SEND Improvement Programme - December 2020

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Improving the lives of children with special educational needs and disabilities in the Dudley borough

Keeping stakeholders, parents and carers informed about Dudley’s
SEND Improvement Programme
 

December 2020 

I would like to thank everyone for your support over the past 12 months and wish everyone a Merry Christmas. 

The year has been unprecedented; there is no doubt. However, and despite this, I was determined to progress with our SEND Improvement Programme. 

The journey so far has been challenging, however, we have made great progress and I am confident that we can continue to achieve positive improvement for all of our children and young people.

Regards

Helen Ellis
Acting Director of Children’s Services

A second virtual session took place on 11th November. Discussions were around how the service had been the subject of an intensive review since the Ofsted inspection and how systems and processes now comply with the code of practice.

Despite the impact of COVID-19, the Dudley SEND Partnership continues to make good progress in delivery of the Improvement Plan objectives and outcomes.

The EOTAS statement has now been published. Consultation on the draft statement took place over the summer. We received a number of comments and would like to thank everyone who contributed.

One of our priorities at the beginning of this year was to undertake an independent review of Specialist Inclusion Services (SIS) which comprises of six separate teams and includes the Specialist Early Years’ Service (SEYS).

As a part of the quality assurance framework for the SEND improvement programme a review of the SEND Decision Making Panel process has been carried out to take into account the experiences of the past year of Panel.

A visual has been developed in order to provide an explanation of the Statutory 20 Week timescale when a request for a Needs Assessment has been made. 

The SEND Network is now up and running with the first virtual SEND Network training sessions for SENCOs and the SEND Team taking place in mid November.

Useful contacts 📧📲

Acting Director Children’s Services - Helen Ellis ellis@dudley.gov.uk

Interim Head of SEND – Toni Dawodu dawodu@dudley.gov.uk

SEND Manager - Sue Powell – powell@dudley.gov.uk

SEND Team Manager North - Rob Bennett x.bennett@dudley.gov.uk

SEND Team Manager South – Kelly Warne Kelly.warne@dudley.gov.uk

SEND Programme Manager – Simon Hickman hickman@dudley.gov.uk

SEND Programme Manager – Paul Klein klein@dudley.gov.uk