any programme of work needs to be co-produced, bespoke, and based on detailed evidence of each local area – balancing visibility and assurance with local autonomy to genuinely add value to existing work.

 

The consultation on our new area SEND inspection framework is now live and can be accessed from this link: Area SEND consultation. On the consultation site you will also find our draft framework and handbook. You may also be interested in this strategic commentary from Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector about the new area SEND framework.

Our consultation sets out the key proposals for our new area SEND framework. Through this you have the opportunity to provide feedback on our proposals and we really encourage you to share your views with us. A separate consultation designed to gather the views of children and young people with SEND and easy-read versions are also available.

We would like to hear from as many people as possible and would be grateful if you could share the consultation link with your colleagues, contacts or anyone you know in the SEND sector including practitioners, parents/carers or children and young people you may work with.

If you have any questions please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Department for Education has today (15 June) launched a consultation on the actions that a local authority should have to take if it proposes to amend an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan following a review meeting. We are writing to alert you to the consultation and to ask for your help to raise awareness of the consultation by alerting your networks etc.

We believe that the principal audiences for the consultation paper will be:

  • children and young people with EHC plans and their families
  • organisations representing children and young people with SEND and their families
  • LA SEND officers
  • any early years setting, school, college or other setting attended by children or young people with an EHC plan
  • educational psychologists, health professionals, social care professionals and others involved in the review of EHC plans

Some of the key points relating to the consultation are set out below.

We will be very interested in your views, please do consider responding: the consultation closes on 12 August.

On 20th May DfE announced £12 million of funding to directly support schools and colleges to work with pupils with SEND, through the new Universal Services contract. A further statement was published on 6th June 2022:

'Today we are delighted to announce that the Research & Improvement for SEND Excellence partnership (RISE), led by the Council for Disabled Children and including the National Development Team for Inclusion (NDTi), the University of Warwick and Isos Partnership will deliver a three year, £4.8m contract to support SEND improvement in local areas. The contract includes two programmes of work;

The first will enable targeted performance improvement for local areas with weaknesses in their multi-agency SEND system via the provision of bespoke support. This work adds to our growing suite of regional, local and targeted support for local areas.

The second programme will design and develop a What Works in SEND programme; as a learning system, comprising research, development, and dissemination of resources and models of effective practice; and as an evidence base for exemplary practice within the sector.

Dame Christine Lenehan, the Director of the Council for Disabled Children says; “we are really pleased to be continuing our partnership with DfE and share a passion with them for achieving the best outcomes for children with SEND and their families. It is exciting to do this through a strong set of partners who want to both deliver local  improvement and build the best evidence about what works in system change.”

Supporting local areas, delivery partners and providers to meet the needs of children and young people with SEND continues to be a high priority for government, with a clear line of sight to key government commitments on the levelling up agenda, economic growth and employment, and to lay the foundations for further reform post-SEND Review.'

In this newsflash, we would like to draw your attention to three items:

New Ofqual guidance on making assessments more accessible for students:

On 12 May, Ofqual published new guidance on making assessments more accessible for students following a 12-week consultation.

There was strong support from respondents, students and their representatives, including those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). 

 The new statutory guidance explains that, when designing and developing exams and assessments, awarding organisations should: 

  • use accessible and appropriate language   
  • use clear and consistent layout  
  • use source material, context, images and colour in ways that do not advantage or disadvantage students  
  • consider how Reasonable Adjustments could be made to the exam or assessment to make sure disabled students are not disadvantaged 

The decisions following consultation and a summary of the guidance have also been published.

Further information is available in this news story.

Senior mental health lead training:

Senior mental health lead training helps develop the knowledge and skills of school or college leaders, to implement an effective approach to promoting and supporting mental health and wellbeing.  

The Department for Education have extended funding for this training, offering it to thousands more schools and colleges this financial year. A senior member of school or college staff can apply for a £1,200 grant to access quality assured training.  

You can now apply for a senior mental health lead grant, to commence training up to 31 March 2023.  

Find out how to apply here.

 

Anti-bullying support:

To help schools and colleges to champion respect and tolerance, the department have confirmed further funding to five leading organisations to continue supporting schools in tackling bullying until March 2023. These organisations will continue to deliver projects and programmes that offer training and support to tackle all forms of bullying.

The five organisations are:  

Find out more about the grants here.

 

SEND & Alternative Provision Directorate| Families Group| gov.uk/dfe | @education.gov.uk | fb.com/education.gov.uk

For the latest information about the SEND & AP Green Paper consultation, please click on the picture below to access the campaign page (or visit: https://sendreview.campaign.gov.uk/)

In February 2022 DfE announced that they would be continuing to deliver targeted support for families and parents of children with SEND and SEND services - including providing funding that will directly support schools and colleges to work with pupils with SEND, through the new Universal Services contract.

Today (20th May) DfE SEND division has said, 'We are now delighted to announce that the National Association for Special Educational Needs (Nasen), on behalf of the Whole School SEND consortium, and with the support of The Education and Training Foundation (ETF) and the Autism Education Trust, will deliver this contract, backed by almost £12 million for three years.

The Universal Services contract will help the school and FE workforce to support children and young people with SEND - ensuring that a broad range of needs, including autism, are identified earlier and met more effectively, and making sure that preparation for adulthood provision is delivered from the earliest stages, to support children and young people transition into adulthood and employment. This will be key to delivering the Government’s levelling up ambitions and the aims of the SEND Review.'

More information and resources for this programme will be available here.