Welcome to the second newsletter of the Spring term – it’s hard to believe that Easter is nearly upon us!

We have now had the report from the SEND Local Area Partnership and we have received the middle rating. We feel this is a fair reflection of our provision for children and young people with SEND in West Sussex.  We have a comprehensive Improvement Plan in place and are very much aware that there is a lot of work to be done, particularly with regards to the timeliness of issuing our Education Health and Care Plans.  However, it was good to read about the areas where Ofsted judged us to be performing well.  It is also good to know that, thanks to the hard work and commitment of colleagues across education, health and social care,  we are on the right track in our improvement journey.  There is a link to the full report in the article below.

We are always looking for feedback to inform the development of our services.  There are a number of surveys referenced in this newsletter, and we would be grateful if you could take the time to submit your views. 

Don’t miss out on the Early Bird tickets for the SENCO Conference!  We will be sending out the Workshop Choices forms shortly.

I hope the rest of the term goes well and that you are able to get some well-earned rest over the Easter holidays.

Health and social care leaders in West Sussex have welcomed the findings of an inspection into services for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

The report, published today by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC), gives West Sussex Local Area Partnership the middle rating for delivery, planning and commissioning of services.

The responsibility for planning and delivering services for children and young people with SEND is with West Sussex County Council and NHS Sussex.

Strengths identified in the report include:

• There is effective support for children accessing support from children’s social care
• There are positive examples of identifying need and provision early through the early help offer
• Good practice was seen in Early Years settings, Special Schools and Further Education provision
• Children and young people receiving support through a specialist service encounter skilled professionals and have their needs accurately identified, assessed and reviewed
• The proactive work the West Sussex Parent Carer Forum undertake in representing families of children and young people with SEND

Areas for improvement in the report include:

• Leaders should identify and address ‘waiting well’ arrangements for health services including speech and language provision, neurodevelopmental pathways and CAMHS
• The drive to improve timeliness and consistency of education, health and care plans needs to be accelerated
• Leaders need to ensure sufficient suitable specialist school places and alternative provision
• Leaders should strengthen their approach to preparing young people with SEND for adulthood
• Some children and young people with SEND have experiences which are inconsistent

Councillor Jacquie Russell, West Sussex County Council Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, Learning and Skills said:

“I welcome Ofsted’s report as an opportunity for us to review and reflect on the services we provide to children and young people with SEND and their families. Helping them to achieve their potential is a priority for West Sussex County Council and I’d like to thank Ofsted and the CQC for the insight on how we can do better for them.

It is clear that we have more work to do with our partners to provide the best services for children and young people with SEND in West Sussex. Our detailed SEND improvement plan is now being implemented at pace to make the necessary improvements.”

Dr Dinesh Sinha, Chief Medical Officer at NHS Sussex said:

“We are committed to ensuring that all young people receive the right help and support they need to lead successful lives and welcome the report’s findings.

We recognise that there are challenges in relation to waiting times for some health services, especially after increased demand over recent years. We are working with health and care partners across Sussex to improve our support offer to improve timeliness and support while families are waiting for a service.

We will continue to work with all our partners, including children, young people and their families, to further develop arrangements to ensure that health services meet children and young people’s special educational needs now and in the future.”

Rowan Westwood, Chief Executive Officer for West Sussex Parent Carer Forum said:

"West Sussex Parent Carer Forum are so pleased that Ofsted recognised our tireless work to represent the views and needs of SEND families in West Sussex; our aim is to continue to build and strengthen our involvement in joint strategic and partnership planning to produce authentic co-production and better outcomes for our children and young people in West Sussex. We look forward to continuing our work with West Sussex County Council, NHS Sussex and other local partners."

Did you know you can now become a member of the WSPCF as a professional?

Head over to our website www.wspcf.org.uk and complete our short sign-up form. We can then keep you updated both for your professional development and to see what we are offering for the families you work with.

We often get enquiries from professionals seeking information and signposting on behalf of the families they work with, so please feel free to get in touch with us by emailing office@wspcf.org.uk.

Would you like to learn more about working with neurodivergent families?

We have now successfully completed two sessions of our Working with neurodivergent families lived experience training online via teams, presenting to over 100 West Sussex Early help workers. This training alone has built the confidence these attendees have with working not only with neurodivergent children but neurodivergent families, which was clearly shown in our traffic light survey taken before and after this training.    If you are interested in us delivering this training to your team, then please contact us.

Information to share with families We hold a Parent carer coffee morning every half term, moving around the county, with our next one coming up in Burgess Hill in May, We also hold regular Talking heads sessions online too!    They can also join us as a Parent Carer member to keep up to date with these sessions. To stay updated on our work you can follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram or check out our website.

