a)     

The Local Area SEND Improvement Plan progress report summarised the progress made against the SEND Local Area priority action plans;

b)     

The update had been collated as part of the SEND Critical Review across January 2025 and aimed to establish what progress had been made since the inspection to test what impact this had on children and young people;

c)     

The review had six distinct elements:

·         A new local area SEND self-evaluation form (SEF);

·         Parent Carer Voice Survey (PPCV);

·         A critical review workshop to review progress against all the action on the Local Area SEND Improvement Plan;

·         The creation of a strategic case study from each of the nine priority areas to demonstrate progress and learning since the inspection;

·         Collaborative audits of six children including multi-agency partnership auditing of the children’s files and a visit to each of the children in their schools or settings ;

·         Discussion groups with children and young people in three mainstream schools about their experience led by the Participation team.

d)     

The SEF had been fully updated to represent and evaluate the current work of the local area to support children and young people with SEND and to be in line with the Ofsted Local Area SEND inspection criteria;

e)     

The team had robust governance arrangements in place which had a cycle of review and challenge to endorse what happened on a regular basis;

f)      

The SEND Critical Review workshop was held with all partners on 09 January 2025 to review the SEND action plan. The workshop facilitated groups including the Department for Education (DFE) Advisor and the Head of SEND from Telford and Wrekin Council;

g)     

The findings from the critical review were moderated by the Service Director for Education, Participation and Skills and the Head of SEND. Of the 55 actions in the plan, seven were completed with evidence of clear impact on children and young people. 31 were completed and were being monitored for evidence of impact on children and young people. 17 were deemed to not be fully complete and there were clear actions in progress. The DfE advisor had endorsed the evidence base which would grow over a further two month period;

h)     

Significant progress had been made in implementing the Plymouth Local Area SEND Improvement plan with key actions being completed and on-going efforts in place to address the remaining areas;

i)      

The Critical Review, in conjunction with the action plan tracker provided evidence of the impact and effectiveness of those actions, demonstrating a commitment to improving outcomes for the children and young people with SEND in Plymouth.

j)      

The module of learning disability and autism had been created in partnership with the NHS, ICB, Livewell SW and PPCV and it had been rolled out across the Local Area Partnership;

k)     

The Resource Directory that was also co-created would be launched for the Local Area in order to have the right resources available to those that required it;

l)      

£740,000 was made available to the Education, Participation and Skills service to ensure they were processing EHCP requests on time;

m)   

The 20 week timeframe for EHPC’s was the biggest challenge for the service due to the significant number of out of time plans the service had coming out of the Autumn 2024 term. As of 31 January 2025, the service was showing as meeting 18% of Plans within the 20 week timescale. This service was showing as being in the right trajectory as it had been at 0% for a considerable amount of time. The service was ensuring it hit more of the 20 week timescale for plans as well as improving the Waiting Well offer which aligned with what the NHS were doing to make sure that when families were waiting for a plan, its not a pause for them. Plymouth had rebranded the funding, the resource and the support that was available to schools to make sure that the waiting time didn’t significantly impact the progress they could be making;

n)     

A recommendation from Budget scrutiny was for the Children, Young People and Families Scrutiny Panel to have the figures of EHCP plans and their progression at regular intervals;

o)     

Parents told the PPCV survey that they would like an increased number of the wraparound care for older children during school holidays as what was available in school holidays with more complex needs by way of clubs was not suitable, particularly those that were deaf or visually impaired. Plymouth had woven into the plans a requirement to increase that provision into the future;

p)     

There had been a reduction in the numbers of SEN children being suspended had been due to a number of factors and one in which the Council had improved the way it tracked and monitored suspensions and then had challenging conversations with schools around why children were being suspended;

q)     

The Vulnerable Pupils panel was held monthly with a very strong multi-agency partnership across the local area and had supported schools to reduce the risk of permanent exclusion for Plymouth’s most vulnerable pupils;

r)     

There was focussed work on helping children to attend school more regularly for those children with special educational needs and disabilities. Plymouth’s trend in attendance in the 2024/25 academic year was not as strong and there were a number of parents/carers that had chosen to educate their children at home;

s)      

Inclusion would be a new area looked at under the new Ofsted framework.