Parents still waiting for 'tangible' SEND provision

Parents say they are still waiting for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) action plans to "translate into outcomes that are tangible".

Oxfordshire County Council's scrutiny committee reviewed a report on progress made across the Local Area Partnership after issues were raised by the 2023 inspection.

Melody Drinkwater from Oxfordshire SEND Parent Action said that contained "little or no" information about its impact.

The council said overall progress was being made, although "not fast enough" and "not in all areas".

Katy Bentley, who has a deaf daughter, said she attended committee meeting in response to claims that "only a small number of parents [are] not feeling the change on the ground".

"I'm curious to know how officers conclude it's a small number - and I'm here to tell you it's not," she said.

"And there are many more stories but we are almost universally exhausted and in my case, frustrated."

Mrs Bentley said it had been years waiting to see the priority action plan "translate into outcomes that are tangible and we are still waiting".

She said her daughter had to be moved from a "mainstream school with excellent SEND support" to a specialist school.

The school applied for education, health and care plans (EHCP) and a deaf base offered her a place starting next term.

"I asked if the local authority would issue the EHCP naming the base from the term that the space was available," Mrs Bentley said.

"However, the final EHCP was issued naming the current school and I was told that naming the specialist space from the next term was incompatible with the education of others."

Mrs Bentley lodged an appeal and "spent countless hours" with the school working out how to implement any EHCP in the mainstream school setting.

"On the last week of term, 15 minutes before mediation started, I got a phone call with the 'good news' that a panel had decided to change the EHCP, naming the deaf base from the start of the next term."

She said the decision had "apparently been made two weeks prior" and she had not known the panel had been happening.

"In a SEND system that is at breaking point, I cannot understand how that is considered workable for anybody else apart from the council," she added.

Ms Drinkwater said that while "progress seems to be made", the report was "overly positive".

"[It] is focused almost entirely on what the council's doing with little or no information about the impact," she said.

Steve Crocker, the independent chair of the SEND Improvement Advisory Board, said they had come "a long way" since 2023.

He said leadership "has been much improved" and it was "much stronger with a more collaborative approach and a clearer focus".

Councillor John Howson, cabinet member for children, education and young people's services, said overall progress was being made: "Not fast enough, not in all areas, but we are, with the new officer team we've got over the last 18 months, doing our best to move ourselves forward in a very, very complex area."

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