The green paper sets out proposals to ensure that every child and young person has their needs identified quickly and met more consistently, with support that is determined by their needs and not by where they live. I don’t think anyone would argue with this premiss. My concerns are how far we are away from this and the length of time it is going to take to implement changes as a result of this green paper. What about the children and young people in need of excellent support now? What can be done in the short term to support schools meet their needs?
I know one of the questions (Q17) in the consultation asks:
“What are the key metrics we should capture and use to measure local and national performance?”
This to me is a key question as I worry if as a sector, we do not push for measures that are meaningful such as destinations and others linked to adulthood, we may find ourselves with metrics like those in the White Paper published the day before such as 90% of children achieving the expected standard in reading, writing and maths by the end of KS2. As I read the green paper, I could see a likely target being around reducing the number of EHCP’s or something else of this nature because it is easy to collect and enter into a spreadsheet and can be turned into nice graphics. But is it meaningful and would it be useful?
I do welcome the wish to simplify and standardise EHCP’s as I know when schools and colleges take students from different local authorities it can be a nightmare when each require different paperwork. The national group Graham Quinn and I sit on have offered to support this by helping to develop and trial a standardised EHCP. If the offer is taken up, I will be in touch for volunteers. Getting the paperwork right is vital but in the same way as schools can have fantastic policies the proof of the pudding is what is happening day to day in the classroom. So, getting EHCP paperwork right and fit for purpose is only the first step.
That is why I really welcomed the focus on clarity of roles and responsibilities not only in education but also in health and care. Going back to metrics perhaps one measure could be around every service named in an EHCP delivering.
The review describes a system that is in a vicious cycle of late intervention, low confidence across the system, and inefficient resource allocation. The aim is to turn this vicious cycle into a virtuous one through all of the proposed changes.
I welcome the idea of an education system working together to identify and meet the needs of every child and young person. I heard a headteacher from a mainstream school on the TV yesterday saying that they don’t wait for an assessment of need as soon as they see a student falling behind, they implement support strategies knowing the paperwork with eventually catch up. This is not just happening in this school but in schools across the country. There are many examples of excellent practice being developed to meet the needs of children and young people. They are often described as local solutions for local issues. I prefer to think of them as personalised to the context, given resources and needs. Therefore, I sincerely hope it is not the intention of the government to offer blueprints of how to do things because as we know you can take ideas from others but then they need to be modified to meet the context of your school and the needs of the children and young people you are educating. No one size fits all, each of our learners is unique that is what makes our work exciting, let’s not lose sight of this.
