Youth Ascends delivered a video and presentation to the Committee. Youth Ascends asked the following questions and were answered by Councillor Cresswell.

 

Q1) I haven’t heard or seen anything about the Commitments in school. What are you doing to tell everyone about them?

 

The Accessibility Improvement Plan was approved by the SEND Improvement Board in December 2023. PIAS would be responsible for the maintenance and updating of the plan, however it was recognised work was required in relation to sharing and communication and this would be picked up by the Strategic Development Group on the 14 March 2024 to develop a plan for a full rollout. This would be taken back to the SEND Improvement Board to address issues of communication.

 

Q2) How will you ensure that leaders in the city are watching over the plans properly?

 

The Plan was overseen by the SEND Local Area Improvement Partnership Board and the independent chair, Karen Bradshaw. There was political representation on the Board with senior council leaders people from Schools, Health, PIAS and Plymouth Parent Carer Voice and met every 6 weeks to review progress and take actions where required.

 

The Board reported to the highest levels of local bodies which included Plymouth City Council, ICB and DFE. The council knew how important this was and the importance that plans moved forward and had an impact and you were the key people to understand whether the plans were making a difference in your lives.

  

Q3) What are you doing to make sure that every classroom is a place where children belong and learn with the right support?

 

There was work being done by the Council on the Graduated Approach to make sure in schools there was an approach to special education needs and supporting them all the way through their school lives which was in draft form and a new website was being developed and launched in May 2024. The website and Graduated Approach would help teachers and assistants to work and support SEND people.

 

The things you (Youth Ascends) were putting forward helps to improve teachers and teaching assistants and how they work. The wider support service would develop the workforce.

 

Q4) I don’t think other children know about Autism and ADHD. How will teachers stop children bullying children with special education needs?

 

In the improvement programme the specialist support service, Educational Psychologists, specialist teaching service, special schools and outreach services alongside health professionals would work closely with schools to provide support and advice in relation to specific special education needs.

 

The team would be building on the consultation led model of delivery where the educational psychology service would meet individually with schools to discuss whole schools and individual children’s needs.

 

This would now be further developed to include the wider specialist services to ensure class teachers were coming back to classes and they had the right approach, right tools and right support at the right time. The team would be interested in more instances of bullying to ensure that they were addressed.

 

Children that were moving from primary into secondary school tended not to have understanding relationships with their peers when in secondary school settings.

 

We need to take that back in terms of pupils voice within schools. Schools Council’s could be talking about this themselves to improve. A wider discussion could take place around how we supported schools to deal with bullying and ensure it was sorted. 

 

Q5) How will you make sure that teachers know about Special Education Need in schools and college?

 

This fell under the work around the Graduated Approach and Lisa McDonald with SENCO networks to provide schools with a framework to help with professional development. Lisa was helping to put together professional development to help teach teachers better so they could do their job better and have better things in classes which could help children learn.

 

Q6) What are you doing to increase transparency on waiting lists?

 

There was a work stream looking at waiting times as part of the SEND Improvement plan and Health were committed to:

 

·         Setting standards for how we communicate and deal with people that were waiting and would like to collaborate with children, young people and carers. 

 

·         Improving the data we share with the local authority and local area through routine inputs on dashboards and through process and meetings such as scrutiny meetings;

 

·         Working to understand those with the most needs are prioritised within the waiting lists;

 

·         Co-producing with children, young people, parents and carers

 

·         Working to reduce waiting times and to bring assessments and carers closer to schools and communities;

 

·         Some waiting lists were published nationally, such as the children’s mental health services waiting time.

 

Q7) How will you make the transition from children to adult services easier?

 

We are working with the Educational Health Care Plan team, and our specialist teams in education and social care to develop an improved programme which would ensure the right professionals worked closely with schools and families and young people, starting that work in year 9 and we know we have a lot of work to do in getting this right going forward.

 

Q8) Could children and young peoples voice be included within staff training?

 

This was a good suggestion and perhaps that could be put in and you could trial and provide feedback as to what they were like. Youth Ascends had already showcased its good graphics and that input could be useful to provide really good quality provision.

 

DH – This was a helpful offer to have your voice developing the learning and development training for Plymouth’s schools and the Council’s workforce would be helpful. There were no bounds in relation to how you would like to be involved, developing and shaping the materials, contributing to the delivery of the materials and using Natalia’s excellent graphics and we would like to take this forward with you.  

 

Q9) Do you have as estimated date for when these promises would be fulfilled?

 

We are gradually working through things but I cannot give you a full estimate when everything would be fulfilled but we are working to a timetable of certain things as we had a SEND inspection which was not very good and recognised a lot of work required. We need to make sure we get some things in place for another inspection, likely to be in January 2025 and we needed to make sure we were working at pace.

 

It was important that Plymouth didn’t only put things in place for the inspectors but that Plymouth needed to ensure things were better for our children and young people in our city and city schools and in our community and that is what drives us and makes us work. If you make some positive contributions we could perhaps make progression at a faster rate. You could also advise us and provide comments as to how well you think we are doing in supporting you.

 

Q10) Criteria for help inside and outside of schools: Could the criteria be lowered as your case was not ‘bad’ enough for one service but too serious for another.

 

Plymouth needed to have consistency and we were working on early intervention and giving support to our young people and parents and carers as early as we can. This is an aspiration and we haven’t managed to achieve all of that criteria. Plymouth needed to ensure that its workforce had good knowledge of SEND and supporting young people in schools so that as many as possible could remain in mainstream school and were fully included.

 

DH – we need to talk to Health about this as well and we have asked people in Health to contribute to these questions. There is scope for Heath to come and speak to you, to gain specific examples of what would be helpful and what your experiences are to inform their practice.

 

Q11) Are there particular methods to talk to young people? Henry advised that some young people may not have felt safe discussing in front of their peers or alternatively young people that were being home educated.

 

Plymouth needed to make sure people were comfortable to speak to us. We needed to seek out and talk to young people around what the most suitable environment for them. What you have said is right and you should be in a comfortable environment and school isn’t always the best place to talk about things and you need to feel comfortable and relax before putting the best points of view across. We would appreciate that as you have a lot to offer us in how we work better, smarter and provide better outcomes for yourselves.

 

Q12) Can you clarify the situation of bus passes and not being able to use them before a certain time to get to school.

 

Recommendation: The Committee would go to a Youth Ascends meeting.

 

Action: Officers would investigate Youth Ascends feedback that the time taken to between applying for a bus pass and receiving it was too long.