Consultation Hub

In West Sussex, we want to make sure that children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) get the best possible support and help when they need it. We have been working on putting together a new strategy which sets out how we are going to do this for children in their Early Years.

We would like to know what you think of our proposed 'Early Years SEND Support Strategy'. Your views are important to us as we want to make this the best strategy we can create – one that has the greatest impact on making young children with SEND’s lives the best they can be.

We were very grateful for your responses to our consultation.

71% of people who responded to the consultation were Early Years Practitioners, 15% were professionals working with children with SEND, 12% were parents/carers and 2% were other interested parties.

51% said they thought the proposed changes would result in significantly better support for children with SEND in their early years.

52% of people who responded to the consultation said they felt the proposed changes to EYPARM  would result in significantly better support for children with SEND in their early years.

The aspect of the proposed changes which was identified as having the most positive impact on the experience for children and families was Early Identification and Support.

 53% said that the introduction of lump sum funding would be significantly better, with 21% stating this would be have no change on their ability to support children with SEND. However 57% said that the changes to inclusion funding would make the quality of experience for children with delay in their learning or SEND significantly better.

 79% disagreed with the introduction of a maximum amount of inclusion funding per setting.

We will listen to your views and consider these when we create the final version of the strategy.

Oak Grove College is a special school in Worthing that offers provision for students with learning difficulties from Years 7-14. Following assessment of options for post-16 provision for children with SEND it is recognised that many of the pupils with less complex needs who currently undertake their post-16 studies at Oak Grove could be successfully educated within mainstream Further Education Colleges, thereby enabling Oak Grove College to focus provision for students with more complex needs.

Redesignation the post-16 provision to become more specialist would also mean there could be a reduction in the number of post-16 planned places at the college, form 56 to 24 by 2025/26. The intention would be to retain the overall number of places at the school (256) by redesignating some of the post-16 places as pre-16 provision. 

The responses showed 55% of respondents supported the proposals, 9% were against and 36% were neutral.  82% of respondents agree that the school is centered on the needs of the children and learners.

Concerns centred whether there was adequate provision and choice of Post 16 courses delivered by local further education providers. Funding for appropriate support for the young people was also raised. There was also concerns about whether support from the school and local authority would continue or whether it would be cut off when a young person leaves Oak Grove College i.e. a need for reassurance about a smooth and supported transition and confidence that the young person will succeed within further education setting.

With a relatively low response rate (11 online responses), written comments provided to the questions indicate support of a redesignation providing that reassurances are given to parents who want their young person to remain at Oak Grove College that they will have this choice. Parents expressed views that they may need further support or advice from Oak Grove College. The headteacher expressed views, during public meetings, that continued support would be offered to parents / families despite their young person no longer being in attendance at Oak Grove College and that Oak Grove College would work towards the best outcomes for young people who have attended.

The redesignation of post-16 provision at Oak Grove College to become more specialist focusing on pupils with complex needs with effect from September 2021.

In West Sussex, we want to make sure that children who are looked after and care leavers get the best possible support and help when they need it. We have been working on putting together a new strategy which sets out how we are going to do this. We wanted to know what you thought of our strategy.   Your views are important to us as we want to make this the best strategy we can create – one that has the greatest impact   on making young people in care and care leavers lives the best they can be.

We were very grateful for your responses to our consultation.

100% of people that responded were  children looked after

100% of people who responded to the consultation said they strongly agreed or agreed with the principles outlined in the proposed strategy.

50% of people who responded to the consultation said they felt there was nothing that needed adding to the strategy, while 50% said they were unsure.

We also spoke to young people from the Children in Care Council to gather their views on the strategy.

100% of them agreed with the seven priorities set out in the plan. They also gave feedback on areas they felt were missing in the plan.

We’ll listened to your views and consider these when we create the final version of the strategy. This has now been passed to the Corporate Parenting Panel