Section 23 of the Act makes provision for other agencies such as health and social services to help education authorities to deliver appropriate support for children and young people with additional support needs. Although inter-agency cooperation was at an early stage in most authorities, almost all had plans in place for improving cooperation. In a few authorities, there was clear evidence that joint planning was beginning to have a positive effect on the educational experiences of some children and young people.
All authorities were moving towards a single, shared assessment framework for supporting children and young people who require additional support to learn. However, the majority were at an early stage in promoting collaborative working with partner agencies to support integrated assessment.
In almost all authorities, key staff at authority level were now able to identify the lead implementation officers in Children and Families Social Work and the relevant health board area for the Act. In most of these authorities, staff proposed to build on their existing approaches for assessment and intervention.
Communities of schools were widely regarded as central to driving forward the integrated approaches, although school-based staff interviewed in a quarter of authorities were not aware of the Integrated Assessment Framework14. In around half of authorities, schools had received helpful operational guidelines to improve partnership working. Almost all authorities had used the approach outlined through the Integrated Assessment Framework and Getting it Right for Every Child to guide their multi-disciplinary approaches to assessment. Most authorities had already delivered joint staff development to create a shared understanding of the roles and expectations of key staff. A number of authorities had combined the requirements of the Act and Code of Practice with other key policies related to assessment and staged intervention such as Assessment is for Learning15 and Better Behaviour – Better Learning16 and More Choices, More Chances in an attempt to link together key policies underpinning inclusion.
Most headteachers, school-based staff and parents felt that inter-agency working was well-established and making most difference at the pre-school stage. In a few authorities, parents spoke particularly highly of early years support teams and the quality of early years assessment in ensuring that meeting the needs of children was now more effectively planned. A quarter of school-based staff and most parents thought that speech and language therapists gave particularly helpful advice to ensure appropriate IEP targets for children and young people with a range of communication and language difficulties, including autism spectrum disorders. A third of school-based staff thought that school liaison groups or joint assessment teams played key roles in promoting effective joint working and providing more solution-focused approaches to assessing the needs of children and young people. Although school-based staff noticed improved multi-agency involvement in assessment, a few expressed concern that social services professionals were less likely to attend JAT or SLG meetings and individual reviews of progress for children and young people. They noted that home link and family support workers often filled the gap left by social workers on these teams and at review meetings.
Many teachers and parents felt that school nurses were making a strong contribution to improving children’s learning experiences. In one authority, parents felt that close and effective partnership between an NHS community-based working team of nurses and schools had made a real impact on the lives of their children. For example, significant, ongoing training for school-based staff and classroom assistants resulted in effective communication with parents, well-planned IEPs and care plans, appropriate resources and access to wider curriculum activities. This had significantly improved the quality of their children’s learning experiences and achievements.
Assessment and intervention arrangements
Half of authorities regarded assessment as integral to the planning process. Whilst this approach was intended to lead to effective information sharing and multi-agency working, in most authorities, most assessment was carried out by single agencies using their own referral and assessment forms. These authorities had recognised the need to develop systems for more effective data sharing across other agencies, and most were exploring electronic systems for this purpose.
Almost all authorities used a model of staged intervention or staged assessment to guide and support their assessment and resource allocation processes. In the majority, the model of staged intervention being developed was multi-disciplinary, involving key partners in health and social services. In a few cases, education authorities had combined staged intervention approaches with those of health trusts and social work departments. The best practices had reviewed staged intervention processes to refocus provision on outcomes for children and young people and on improving their learning experiences and achievements. Although key staff in over half of authorities saw staged intervention as a strength, a few voluntary agency staff and most parents were concerned in some cases at what they perceived as additional bureaucracy attached to staged intervention processes. This was where authorities had introduced alternative planning mechanisms such as local assessment tools to establish whether a child or young person met the criteria for requiring a CSP and new support plans in addition to CSPs and IEPs.
Most authorities saw establishing the role, purpose and quality of IEPs as a key priority. They saw effective, high quality management of IEPs as a means to ensuring the needs of children and young people with additional support needs could be met effectively. Most were looking to the staged intervention process as the central mechanism for determining the number of IEPs required across the authority.
In around half of authorities, developing robust quality assurance systems to ensure that IEPs were sufficiently dynamic to improve outcomes for learners was a high priority. A small number of authorities were making effective use of the generic quality indicators for children’s services17 to develop integrated working. A few authorities had introduced new multi-agency support plans to support children and young people who did not meet the criteria for a CSP. Although parents and schools welcomed these additional support plans overall, the majority were confused about at which stage of the intervention process pupils would qualify for such a plan. Nor was it sufficiently clear to them how an additional multi-agency support plan would differ from a co-ordinated support plan, other than the fact that a CSP is a statutory document. A further issue concerned the link between learning objectives as outlined in the Code of Practice and co-ordinated support plan, and long-term targets set within IEPs. A few authorities had requested additional guidelines on this issue given the apparent similarity in the purpose of both.
Most authorities expressed concern about the number of children and young people who might be identified as having additional support needs. A few social work staff had rightly identified the need for social workers and care staff to further develop joint assessment and recording procedures and to combine care plans and IEPs for children and young people with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. However, in almost all authorities there was scope for further development of integrated approaches to assessment and intervention by care and education staff, particularly in supporting the needs of looked after children and young people.
Authorities were beginning to improve support for meeting the needs of looked after and accommodated children. In less than a third of authorities, staff thought that practice in meeting the needs of looked after and accommodated children was improving. A small number of authorities had moved to assess all their looked after children to establish whether they needed a CSP and a few had established clear procedures for supporting looked after and accommodated children in schools. These included flexible teaching, homework, examination support, nurture groups, resilience-based initiatives, transition support and training. In these authorities, there was a good awareness among staff and agencies of appropriate support and procedures and staff were more aware of the recommendations in Looked After Children and Young People: We Can and Must Do Better18. A few education authorities were beginning to address mental health issues in children and one authority was exploring Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services as a possible alternative to secured accommodation places for some children and young people for whom this was appropriate. A few authorities had also recognised the need to look at the effectiveness of provision for young carers and the provision of local young carer support. However, this process was at an early stage of development.
Key strengths
Areas for improvement