SEND Provision: Rural Communities
Debate between Perran Moon and Georgia Gould(2 weeks ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Georgia Gould)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Terry Jermy) for his speech and for all his work on this issue. I have his report with me; it is a deep and thoughtful reflection on the challenges in his area and also reflects some of the challenges that, as we heard from other Members, are common to rural communities.
I understand that my hon. Friend spoke to more than 300 parents. The themes that came through—the need to battle for support, children being out of education, and the huge stress this issue puts on families—are sadly ones I have heard from many parts of the country. It is incredibly important that he has brought those voices to us, and I want to assure him that the voices of the parents and teachers in his constituency are being taken seriously as we work through the consultation on the SEND reform plans.
My hon. Friend also took the time to sit down with me to discuss some of these issues in detail, which I really appreciate. He raised critical issues and common pressures, but some of those common pressures are exacerbated in rural communities by difficulties with recruitment, the long distances needing to be travelled and the availability of provision.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Ind)
The Minister recognises the difficulties in rural areas. I must stress that in Cornwall we have seen a 300% increase in the cost of home-to-school transport in the last seven years. In addition, two thirds of Cornish families waiting for an EHCP have to wait for more than 20 weeks. Does she agree that SEND provision is particularly difficult and costly in remote peninsula communities such as Cornwall, and that budgets and support need to recognise those geographical factors?
Georgia Gould
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and for raising these issues. I absolutely recognise the additional pressures that exist in rural and more remote communities. I will go on to discuss some of the things that we are doing to address those pressures, and I will come on to home-to-school transport when I go through that list.
One of the first things that I want to highlight is the new Experts at Hand service, through which £1.8 billion is going in nationally, not only to deliver more occupational therapists, educational psychologists and speech and language therapists, but to provide support from special schools and alternative provision into mainstream schools. We have just started rolling that service out and we are working with local authorities around the country. Every local authority has been asked to deliver a SEND reform plan and we are getting quarterly feedback on the data on how that is going, including the Experts at Hand service, so we will have a much clearer view of the gaps that sit around the country. As we build out the service, there will be the ability to work with those areas that are struggling to recruit and that see real gaps, in order to try and improve their provision in those areas. We will also be working with MPs to share some of the data that is coming through that national picture, which we have not previously had access to.
The second thing that I wanted to flag is access to teacher training. We are investing £200 million into teacher training. The first set of resources has gone out into the system and those resources can be used by schools on their inset days. A host of different resources are coming out across the year, making it easier for schools in more remote locations to implement training. We will also develop a set of courses, starting from next year, which will be a mix of online teaching and live teaching for teaching assistants, school leaders and teachers. Where it is not possible for teachers to attend courses in person, it will be possible for them to take those courses online, if that is what they want. I also want to flag the investment that is going directly into schools through the inclusive mainstream fund, alongside the existing funding in the system.
As we move forward on SEND reform and respond to the consultation, one of the big parts of that process is asking schools to come together in clusters. Some of the extra funding that will go into schools will go through clusters; some of it will go directly to schools and some of it will go through clusters. One of the things that we are really considering is how we can ensure that those clusters work in rural communities. We want to do a test and learn process in a mix of different contexts. I am really keen to talk to Norfolk MPs about this, to see whether it is something we can work on.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Perran Moon and Georgia Gould(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Georgia Gould
We are determined to ensure that every child who needs a specialist place has access to one. That is why we are investing £3.7 billion in specialist places and are proposing the new specialist provision packages system. We recently had a full consultation on the proposals, and we are carefully working through the detailed responses that we got to the consultation questions. We will bring forward the Bill as quickly as possible.
Perran Moon
Several schools in my Camborne, Redruth and Hayle constituency are reporting profound concerns about the lack of availability of educational specialists right across Cornwall, including occupational therapists, educational psychologists and speech and language therapists. As a result of our remote coastal location, recruitment and retention is particularly difficult. Will the Minister meet Cornish MPs to discuss this issue?
Georgia Gould
I can confirm that, after very strong lobbying from my hon. Friends the Members for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) and for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham), I will be visiting Cornwall to talk to them directly and see the issues at first hand. I absolutely recognise the issues around recruitment and retention in rural areas, and we are very much working on that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Perran Moon and Georgia Gould(8 months, 1 week ago)
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Georgia Gould
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we need to ensure that children with SEND have the right support everywhere in the country. That means that we need to ensure that we have the right experts wrapped around schools and that the curriculum meets children’s needs. The Government’s curriculum and assessment review sets out our modern curriculum, including a breadth of learning and enrichment for young people, but we know that it is important to have the right adaptations and flexibilities, and we will be moving forward with that as part of our SEND reforms.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)
As the Secretary of State knows, there is much concern in my Camborne, Redruth and Hayle constituency about the off-rolling of children with SEND. Will the Minister elaborate on the reforms in the schools White Paper to ensure that mainstream secondary multi-academy trust exclusions will be measured, and that schools will be incentivised to provide the effective SEND provision that all our children deserve?
Georgia Gould
We are absolutely clear that every school has to support children with special educational needs and disabilities. Every teacher has to be trained to be a SEND teacher, and every secondary school will be expected to have an inclusion base. We need to have eyes on children to ensure that no child falls through the cracks. That is why the Department for Education will be more closely monitoring pupil flow, including off-rolling. We will work with trusts and local authority schools when we see large numbers of children who are being off-rolled or are out of education in other ways.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Perran Moon and Georgia Gould(1 year ago)
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Georgia Gould
I am proud to follow on from the previous Schools Minister, and would be delighted to visit that school with the hon. Member.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)
On Friday, I attended a meeting in Cornwall of the National Association of Head Teachers. We discussed the adversarial nature of the SEND system for all stakeholders. As we develop a system that focuses on inclusion, does the Minister agree that a key indicator of its success must be that it drives out the combative environment that was allowed to flourish under 14 years of Conservative failure?
Georgia Gould
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have spoken to too many parents who have had to fight so hard just to get the support that their children need. The support should be available when children need it, which is why we are so determined to invest in early intervention and to back parents to get the support they need.