Local areas to be inspected for SEN provision under new plans
Inspectors from 新澳门六合彩官网开奖 and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) will assess how effectively local areas are fulfilling their obligations towards children and young people with special educational needs, under new proposals announced today (12 October).
In a new system set to begin in May 2016, inspectors will evaluate how local authorities, nurseries, schools and health services identify children and young people with special educational needs.
They will also evaluate how well they provide services to meet these needs, in nurseries, schools or further education colleges and through specialist services, such as speech and language therapy, physiotherapy and mental health services.
Inspectors will visit early years settings, schools and colleges to see how they are helping to meet the local area鈥檚 responsibilities, looking at a sample of children鈥檚 files and information about their progress.
However, providers themselves will not be under inspection or receive an effectiveness judgement from inspectors 鈥 instead, the inspections will evaluate the effectiveness of the local area as a whole.
新澳门六合彩官网开奖 and the CQC are seeking views from those with an interest in disability and special educational needs. The consultation, which closes on 4 January 2016, asks for responses to the following proposals:
- inspectors will evaluate how effectively the local area identifies disabled children and young people and those who have special educational needs
- inspectors will evaluate how effectively the local area meets the needs and improves the outcomes of disabled children and young people and those with special educational needs
- a wide range of information will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of local area arrangements, including the views of children and young people, parents and carers, recent inspection reports and visits to a number of local education and health service providers
- a wide range of ways will be used during the inspection to obtain the views of disabled children and young people, and their parents and carers, including meetings, online questionnaires and social media.
Professor Steve Field, CQC chief inspector of general practice, said: 鈥淵oung people and children with special educational needs or disabilities can face a complex system comprising many different health and educational agencies. It can be a bewildering experience for families having to coordinate different types of support.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 why it鈥檚 important that we examine how well these different partners work together to meet the needs of this often vulnerable group.
He added: 鈥淲e need your views on how to best inspect in this area and urge you to help us define this critical programme.鈥