Special Educational Needs: Coastal Areas

(asked on 28th February 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that (a) children with and (b) schools for children with special educational needs and disabilities in seaside towns have an adequate level of support.


Answered by
Claire Coutinho Portrait
Claire Coutinho
Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
This question was answered on 8th March 2023

On 2 March 2023, the department published the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan in response to the Green Paper published in March last year. The Improvement Plan outlines the government’s mission for the SEND and AP system to fulfil children’s potential, build parent’s trust, and provide financial sustainability. It is available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1139561/SEND_and_alternative_provision_improvement_plan.pdf.

The department will improve ordinarily available mainstream provision with new national SEND and AP standards to ensure we deliver consistent experience regardless of the school a child attends, where they live, or their family background.

The department will reduce bureaucracy through new standardised education health and care plans, using digital technology wherever possible, and provide strengthened accountability across the system. To increase specialist provision locally, the department is investing £2.6 billion in special and AP places, including opening 33 new special schools, with a further 49 in the pipeline. We are also building a confident expert workforce, training up to 5,000 new early years special educational needs co-ordinators. Furthermore, an over 50% increase in high needs funding to over £10 billion by 2023/24, compared to £6.1 billion in 2018/19, will help children and young people with SEND in both special schools and mainstream schools to receive the right support.

The department will test our key reforms by creating up to nine Regional Expert Partnerships through our £70 million Change Programme. Oversight of reform will be driven by a new national SEND and AP Implementation Board, jointly chaired by Education and Health Ministers.

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