By Ciara Nicholson, Executive Director of Education (Primary) at the Diocese of Westminster Academy Trust (DoWAT).
As an academy trust we were aware of rising needs in the SEND sector and the impact it was having on schools.
The local support which used to be available to schools is diminishing, with local authorities having such large deficits that they’re delaying providing funding. We have 20 students assessed as in need of specialist schools, but are being asked to hold them as there’s a three to five-year waiting list so they’ll likely spend their entire primary education in a mainstream setting.
At board level we discussed a SEND strategy as a two-year pilot project to future-proof provision going forward, and as a structural solution it’s been funded by reserves.
Across our schools we have a series of best practice networks, of headteachers and special educational needs coordinators (SENCos), and what had been coming through was the desperation from frustrated heads and the sense of isolation felt by SENCos.
We went to school leaders and asked them what they would need to be prioritised if central funding was to be diverted, and a big wish list came out of it.
Specialist support
One of the key things was access to an educational psychologist, as for some of our schools in particular areas such support had become a distant memory. Next were speech and language therapists, due to the increasing needs of post-Covid children not being able to articulate in the same way as before. Early-stage autism may not manifest itself until about age six or seven years old, and another priority was an autism advisory teacher.
Most of our schools are also seeing a rise in students with English as an Additional Language (EAL), particularly in early years. What was 20-30% of students having EAL before is now around 50-60%, in some cases 80%, and this can make identifying SEND early on more difficult. This required further staff training and resources.
There was also a burning need for family support workers, to engage with families, for instance, where there were gaps in attendance.
SENCo wellbeing
Currently each school has its own SENCo, and they get swamped. Instead of coordinating resources you get pulled into meetings about local authorities delaying and not playing ball, so a macro-SENCo was another wish list item, someone to assist with consultations, future planning, and support around funding, to let an individual SENCo get on with their job. SENCo wellbeing is a massive issue, and one of our aims with the strategy is to take away the sense of isolation.
If nationally the agenda is all about removing barriers to mainstream, there needs to be more work on adaptive teaching, upskilling teachers on reasonable adjustments. Similarly, when you’ve spare capacity in a primary school building for SEND, the issue is that some students need calm, sensory provision, and others need activities – and all in the same space.
Training staff for mobile support
Our educational psychologist was the first to be recruited and at the start was just clearing the backlog, but is now on the front foot providing training for bodies of staff. Having moved on from crisis firefighting we’re now able to place key individuals in more strategic roles. Our speech and language therapists are upskilling teaching assistants (TAs), such as in sensory needs, or as generalists, positions which are mobile across academy trust schools.
For example, a TA at St Catherine of Siena Catholic Primary School, Watford, worked with DoWAT’s speech and language therapist and has since provided pupils with individualised assessments and therapy. Some of these pupils had been awaiting an NHS assessment for a while, and their skills are now progressing with resources and support from their newly-trained TA. We now have a monthly SEND newsletter to share resources, good practice and success stories.
The future challenge
Progress is reviewed regularly, and discussed at dedicated SEND days across the academy trust with headteachers, chairs of governors, SENCos and SEND leads. Eighteen months in and I can say that if we can put in even 10 times the amount of funding it still wouldn’t be enough. Some of our secondaries have 60 students with EHCPs and 180 on the SEND register, and in single-form entry primary schools up to 50 on the SEND register and 14 EHCPs.
Although schools and the NHS are doing our bit, there are the cracks in the middle. We’ve got students with diabetes who need to be checked. Nurses come in, but not as often as they’d like so they ask TAs to fill in for them among their other duties. This is in the context of most primaries now being down to only three, four or five TAs. In terms of funding we’re up against falling school rolls, unfunded teacher pay increases, and Amazon offering term time-only hours.
Against this backdrop, our schools are doing a really good job, and there’s a massive amount of excellent work happening. The strategy has helped us as an academy trust, we’ve been training our staff for a sustainable future, and the challenge is, as we grow, how to stretch the service. As a result of the hard work and dedication of our staff, pupils with an EHCP in DoWAT schools achieve a full grade higher in each GCSE than the national average.
Looking at trends, however, demand will double and treble what we can offer, so we’ll have to prioritise — to try and avoid ending up creating our own system of delays.
Find out more about SEND at DoWAT and Catholic education in the Archdiocese of Westminster
