Issue - meetings

To consider a report of the Head of Strategy, Planning and Performance.

The Chairman opened the item by referring to a number of visits to the respective special schools which had been undertaken by Councillors prior to the meeting. All those who attended agreed that the visits had been interesting and enlightening and wished their thanks to be noted and passed on to the Headteachers.

Fintan Bradley, Head of Strategy, Planning & Performance, attended to give a presentation on the background of the Special Educational Needs (SEN) Review. In providing the context, he reported how much the Council spent on SEN (£27.6m) and how this was allocated to particular services and pupils.

Fintan Bradley reported that there were six work streams contributing to the SEN Review and that these were as follows:

1)    Development of a specialist Autistic Spectrum Condition (ASC) specific School  

2)    Resourced Provision

3)    Funding

4)    Current pathways for access to Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) services.

5)    SEND Policy

6)    Early Years and Settings.

For the purpose of this meeting, attention was drawn to the SEND Policy. Fintan Bradley explained that there was a legal requirement to produce such a policy and therefore the Council were currently consulting on the proposed draft. As part of this consultation, the Committee were asked to submit their comments in order to help shape the final document.

Members made a number of comments on the draft SEND Policy document.

·         Regarding the penultimate bullet point on page 39, beginning ‘Out of Borough Placements’ - it was suggested that it was necessary to look carefully at the wording of this point in order to protect the Council from legal challenge. It was agreed that it was important to state clearly that the Council would have the final say on whether a child’s assessed needs could be met appropriately in a Cheshire East setting or not.

·         In terms of the fourth bullet point on page 39, beginning ‘Parents/Carers’ – it was suggested that the wording of this be changed to reflect the following: “Parents/carers will be listened to and their views treated with respect. Their expertise will be valued and help to inform the provision put in place for children and young people”

·         It was stated that in terms of the ‘principles’ outlined on p.21, it was suggested that there needed to be a clear definition of ‘special educational needs’ that all stakeholders would sign up to and agree.

·         It was suggested that it would be useful to put ‘the pledge’ at the beginning of the document as this was easy to understand and helped put the rest of the policy in context.

A number of queries were also made. Firstly, it was asked whether the proposed implementation of the pupil premium would have an impact of the Individual Pupil Funding. Fintan Bradley explained that the Pupil Premium was to be aimed at Cared for Children, pupils on free school meals and army children. Having said this, he noted that the service were looking to see if there would be any overlaps and if convergences  ...  view the full minutes text for item 123