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Please email Real Psychology’s sarah.norris@realgroup.co.uk if this piques your interest.
Edward Farrow
In mid-May, the government published its higher education White Paper. The mixed reception that it received hinged on legislation that will, ultimately, enable new education providers to confer their own degrees. While the university sector, including the NUS and MillionPlus, responded warily to the publication, other voices were more positive.
Read more about it in our SEND Practitioner here.
So, what are the government’s key proposals and why are they controversial?
New universities, improved standards and greater choice
The government states that the ultimate aim of the legislation is to improve the quality of teaching standards by ensuring that universities are more accountable. Through this, the government hopes that this will not only enable graduates to benefit from enhanced standards, but will also ensure greater choice and access when alternative education providers are able to confer their own degrees. Understandably, the notion of new providers being given degree awarding powers strikes its critics as the next step towards marketisation/privatisation of the higher education sector. To them, the prospect of alternative institutions/corporations offering learning courses in ways that undercut the traditional higher education sector’s prices and modes of delivery threatens the very fabric of the university structure and its world-renowned reputation.
To counter this claim, the government has stated that each new university that wishes to enter the higher education ring will be rigorously tested for quality. As an additional safety and enforcement measure, the government stated that each new awarding organisation will be policed by a newly created regulator called the Office for Students. This ombudsman-type entity will have the regulatory power to take action whenever and wherever needed.
A regulator and watchdog with teeth
As mentioned, this regulatory body, in partnership with UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), will replace the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) – something that was most probably set in train in 2011, when teaching funding was taken out of its hands and replaced by tuition fee loans. To the chagrin of its critics, this organisation will promote student choice and competition and, even more dangerously in their eyes, will be funded not by the government, but by the universities themselves, prompting questions around the importance of regulators being independent.
A new framework to drive up teaching quality
The government claims that more than 60% of students are unhappy with their course [editor’s cheeky note: this is in stark contrast to our courses, which enjoy exceptionally high approval ratings from past delegates]. To mitigate this perceived shortfall, they intend to introduce a Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). This form of assessment will be student-focused and will look at the standards of teaching, the teaching and student experience, etc. Through this, they not only want to give each student as much information as possible about each institution, when they are going through the selection process, but want to also ensure that each university’s performance is directly linked to the fees that they can charge. This new focus is intended to ensure that the quality of teaching (of each course and of each student outcome) is directly linked to the funding that each university can set. In addition, the government also hopes that such a move will encourage universities to do as much as possible to enable their students to find employment after graduation.
Improve accessibility and social mobility
To improve accessibility and encourage social mobility, the government will demand that all universities produce detailed demographical information on their students. This announcement has been received positively by some groups. However, critics of the aim state that charging students higher fees via student loans will reduce accessibility and put poorer students off degrees.
This is just a snapshot of the changes envisaged in the government’s recent HE White Paper.
To find out more, read the government’s HE White Paper.
If you have any questions about this topic, or any suggestions for future topics, please email the editor: edward@realgroup.co.uk
Over the past six months, Jonathan Bond has worked with nasen to develop ‘Focus on SEND’. This free DfE-funded online CPD takes nine hours to complete and has been created for all mainstream teachers and settings across England.
This key resource launches at nasen Live on 29-30 April.
Jonathan, our head of learning design, discusses the project and outlines its vital significance:
‘This was developed to square the circle of delivering practical change in teaching practice through a very short training course. Teachers face a great deal of competing time pressures and many existing courses simply add to this workload.
‘With this nine-hour course, we created a series of short, engaging activities that enable teachers to experience the key aspects of the graduated approach – which is now central to the new Code of Practice.
‘Experiential learning is not only the cornerstone of this course, but also lies at the heart of truly effective CPD.’
On 11 November 2015, Edward Timpson, the Children’s and Families Minister, addressed the Council for Disabled Children (CDC) conference on the progress of the SEND reforms.
‘All areas are well on with implementing the reforms:
- They all have transition plans in place and are making progress.
- They all have a Local Offer — although there is still work to do to improve their quality and local co-production arrangements. Where real thought, creativity and co-operation has flourished, it’s had great results.
- Take the good example of a strong Local Offer in the Isle of Wight, for instance. They set up a ‘Young Inspector’ Programme to increase the involvement [of] children and young people with disabilities and additional needs, and these Young Inspectors have gone on to make a significant contribution to the Isle of Wight’s Local Offer.
- Parent Carer Forums and Independent Supporters are up and running in every area.
