Havering: SEND survey for Parents and Carers

Havering Council planned to submit an application for a grant in late June to improve our Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) service and wanted to make sure we put children and young people at the heart of our plans. 

To help us with this, we carried out two consultation activities from March to April 2023 seeking the views of parents and carers of children and young people under the age of 25 with SEN, and in a separate survey we sought the views of SEN educational providers.

We asked parents and carers for their views and experiences to ensure we focused on the right areas and we asked SEN educational providers for their views to help identify and shape opportunities for us to do better.

Parents and Carers Said:

389 responses were received to the consultation.

• Over half (56%) had children in primary school, 25% were in secondary school, 12% early years, 6% post-16 and 1% post-25.

• Of these children and young people, 211 (54%) are in a mainstream school, 187 (48%) have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) and 50% receive SEN support.

• The top three services or support that respondents said their child can access to meet their needs, goals and aspirations with their EHCP were:  additional support in the classroom (56%), better skilled and trained staff in the classroom (38%) and learning materials that have been adapted for my child (35%).

• The support and advice that young people accessed to help them plan for leaving school were CAD preparation for adulthood (4%), Prospects Careers Advice Plus (3%), existing school or college (14%), housing (2%) and other (1%).

• 15 children or young people (4%) moved from their mainstream school to a special school or to an Additionally Resourced Provision (ARP) and when asked what needed to change in the mainstream school, respondents top three answers were:  Teachers and staff better understanding my child’s needs, Additional specialist support for my child and Additional Teacher support time.

• 52% of parents and carers in mainstream schools disagreed with the statement “I believe that the SEND provision and services are high quality in my child’s school”, with parents and carers of children in special schools being happier about provision than those in mainstream schools.

Educational Providers Said:

101 responses were received to the consultation.

• Responses were received from a variety of staff in educational settings including Head Teachers (10%), SENco (17%), SEND/specialist teachers (4%), Classroom Teachers (24%), Teaching Assistants (19%) and Senior Leaders (10%).

• The majority of feedback came from staff in Mainstream Schools (80%).

• Parents and staff have different levels of confidence in how well trained staff are to support children and young people with SEND, with just over half of parents strongly agreeing or agreeing that this is the case, compared to just over three quarters of Education providers who either strongly agreed or agreed.

• The top three things that staff felt needed to change within their educational setting to increase their ability to support children or young people with SEN was Availability of extra support from Local Authority/SEN services (65%), Additional training for teaching staff (63%) and Ability to recruit additional/specialist support staff (e.g. teaching assistants) (59%).

The survey results have been reviewed and recorded and have been included in an application for a grant to improve Havering’s Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) service.