1. Good Intentions, Good Enough
Good Intentions, Good Enough? South & West Association of Special Schools (SWALSS) Principals/Headteachers Conference 25th January 2018
Mark Geraghty
CEO & Principal Seashell Trust
Co-chair Lenehan- Geraghty Review of
Residential Special Schools and Specialist Colleges

2. Secretary of State Justine Greening 6th November 2017
Since we passed the Children and Families Act , 2014 , the special educational needs and disability (SEND) sector has made huge strides on the identification and assessment of children and young people with SEND , and planning to meet their needs . As your report rightly identifies, it is now time to increase our focus on the quality of the support that these children and young people receive.

3. Secretary of State Justine Greening 6th November 2017
Your report makes clear that there is some excellent practice by schools, colleges, local authorities and other services, and this should be celebrated. But it also makes clear that , too often, this excellent practice is in spite of, rather than because of, how the system works currently.

4. Why Now? A 25+ year gap since the last review
A number of identified challenges - a need for new models ?
Need to recognise excellence
A changing population …levels of complexity
Follow up to Sir Martin Narey’s review

5. Questions?
Who are the children and young people (C&YP) currently in residential special schools and colleges?
How and why do these C&YP come to be placed in residential special schools and colleges?

6. Questions? What is the pattern of provision across the country
How it is commissioned and procured?
What does good quality support looks like for C&YP, both pre- and post-placement (including a review of the role of early intervention, family support and community services)?

7. Questions?
What are the experiences and outcomes of these C&YP and their families?
How these can be improved?
How are residential schools and colleges supported to meet the needs of these C&YP, by all agencies?

8. Questions?
How effectively are the workforces (RS&C) meeting the needs of C&YP, given the acknowledged changing complexity?
What are the destinations for these C&YP

9. Context – The Most Complex
Currently 1122 children and young people with learning disabilities and / or autism placed in residential schools for 52 week placements.
Ranges from children and young people per local authority area.
Those with the highest numbers are not those who proportionally place the most children and young people

10. Context – The Most Complex
Projected estimation of 100% return would indicate that a likely England wide picture is that 1,137 children and young people with learning disabilities and /or autism are placed in 52 week residential schools.
At end February 2016, there were 170 in-patients with learning disabilities and/or ASD aged under 18 years and further 635 aged years.
At June 2017, this is 205

11. Understanding Who and What?
Just under 5,000 children residential placements
Another 1,200 post 16 young people board
Costs range from £35,000 to £350,000 with totals at over £500m pa
Over 80% of children, in RS&SC have either ASD or SEMH, or both
Two smaller groups, children with PMLD/sensory/ communication impairments

12. What We Found Found variable practice; excellence to inadequate
Poor relationships between all stakeholders; LAs, RS&C resulting in pooa lack of positive collaboration
Educational outcomes not as good as they could be

13. What We Found
Children internalising failures of the system i.e. seeing it as their own failure
Lack of mental health support and training for the workforce

14. Themes for the Report Children as part of their community
Placements and planning for future needs
Quality of service
Outcomes and destinations
The roles each service plays in the outcomes for C&YP

15. Children as Part of their Community
Need to create incentives for mainstream
Recognise the role of short breaks, to support families
Wraparound mental health support for families
Essential to tackle bullying in schools

16. Children as Part of their Community
Robust data and capacity planning – essential
Supporting innovation – examples of working differently
Developing clearer frameworks for ASD /SEMH
Local /sub regional/regional/national….what is the footprint?

17. Placements and Planning
Establish how families should be supported
Finding the right placement - understanding contracting/placement frameworks e.g. LAs do they commission or shop for places?
Essential to building positive relationships across all stakeholders

18. Placements and Planning
Agreeing terms and conditions – essential to look again, at funding
Delivering legal responsibilities and building effective links on these foundations
Understanding the market?