- And it’s great to see so many Forums actively shaping implementation in their local area — in June, a survey of Parent Carer Forums said that 67% were very, or extremely, well engaged. 67% is good. 100% would be of course much better, but it’s encouraging all the same.
- And 90% of parents and young people who had help from an Independent Supporter said it was very useful, a clear justification for their introduction to help the reforms bite and enable families to be — and feel — much better supported through the assessment and planning stages in particular.’
Just under one year ago, we were privileged to interview key members of staff from Channel 4’s Educating the East End.
With this in mind, Educating Cardiff — the latest incarnation of the series — espouses a similarly pupil-centred approach to its predecessor. We were delighted, therefore, to be able to pose our readers’ questions to Ian Whittaker (assistant head teacher, SEN line manager and star of the show). The latest issue of The SEND Practitioner contains this interview and published earlier on this month.
‘We choose to work in this school because we choose to work for the underdog. It would be easy to go somewhere else, but our members of staff are profoundly committed to pupils as individuals — their life stories, their backgrounds and their families.’
Ian Whittaker
During the course of the day, we noticed that the DfE’s ‘Children with special needs: an analysis – 2015’ statistics release hadn’t been published. Indeed, the DfE’s message on its website contained the following message:
‘Statistics release cancelled
From 2015, we shall cease the publication of ‘Children with special educational needs: an analysis’ in its current format. This change will mean that SEN data and associated commentary will no longer be collated from other source data; however, we shall replace this with a document signposting users to all relevant releases, with a cover note on date of releases, to enable them to find existing data easily in a timely manner on gov.uk.’
For more detail, see http://bit.ly/1MYh3wY
As a result of this, we spoke to a DfE press officer a few moments ago. He provided us with the following statement:
‘Ultimately, the publication itself hasn’t been cancelled. We’re changing the way that it’s published to make it a bit more user friendly and better organised really. So, it will be published there in due course and it will be regularly updated rather than published annually. So, it was slightly misleading what was originally on there, so we hope that that clears it up a little bit.’
We asked for a ballpark publication date, but he was unable to provide us with a firm figure. He did, however, assure us that he will keep us posted. In turn, we will let you know as soon as we have an inkling.
‘Deafness is not a learning disability and yet in England just 36% of deaf children achieved five good GCSEs last year, compared to 65% of hearing children.’ Susan Daniels OBE in the 12th issue of The SEND Practitioner
In line with Susan Daniel’s startling statistic, we published the 12th issue of The SEND Practitioner on the day of the GCSE results.
Edward Farrow
We were really pleased to welcome Brian Lamb back to The SEND Practitioner well over a year since he first graced the pages of our inaugural issue. Since then, the SEN reforms have made some qualified progress. However, on balance, the sheer scale of the cultural change that is afoot reflects on a timescale more rooted in years than months. And it is against this background that a health check of the state of the current reforms reveals both positives and negatives.
More specifically, as Mark Blois pointed out in the ninth issue, Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) and personal budgets continue to cause concern for some of our readership, against a broader palette of ongoing tweaks, adaptions and reinventions that many schools will need to make over the coming years.
However, what is interesting, and what comes across in Brian’s analysis, is that ‘many’ does not mean ‘all’. In that, I mean that there are some schools who have not been troubled by the reforms at all. One such school was Frederick Bremer – the brilliant institution at the heart of Channel 4’s Educating the East End.
When we interviewed Emma Hillman (deputy head) and Francesca Richards (SENCO) towards the end of last year, I asked them whether their person-centred approach had enabled them to navigate the SEN reforms more easily. Because of their inclusive person-centred practice, they both responded with a resounding ‘yes’. Francesca Richards stated that:
‘Yes, it’s been pretty smooth for us. This is because a lot of our SEN practices were already person-centred. For example, our annual statement reviews already constructed a person-centred approach that puts the child and the child’s voice at the heart of the process, alongside rigorous support systems that foster this child-centred approach. So, the practice that we have put in place has allowed us to adapt to the changes quite easily.’ Francesca Richards in the eighth issue of The SEND Practitioner
Of course, no school is the same. However, the type of whole-school person-centred approach that an inner-city school like Frederick Bremer follows has reaped extraordinary dividends — echoed by the words of Brian Lamb in our latest issue:
‘At root, it’s about adopting a quality first teaching approach. Get that in place and you will get parents onside to help your whole-school approach really take off. It’s a big investment upfront, but very big rewards will follow if you get it right.’ Brian Lamb in the 11th issue of The SEND Practitioner
The challenges are huge; the rewards are great; and, over the coming months, we hope that The SEND Practitioner will help you on your way.