We are happy to report that the roll out of the ISP is continuing to gain momentum and the number of schools using the ISP continues to grow!

Some data...

In terms of data, last year (June 2022 to July 2023),  there were 2074 visits to our ISP page on the Tools for Schools website . The most recent data shows that in the following 6 months from July to December 2023 there have already been 1774 visits to the page housing the classroom template for the ISP, which reflects the growing interest in further developing shared practice for SEND support practice across the county.

Update on additional support to schools

We are also glad to share that we had a productive and reflective peer support event on the 22^nd of February. Our conversation benefited from having a diverse range of attendees, which included:

• Representatives from the Parent Carer Forum
• Those who are well established on their ISP journey
• SENCOs at the beginning of ISP roll out
• Representatives of locality groups who are thinking about how the ISP could work for them and how the ISP template, resources and guidance could add to their SEND practice.

In addition to sharing good practice and having time to problem solve, our conversation focused on the value of co-production within the assess, plan, do, review (APDR) process. This included:

• Sharing by SENCOs and parent carer forum representatives of resources which they have found useful in supporting children and parents to understand the APDR process and express their views
• Feedback sought on resources produced by the team as a result of our previous session. This includes examples of good practice from current ISPs which have been shared from our current cohort. We also reviewed and received some really useful feedback on a bitesize video on scaling (or Targeted Monitoring and Evaluation / TME) which has been developed by our Educational Psychologists for use in INSET training or by class teachers to share with parents.
• Discussion of systemic issues: This included ways to align reviews of support plans with engagement with parents. We also discussed ways to identify the training needs of class teachers and support staff with regard to eliciting views and ensuring these contributions are central to planning and classroom practice.

The additional resources and links will be added  to our page Individual Support Plan (ISP) | Tools for schools (local-offer.org) by the end of term, so keep an eye out for them.

Date for your diaries

Our next practice sharing event is on the 6 June 2024. There is no charge for attendance, so  please do feel free to book your place using the following link: ISP Quality Assurance Forum | West Sussex Services for Schools

The new West Sussex County Council’s Short Breaks programme is approaching the end of its first year and so we want to hear from you.

The feedback will help us to look at changes/adaptations we need to make to the programme and so it is important to give your views and opinions.

We have created a short survey where we will capture all of the feedback; we have kept the survey short as we know how busy everybody is. The survey can be found at: https://yourvoice.westsussex.gov.uk/embeds/projects/14318/survey-tools/33037

The survey closes on 28 March 2024.

During half term, our Voice and Participation team organised a ‘Takeover Week,’ giving a group of eight young people the opportunity to spend time working alongside various colleagues in different teams within West Sussex County Council.

As part of this, Amberley and Zachy ‘took over’ Springboard in Horsham. They undertook a Quality Assurance (a role usually undertaken by the SEND Commissioning Team) - this time from a young person’s perspective.

After hearing about how the Council funds Short Breaks at Springboard, Luke Woodjetts, Operations Manager, gave Amberley and Zachy background information about Springboard and its aims and objectives. This was followed by a tour of the building and garden, with Amberley and Zachy giving their input about what they felt worked and what they would like to see changed. They then had the opportunity to see Springboard’s new website and made suggestions about how to improve that.

Following the visit they gave us the following feedback:

Amberley -

On Thursday 15th February I went to the Springboard Project in Horsham as part of a Take-Over Day with the West Sussex Youth Cabinet. It was one of the most fun and enlightening days that I have ever had and I loved every moment of it! I thoroughly enjoyed seeing how happy everyone there was and the environment was extremely cheery and inviting. The whole experience was so amazing and I don’t know what it was exactly, but I just loved every bit of it: the atmosphere, the place, the people and so much more! I hope that I can go back there again and anyone that goes there is so very, very lucky to have that amount of support and most importantly, have such a lovely community!

Zachy -

I found the day really interesting and I learnt a lot. I also found it fun to look around Springboard and at the things people who need the centre have access to and how they can help.

We are delighted to report that we have already sold 92 tickets for the SENCO Conference: Thriving, not just Surviving, on 3 July 2024 at Butlins.  Early Bird tickets are available until the end of March via West Sussex Services for Schools

Message for SENCOs:

This year as part of the conference we will be giving some children and young people a platform and exploring what thriving in school means to them.

We want children and young people’s voices to be heard and we want you, as professionals, to get the most from this session.   So, we are asking for your input in advance so that we can explore themes and questions with the young people on thriving (rather than surviving). 

Please can you submit any questions or topics you would like to see explored with young people with SEND via this link.

This session very much depends on engagement from you as SENCOs as well as the children and young people.