Coventry's SEND Inclusion Conference for 2019 took place at the start of July, bringing together a range of professionals and parents.

As well as two keynote speakers - Dr Tom Harrison and anti-violence campaigner Alison Cope - there was also a presentation from the "RIP stars", a group of young people from Coventry who have worked on a project about the importance of young people's voice in EHC plans. 

The afternoon featured a range of workshops from Coventry's SEND Support services. 

Feedback from the event was very positive, with parent representatives finding the day an interesting insight into the direction of SEND support in the city. 

A group of young people with dyslexia recently took the opportunity to role-reverse with their teachers at Bishop Ullathorne school.

Using a staff training event, the students gave their teachers some top tips on how dyslexia can be supported in the classroom, with a particular focus on the challenges that classroom activites can present and ways they can be supported. 

The students had prepared for the session over a number of weeks, working with staff from school, SEND IASS and North Warwickshire and Coventry Dyslexia Association. 

Staff were extremely impressed by the student's insight and confidence in presenting the training, and were able to identify a number of "quick wins" which they could implement into their lessons.

It is hoped that other educational settings will follow Bishop Ullathorne's lead in this co-productive approach to training staff.

Any schools that are interested in finding out more, can contact Eloise Heneghan on 024 7669 4307. 

Following a recent focus on the number of special school placements in the city, including an opportunity for parents to put forward their views (you can read about this in our previous "In Partnership"), a further 96 places have been created within Coventry's specialist provision from September 2019. 

This is reflective of the picture both within Coventry and nationally, where demand for specialist provision has increased over the last few years; nationally, almost 15,000 more children & young people with EHC plans attended specialist schools in 2019 than in 2016 (an average of 98 per Local Authority).

Over the same period Coventry has seen an increase of 100. 

The Coventry Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Local Offer website has had an update! After consultation with a range of users, the new site went live on July 1st.

If you have any views on the site, you can send them to SENDFeedback@coventry.gov.uk

The website brings together information for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities and their families. 

The SEND Local Offer covers services available to the public across education, health and social care:

Education: such as nurseries, playgroups, schools and colleges as well as support services like Educational Psychology and SEND Support services.

Health: children's and adult services including GPs, therapists and hospital services

Social care: such as short break services and children's and adult disability services.

At the start of July, the Department for Education released updated SEN figures for 2019. These identify national trends, and also offer a breakdown by each Local Authority area. 

You can view all the reports on EHC plans.

You can view all of the reports around all SEN.

Data for Coventry can be found on row 82 of the "LA tables" document.

Young Epilepsy has just launched a free online guide for schools on supporting young people with epilepsy:

 The guide includes information on seizure first aid, epilepsy’s impact on learning and behaviour and the key elements of support that should be in place at school, and  template documents, including a policy on supporting pupils with medical conditions, an Individual Healthcare Plan (IHP) and a seizure record form.

The guide also features Young Epilepsy’s ABLE tool (Assessment of Behaviour and Learning in Epilepsy). This is a simple questionnaire for staff and parents to use to identify potential areas of concern.

Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England, recently published a new report “We need to talk: Access to speech and language therapy“, which shines a light on spending on speech and language therapy services (SLT) for children across the country to help identify where children who need support are falling through the gaps.

Previous research has shown that children with poor vocabulary skills are twice as likely to be unemployed when they grow up, and over 60% of children in Young Offender Institutions have communication difficulties.

A summary of the findings is available onlne.

"The Timpson review" was published in May, lookng at the use of exclusion in schools. Vulnerable groups of children are more likely to be excluded, with 78% of permanent exclusions issued to children who had special educational needs (SEN), or classified as in need or eligible for free school meals. 

The report concludes that while there is no optimal number of exclusions, there needs to be action to ensure permanent exclusions are only used as a last resort, where nothing else will do.

The review produced over 30 recommendations for the Government and their responses are found here. 

The CHYP Shop has been specially designed for children and young people with SEN which includes:

• Monthly blogs - from young people across the city commenting on their different experiences.
• Young investigators - Reviewing different services across the City (ie Cinemas/Scouts)
• Peer support - an Agony Aunt style area
• Cov ambasSENDors - Young Peoples Forum

Contact Eloise: Henegham on 024 7669 4307 or have a look at the website - any feedback gratefully received!

Do you know about Browsealoud? 

Browsealoud enables hundreds of web pages (and downloadable documents held within them) on the Coventry City Council website to be more accessible for all in a range of different ways.

These include; translating into over 100 languages; speakaloud (which enables you to listen to pages/documents in either English or a range of languages); a range of viewing options; you can even make an MP3 to listen to! 

For more information, go to www.coventry.gov.uk/translate.

Bookings are now being taken for a range of activities provided through Coventry's Short Breaks team over the summer holidays (and beyond).

Once you have been registered for Community Short Breaks and have spoken to the Short Breaks Development Officer, you will be able to book onto a session. Sessions will be delivered for children and young people aged 5-11 or 12 -17 unless stated otherwise.

See the What's On page for a full listing of the activities available. Please note that spaces are limited, however you will be able to select activities in order of preference.