A lot has changed during the last year as we've worked with families, schools and other colleagues to improve the support that children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities in Devon receive.
Before the summer holidays we shared some of the positive changes that have been made so far to improve the experiences that individuals and families have, although we recognise that there is a lag between these improvements being made, and the impact being felt by children and young people.
Families rightly demand real improvements that positively impact their day-to-day lives, and we are working to deliver meaningful change in culture and practice that leads to improved experiences and outcomes for children and young people.
As part of this, we have developed a new SEND Strategy, reflecting honestly that for too long the experiences of many children and young people with SEND and their families, in Devon, have not been good. It sets out our clear vision and public commitment to change. our commitment for that to change, and how we will continue to do that over the next few years.
We sent a special edition of our newsletter this week about the new SEND Strategy, setting out where we believe we are; where we want to get to; and how we're going to get there. If you missed it in your inbox, you can read it online, just click the button below.
We are working to deliver meaningful change that will improve the experiences of children and young people with SEND, and their families. We also know that this change must be driven by the voices of children and young people and their families. We are committed to a change in our culture and practice that puts children and young people and their families at the centre of support and service development.
In 2011, Genuine Partnerships (a not-for-profit community interest company from Rotherham made up of practitioners, parent carers and young people working together as equal partners) developed ‘The Four Cornerstones’ based on research involving children and young people with SEND and their families. It has been adopted nationally and Genuine Partnerships works with Contact (a charity for families with disabled children) to deliver training in local areas.
Devon is adopting this tried and tested approach to embed a new culture that focuses on rebuilding trust and positive relationships. The Four Cornerstones will underpin Devon’s SEND Strategy and will be used to evaluate the progress in changing the culture.
Visit our website to find out more.
Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) are designed to support some children and young people who have special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). It’s a legal document that sets out a child’s education, health and care needs and the additional support they require. They identify what support a child should have and can receive, but there are some things that EHCPs don't cover. We've highlighted some of these key things in the news story on our website.
In considering whether an education, care and health plan is required for a child’s needs to be met, it’s important to be aware of what additional support is already available to help them with their learning. Children and young people with SEND do not necessarily need an EHCP to access support to meet their needs.
Schools already do lots of simple, every day and low-cost things that support children and remove the barriers that make learning harder for some. These things are referred to as ‘inclusive provision’ and benefit all children, including those with SEND, in a way that is helpful to all, harmful to none and crucial for some.
Different schools have different approaches to the way that they do this, so we’ve created a framework, called the Ordinarily Available Inclusive Provision (OAIP) framework, to pull it all together in one place. The key principles have been developed with parents, children, young people and teaching staff from across Devon to support schools to reflect on and develop the way that they do things. Good practice shared between schools will also lead to all schools in Devon having the same high standard of inclusive provision. Having a framework also helps families understand what schools can do to support children from within their own resources, and what should be ordinarily available to all children.
Want to know more? There's new guidance on our website
Parents and carers have told us that it is difficult to find good information about education, health and care plans (EHC plans, or EHCPs) – what they are, when they’re needed, how to request an assessment and what the process is.
So we’ve updated the information on our website, to bring together all that information into one place, and to explain the process step by step to give parents and carers a clearer idea of what they are and what they involve. You can find the new guidance on our website.
Colleges in Devon are working with us to provide more places specifically to support the further education of hundreds of young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
At least 350 additional post-16 places for young people with SEND will be created at Exeter College and PETROC College’s two campuses in Barnstaple and Tiverton, thanks to a multi-million pound bid to the Government's Department for Education (DfE) and Devon County Council.
The plans involve creating new on-campus facilities at the three sites, Exeter, Barnstaple and Tiverton, with dedicated, purpose-built spaces designed to meet the requirements of young people with a range of additional needs. The courses that the colleges will offer are currently under review and will be confirmed shortly.
The funding is essential in providing quality further education, local to families in Devon, that will help young people achieve better educational outcomes, leading to improved employment prospects and independent living.
The colleges are also developing a wide-ranging programme of support for young people with SEND, beginning before students attend, to help make the transitions from school, or other educational settings, to the colleges as positive as possible.
You can read more about this in the story on our news page.
A lot of work in previous months has gone into improving our SEND Statutory Service to make it easier for people to contact someone over the telephone and to redesign and improve our email communication for parents and carers.
Improvements are also being made to help the team progress EHCP requests more consistently and efficiently, and that work is continuing.
We are now also looking at how we can improve EHCP Reviews by automating some of the more time-consuming manual tasks, such as notifying schools or other settings when Reviews are approaching.
We’re confident that this will allow a more efficient use of the team’s time; it will speed up the Review process; and enable the team to process more Reviews each month.
We’re also redesigning and improving our email communications around Reviews for parents, carers, schools, and other settings.
With the improvements starting to take effect in the new year, you should start to see improvements to the content and frequency of our communication surrounding Reviews.
With these improvements behind the scenes, there will no change to how families and schools use the Hub.
We would like parents and carers to be involved with helping us improve the service. If you are interested in taking part in user research and testing, please email userresearch@devon.gov.uk.
We’ll provide another update in January to keep everyone informed about our progress and more details about the improvements we’re expecting to deliver.
