Local Area SEND Inspection
East Riding is due to be inspected by OFSTED and the Care Quality Commission with regards to the local area services for special educational needs and disabilities. The inspection team will be led by an HMI from Ofsted and will include a Children’s Services Inspector from the CQC, and an Ofsted Inspector usually recruited from a local authority but without connection to the local area being inspected.
The inspection team may want to visit your school or setting to triangulate the information they have reviewed regarding the areas strengths and areas of development.
What is the inspection framework for local area SEND Services?
OFSTED and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) will inspect the local areas’ effectiveness in identifying and meeting the needs of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
The inspection will focus on services delivered and commissioned in a local area for children and young people with SEND and their families by the local authority, health services, early years settings, schools, providers and further education providers.
The inspection will include both early help services and more targeted or specialist services, covering the full range of SEND needs and not just children and young people with the most complex needs and an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP).
The Inspection will also consider how well these services work in partnership to meet the needs of children and young people and their families.
Statutory duties on local areas for children and young people with SEND aged 0-25 years are set out in the Children’s and Families Act 2014 accompanied by the SEND Code of Practice (2015) statutory guidance.
How will the inspection be carried out?
The inspection will be carried out over 3 weeks.
Local areas will receive notification of the inspection 1 weekbefore the fieldwork begins and 2 weeks before inspectors come onto site, normally via a phone call before 10am on the Monday morning. The Local Authority Named Officer (LANO) is Penny Donno, Director of Children & Young People's Support & Safeguarding Services.
What will inspectors do?
The inspectors will gather evidence about the effectiveness of local area arrangements and services using a range of different methods. They will review information about the local area, documents provided by the local area such as self-evaluation assessments, strategy documents and the development and improvement plan.
During the first week inspectors will request information to support the inspection, the local area partnership will distribute surveys to Children and Young People with SEND, Parents, Carers and Practitioners and inspectors will select children and young people to be involved in tracking meetings to examine their individual experiences. Inspectors will access information from the case files of this sample of children and young people.
In the second week the Ofsted inspector will lead the creation of a timetable for gathering evidence off-site in week 2 and on-site in week 3. Discussions with children and young people and parents and carers, as well as tracking meetings, will take place off-site in week 2. Ofsted inspectors will carry out a pre-inspection analysis during week 2 and may meet virtually with local leaders, staff, representative groups and stakeholders.
Inspectors will be on-site on week 3 and will evaluate decision-making processes and oversight with officers from the local area partnership. Inspectors will visit a range of educational settings including early years, primary and secondary schools and further education colleges. The purpose of these visits are to gather the views of children and young people and their families about the way their needs are being met; to discuss with managers and staff their understanding of the effectiveness of the local area in identifying and meeting the needs of children and young people; and to sample files of children and young people to look for evidence in support of the local areas’ own evaluation and effectiveness. A telephone call will be made by a member of the Early Years team to notify settings identified by the inspectors for site visits.
The effectiveness of the settings themselves will not be evaluated under the inspection framework; settings will remain subject to their own inspections of teaching, learning and outcomes for children, and the SEND inspection will only be focused on the impact of the local areas’ effectiveness for children and young people with SEND.
What does the framework include?
The Area SEND Inspections Framework was updated in January 2024. The framework state that:
Inspectors will evaluate the impact of the local area partnership’s SEND arrangements on the experiences and outcomes of children and young people with SEND, including the extent to which:
children and young people’s needs are identified accurately and assessed in a timely and effective way
children, young people and their families participate in decision-making about their individual plans and support
children and young people receive the right help at the right time
children and young people are well prepared for their next steps, and achieve strong outcomes
children and young people are valued, visible and included in their communities
Inspectors will evaluate how the local area partners work together to plan, evaluate and develop the SEND system, including the extent to which:
leaders are ambitious for children and young people with SEND
leaders actively engage and work with children, young people and their families
leaders have an accurate, shared understanding of the needs of children and young people in their area
leaders commission services and provision to meet the needs and aspirations of children and young people, including commissioning arrangements for children and young people in alternative provision
leaders evaluate services and make improvements
leaders create an environment in which effective practice and multi-agency working can flourish
The outcome of the inspection will be reported in a letter to key agencies within the local area and will be in narrative form rather than graded judgements. The letter will outline areas of strength and key priorities for improvement and will be published on both the Ofsted and CQC websites.
Key contact and further information
The inspection will involve children and families, schools and settings, all parts of the Children and Families Directorate alongside partners across the Health Sector and Adult Services. The key contact for the Area SEND inspection within the Local Authority is Penny Donno, Director of Children & Young People's Support & Safeguarding Services(penny.donno@eastriding.gov.uk).
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