SEN Support is and area that we have focused on for a few years. We hear many experiences of parents who find navigating the support pupils receive who don’t have an EHC Plan frustrating. Understanding the support available for pupils with SEN can be tricky for many reasons, and parents often feel that the system is flawed. For this reason we have consistently reported these issues back to the local authority. It’s not just a local issue, and more recently has been noted as part of the SEND parliamentary enquiry.
Here in Bolton, partially as a result of our continued reporting of parental experience, a task group was set up to see how we can work together to improve local experiences of SEN Support. The task group is headed by Sue Cornwell, Head of SEND, who is joined by SENCO’s from primary and secondary schools, Ladywood Outreach, Behavior Support and a representative from the NHS foundation trust – as well as 2 representatives from BPC, Nan and a parent with a child who receives SEN Support.
The outcome of this group has been to produce a local framework for how Bolton expects educational settings to deliver support for pupils without EHC Plans. This includes making the journey clearer for parents to be able to clearly see support being put in place and when an EHC Plan may be needed, which in our experience is an area that can be very difficult to navigate.
The framework will be ready to circulate in the Autumn term, it doesn’t change any of the legal framework that is required, but will make the framework easier and clearer for schools and families to navigate.
If you’d like to know more about the SEN Support framework, we have a workshop dedicated to the topic, as soon as we can our workshops will be back up and running, once it’s safe! Click here.