In the meantime, we’ll also continue our work to deliver further improvements for Assessments.
 Raising Aspirations of Employment project
Young people in our Champions for Change group have been working with the Careers Hub and our youth and inclusion teams on a project to explore why pupils from special schools find it harder to get a job when they leave school, and what we can do to help change that.
They've developed a questionnaire for students so they can gather information to better understand what young people with SEND think about jobs, and have created a video for headteachers at special schools to explain the project and encourage them to take part. You can watch it on our .
If your child attends a special school, please encourage them to take part, and get in touch if you would like more information about the Champions for Change Raising Aspirations of Employment project.
Summer fun
Our SEND Network for Change aims to create opportunities for young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) to get involved and have their voice heard! There are lots of different groups and projects going on, run by our SEND Participation Team.
Over the summer we decided to bring some of these groups together so that the young people involved could hear about each others work and feel part of our wider youth voice community, as well as make more friends and have lots of fun!
Young people from our different Echoes groups met together for the first time as part of our work on accessibility in local cinemas. The young people interviewed the manager of the picture house and were then treated to a private viewing of Inside Out 2, which everyone really enjoyed.
Young people from different schools came together for a kayaking trip at Exeter quay. Some of us were experienced kayakers and for others it was their first time! It was great to see young people making friends and working as a team to support each other, along with members of our participation team, some of whom got wetter than others!
Get involved
If you are a young person with SEND in Devon, whatever you want to say, we want to hear it! You can contact the team by emailing amy.bickford@devon.gov.uk or visit our website to find out more.
We've been contacted this month by parents wanting to talk to us about bullying in school, online and in the community.
Bullying is sometimes hidden by young people - they often don't want to talk about it because they may feel some shame or embarrassment, and that there's nowhere, or no one to turn to.
If your child tells you that are being bullied at school, it's important to talk to their teacher or another member of staff. They have a responsibility to safeguard pupils, and by law must have policies and measures in place to prevent bullying. It's also important to try to find out who they're being bullied by and what the bullying feels like, as this determines how you can respond to try to make things better.
If they're being bullied via social media or texts or calls, talk to your child about blocking individuals involved if this would be safe to do so. Also, talk to your young person about how to manage bullying, such as telling a responsible adult, and other ways to keep themselves safe. Most importantly, remind your child that bullying is not their fault and should not be happening to them.
We have more information on our website to help parents and carers talk to their children about bullying. The South Devon and Dartmoor Community Safety Partnership has also produced a toolkit to help parents and carers understand challenging behaviours experienced by most teenagers - about relationships, social media, and challenges in the community. There's a section about bullying on page 14.
Our SEN Statutory Teams recently wrote to parents who have children moving from primary school to secondary school in September, 2025. They also wrote to parents whose children are moving from an early years setting, such as a nursery, to a primary school, or infant to junior school.
The letters were about applying for places and deadlines for those applications. You can read more about that in the story on our news page.
Changing schools is one of the major things most of us do before we reach 18 years old. It can be exciting, but it can also be a worrying time for some children and their families, particularly those with SEND.
The Devon SEND Local Offer website has information about what to consider when your child changes school. Devon Information Advice and Support (DiAS) also has lots of useful information and resources about talking to your school and arranging what’s best for your child.
You can also contact DiAS to get advice by phone or email to talk through your options around choosing a school and moving school.
You may be familiar with the term 'Team Around the Family' meetings, or 'TAF' meetings, but we know that people are sometimes confused about what they are, when they happen, how often they happen, and who attends them.
The term 'TAF meeting' is sometimes used rather flexibly to describe a meeting that a professional, or a team of professionals, might have with a family. Who attends will be determined by the purpose of the meeting and which professional, or team of professionals, are required in order to co-produce a plan with the family.
The family should always attend the meeting, and support should be available to help their child or young person engage with it too. The family’s input, their opinion, and concerns, should be central to the discussions and decisions.
It’s also important that the right professionals attend the meeting so that they can contribute to the assessment, plan, and reviews about what support they can offer. If a relevant professional is not there, then their involvement will be requested so that they also have the opportunity to contribute their professional opinion to the plan.
Meetings should be held in a timely manner and each meeting should agree and arrange the date of the next review. We have information on our website about what makes a good Team Around the Family meeting. We’re currently updating our Early Help webpages, so please bear with us while some information is moved about over coming weeks to make it easier to find.
Devon Information Advice and Support (DiAS) provides information advice and support for parent carers of children and young people from zero to 25 years old with Special Educational Needs and disabilities (SEND). They also also work directly with young people with SEND.
They are looking to recruit volunteers to take on a range of roles, including giving support to families at meetings, either in person or online, supporting their team at networking events, and office based roles.
Extensive training opportunities are offered, along with the chance to widen your experience and develop your CV, and make a real difference to people navigating the world of SEND support.
There are upcoming training sessions in November:
- Day 1 Online Training: Choose either Tuesday 19 or Wednesday 20 of November from 9:30am to 2:30pm
- Day 2 Face to Face Training: Thursday 21 November from 9:30am to 2:30p, at Newcourt Community Centre, Exeter EX2 7FN. Refreshments and lunch provided
If you would like to find out more, or to sign up to the training sessions, please get in touch with the friendly team at DiAS.
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