19. Quality in Placements Safeguarding and links with host or home LAs
Providing quality training and support for ALL staff
Leadership in schools and colleges - support
School improvement (mainstream) – raising awareness of SEND

20. Quality in Placements Children's experience - generally good in RSS&C
Use EHCPs as commissioning document?
Adoption of quality standards in children’s homes
Regulatory framework fit for purpose – specifically around residential care and education

21. Outcomes and Destinations
Promoting and supporting improved educational outcomes for C&YP
Understanding progress and tracking, for all children
Tackling poor aspirations
Understanding destinations, PfA and the journey to adulthood

22. The Report’s Recommendations
Recommendations for DfE
The DfE should consider how the mainstream school and college workforce can improve their understanding of the reasons for challenging behaviour, and the proactive steps they can take to reduce it for children with autism and SEMH.
The DfE should develop a strategy to ensure mainstream schools and colleges ca n meet the needs of children and young people with SEND . This should include providing greater incentives to schools and colleges to do their best for this cohort , and ensuring that leaders in mainstream have the skills and vision to meet these children an d young people’s needs .
The DfE should ensure that LAs are offering sufficient short breaks to the families of children and young people with SEND.

23. The Report’s Recommendations
Recommendations for DfE
The DfE should support LAs, working with CCGs as necessary, to make the best use of data and forecast need effectively, and give them an avenue through which to create new provision where a requirement is identified. Providers should also be involved in these discussions .
The DfE and should work with LAs to improve understanding of when is and isn’t appropriate to contest a parents’ or young person’s choice of placement, and the SEND Tribunal should produce a regular digest of significant cases to reinforce this learning.
The DfE publishes LA visiting guidance, setting out expectations for when LAs should visit children and young people in residential special schools and colleges.

24. The Report’s Recommendations
Recommendations for DfE
The DfE should clarify how the Public Contracts Regulations apply to independent/non-maintained special schools.
The DfE should replace the national minimum standards for residential special schools with national quality standards.
The DfE should clarify who is responsible for the safeguarding of children placed within area by another LA.
The DfE should consider what more can be done to promote and support school improvement in special schools. This should include promoting and facilitating greater links between mainstream and special schools.
The DfE should improve the supply of quality school leaders to the special schools and colleges sector.

25. The Report’s Recommendations
Recommendations for DfE
The DfE should require independent schools with state - funded pupils to complete the school census for those pupils.
The DfE should publish destinations data for children and young people that have attended residential special schools and colleges, taken from the longitudinal educational outcomes data set .
The quality standards recommended above should require that schools demonstrate how they are achieving ambitious outcomes for children and young people, particularly those set out in EHC plans.
The quality standards recommended above should include significant focus on how schools and colleges are ensuring progress against the four PfA domains.

26. The Report’s Recommendations
Recommendations for DfE
The DfE should create a national leadership board for children and young people with high needs, reporting to the Minister for Children and Families, to take forward the recommendations of this review, provide strategic oversight to the services they need, and sup port collaborative working between LAs, CCGs and providers. Links should be made with other boards for vulnerable children as appropriate.

27. The Report’s Recommendations
Recommendations for DfE and DH
The DfE and DH should, in response to the upcoming green paper on children and young people’s mental health, set out how mental health support will be delivered for children and young people with SEND.
The DfE and DH should explore, with a view to piloting, how accountable care systems can lead to more coherence across education, health and care for children and young people with SEND.
To provide an evidence base on which discussions about fees can be based, the DfE and DH should, through research, establish the average costs of services provided to children and young people with high needs.

28. The Report’s Recommendations
Recommendations for local authorities
Local authorities, working regionally with CCGs, parents and young people, should plan and commission provision strategically to meet upcoming patterns of demand, locally where possible.
To support this, local authorities should build understanding and data about local and regional trends in SEND needs.

29. The Report’s Recommendations
Recommendations for local authorities NASS and Natspec
NASS and Natspec should encourage their members to be flexible on the fees they charge, and work with them to develop open - book accounting.
NASS and Natspec should ensure their members know where to access school improvement expertise.

30. What Does this Mean for RSS&C?
Good schools and colleges
Setting high aspirations for their pupils and students
Explicit mechanisms for tackling progress

31. What Does this Mean for RSS&C?
Develop good relationships with LAs and support transitional arrangements for C&YP
Improve links with their local safeguarding arrangements
Look externally for benchmarking – what does good look like?
Support the development of the sector’s leaders and improvement in outcomes

32. Personal Conclusions
There is unquestionably a role for RSS&C - at their best, they provide a unique level of expertise and support.
How do we support quality improvement for these C&YP across maintained Schools, GFE Colleges, NMISS and ISC sectors?
GIGE is the first step in a change process; role of all stakeholders on the next steps, will be mission critical