FEATURE FOCUS: SEND
SEND schools: how building for all can meet growing demands
There can be few greater challenges for local authorities than ensuring that SEND provision is up to scratch, and with the challenges posed by increasingly high demand, constrained budgets, and an ageing building stock, it is no surprise that some have been struggling to keep up with what is required.
All of this has unfortunately led to a shortfall that is affecting pupils. Stories of children travelling more than an hour each way to a suitable school have become commonplace, putting huge amounts of pressure on both the pupils and their parents, in addition to financial strain on the local authority to cover the travel costs.
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or many years, school provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities has been sorely lacking, with it often siloed by specialist need and thus spread thinly across a wide geographical area. In our second feature on SEND this month, Nick Gibb, deputy managing director at Willmott Dixon, argues that by adopting an ‘all-needs, all-through’ approach and designing educational facilities appropriately, local authorities can help mitigate these challenges and meet the ongoing pent-up demand.
This can be incredibly damaging, not only in terms of the toll taken on the child by additional travel, but also the knock-on effect of the child not being as involved in their local community and having local friendship groups as they would have if they attended a more local school. Alongside this, the pent-up demand for suitable school spaces for SEND children is putting extra pressure on an already creaking system. Improvements in the early diagnosis of additional needs mean that more children require specialist spaces within a local school.
These challenges have been recognised in government, with local authorities challenged by the government’s Right support, Right place, Right time review to consider their provision and ensure that they have enough suitable school places across their region
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www.education-today.co.uk Recognising the issue
One way of doing this is an ‘all-needs, all- through’ approach, which we at Willmott Dixon have seen in practice with our work with Lincolnshire County Council, for whom we’ve worked on six projects as part of an £86m investment in its SEND provision.
The benefits of this are numerous. It minimises transitions so that the pupil becomes more engaged with their community, parents don’t feel the pressure of sending their child to another area for their education, and local authorities are able to reduce transportation costs at a time when councils across the country are feeling the squeeze.
Pupils are also able to mix with other children with different needs, which provides a wider perspective to learning and forming additional friendship groups.
By taking this approach, local authorities can rise to the challenges that they currently face with SEND provision, but the key to doing this successfully is by getting the right team together as early as possible and working collaboratively towards a common goal.
Early does it
In terms of early engagement, speaking with the key figures at the schools is absolutely vital. When we work on SEND projects, our first port of call is always the head teacher and the business manager of each school to establish what their greatest needs are in order to best cater for
October 2022
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