SEND Sufficiency Strategy 2024 to 2030

There is an understanding that any sufficiency strategy will not result in every child or family who requests a specialist setting, being allocated a place. With a finite funding stream, all sufficiency planning decisions need to be made considering the balance between providing the right number of specialist places and providing schools, Early Years and post-16 providers with sufficient top-up funding to ensure successful inclusion in mainstream.

Our SEND Sufficiency Plan aims to meet the growing demand detailed in this paper. In essence, it aims to address the following areas:

1. The need to increase the ability of secondary and primary mainstream schools (including Enhanced Resource Provisions) and Early Years providers to successfully include children and young people with Communication and Interaction Needs (Autism), Speech, Language and Communication Needs and Social, Emotional and Mental Health Needs (including ADHD) and ensure they make progress towards holistic outcomes and achieve positive destinations.
2. The need to increase the number of specialist places at primary and in Early Years for those children with considerable and complex Communication and Interaction Needs, along with developmental delay and behaviours which challenge.
3. The need to subsequently increase the number of secondary specialist places to ensure these children and young people have a flexible curriculum to plan for an independent, happy and productive adulthood.
4. The need to create safe, secure and sustainable, multi-disciplinary provision to manage the emerging small but significant number of children and young people whose complex and layered needs require a bespoke arrangement to enable them to be safe and to meet their outcomes.
5. The need for future proofing suitable post-16 further education placements and the development of pathways to employment across the city to accommodate a range of needs.
6. Development of the City of York Council SEND Partnership to ensure future demand is tracked and monitored and that all current provision is quality assured to ensure positive outcomes for children and young people with SEND as well as the need to ensure value for money, in line with the Safety Valve commitment.

Achievements to date

Prior to their being a formal SEND Sufficiency Strategy, actions were underway in line with the outcomes of the inclusion review and in order to meet growing demand. These included:

• extending and enhancing the offer for children and young people with Social, Emotional and Mental Health Needs (SEMH) and with Autism at Danesgate
• increasing the number of places at our secondary special school (from X to X) through building adaptations over the last 4 years
• increasing the number of places at our primary special school (from 110 to 125)
• building 2 new classrooms at our primary Enhanced Resource Provisions (ERP) to provide excellent provision for children with Communication and Interaction Needs
• building a new ERP at a local mainstream secondary school for children with autism experiencing high levels of anxiety, creating 30 additional places over 5 years
• extending and developing the Early Years ERP – providing full time places specifically for children with Communication and Interaction Needs
• expanding the local offer for children and young people with SEND in York including the Autism Hub, Family Hubs, and plans for a SEND Hub
• reviewing alternative education provision and developing a robust quality assurance programme for settings educating our children and young people, including those with SEND
• publishing and implementing the Preparation for Adulthood Protocol
• implementing the supported internship action plan; the action plan was launched at the Inclusive Employment Network event; the SEND Employment Forum has been established and a potential cohort of young people has been identified. In York we're using the supported internship grant to develop partnership activity, to increase the number of supported internships and other pathways to employment for young people with SEND
• continuing to support mainstream settings to ensure they are confident and skilled in supporting pupils with SEND. This has included:
  • developing Ordinarily Available Provision guidance, co-produced with schools and families, enabling schools to understand their role and make provision to meet the needs of children with SEND within their existing capacity
  • establishing the Learning Support Hub; a centralised point for requests from mainstream schools, post-16 and Early Years Providers as well as from parents of children in their Early Years for targeted support from outreach services
  • continuing to provide a School Wellbeing Service and promote the Mental Health in Schools offer
  • as part of our SEND operational plan, redeveloping York’s SEND Local Offer website
  • developing guidance to support settings to meet the needs of children and young people whose attendance at school is impacted by neurodiversity and mental ill-health.
  • delivering a free SEND training offer at universal level and the option for targeted training through the Learning Support Hub
  • the Educational Psychology Service continues to provide a traded training offer, including an annual 6-day course for Emotional Literacy Support Assistants (ELSAs)
  • continued growth of the Early Talk for York approach to improve speech, language and communication of children aged 0 to 5 years
  • restructuring of the York Education and Skills Team to bring Early Years support together with existing services to provide 0 to 25 support
  • the Pathfinder Teaching School Hub is being commissioned to provide 2 places per school on the adaptive teaching course. Participants are required to act as change makers in their school