Report to:	Schools Forum
Date of meeting:	14^th July 2023
Report By: Title:	Alison Jeffery Enhancing Inclusive Practice: Programme Update
Purpose:	To provide a progress report on the Enhancing Inclusive Practice programme following two rounds of applications from schools and settings.

Recommendations:

1.  That Schools’ Forum:

a) Notes the progress made on the implementation of the programme across the county

b) Supports the proposals for a third round of bidding in the new school year

1.       Background

1.1     In January 2022, East Sussex Schools’ Forum made one-off funding of £5m available, from the High Needs Block, for Education Improvement Partnerships, Alliances, Secondary Area Groups, and other groups of schools to pilot new and innovative projects in their locality, with the aim of developing inclusive practice in mainstream schools. The intended outcomes for these projects, aligned with the SEND Green Paper, were to:

• Improve early identification of SEND

• Improve the mainstream offer for children with SEND

• Improve parental confidence in the mainstream SEND Offer

1.2     A steering group of school Headteachers, CEOs and other representatives scoped out the following six different pilot project areas to be taken forward over 2 academic years, from September 2023:

• Development of an enhanced family engagement offer for children with SEND

• Early identification and early intervention in nursery provision to support transition into KS1

• Improving expertise and availability of SEN support for local school alliances

• Creating a workforce development programme for support staff

• Supporting transition to secondary school

1.3     Initially, it was also intended to include exploration of satellite provision for specialist classrooms in mainstream schools as part of this project. However, due to the complexity of the arrangements that this would necessitate between mainstream and special schools, this strand is being explored separately.

2. Supporting Information

2.1 In Summer 2022, two project managers were appointed to oversee the development of the bids, provide oversight of the funding and the monitoring arrangements following implementation. The project managers worked with schools over terms 1 and 2 of this academic year to support the bidding process and help individual schools get applications ready for submission.

2.2 In the first round of bids, 17 applications were received involving 140 schools across the county. These applications were reviewed by the Steering Group at the end of January 2023 with a total of 11 bids approved, some of which were subject to small revisions. Of these, 9 projects have been issued with formal grant agreements to commence in September 2023.

2.3 Following the first round of applications, the Steering Group agreed that schools should be invited to apply for a second round, for consideration in Summer 2023. This second round responded to feedback from schools on round 1 and, in addition to giving more time to complete bids, the family engagement offer was removed (due to the high number of bids in the previous round) and replaced with a new strand focused on transition from secondary to FE colleges.

2.4 The second round of applications were reviewed by the Steering Group in June and a total of 8 bids approved (subject to some amendments). Of these, 5 have made the requested amendments; the remainder are currently making final changes before going forward for grant approval. In total, the current projects include 164 schools and settings with a total of £3.2m committed. Appendix 1 sets out further detail. 

2.5 Prior to approval by the Steering Group, all applications were reviewed by ESCC support services to ensure that there was no overlap with existing provision and that the aspirations of each project aligned with the local area’s overarching SEND strategy. All projects have provided further clarity on their intended outcomes and baseline datasets will be gathered and monitored as each project is implemented.

2.6 Each of the project areas will have an operational working group that brings together representatives from each of the projects to share learning, good practice and also to ensure that there is parity in approach across the county. This will be especially important when we are reviewing the impact of each of the different strands.

2.7 Ongoing support will be provided to schools as the programmes are rolled out from September 2023 and further updates will be provided to Schools’ Forum once impact data is available from the different projects.

3        Recommendations

3.1     The last Steering Group meeting has recommended that a third round of applications is considered. This would be targeted at those areas where we have had fewer applications, or in areas of the county under-represented by bids. Although this would take the project beyond the intended roll out phase of September 2023, the group would like to ensure that all schools wanting to be secure additional resources, in partnership with others, should be given that opportunity through a final round.

Alison Jeffery

Director Children’s Services

Contact Officer: Nathan Caine, Head of Education: SEND and Safeguarding
Tel. No: 01273 482401
Email: Nathan.caine@eastsussex.gov.uk

Appendix 1

Pilot Strand	Applicant	Applicant Group	LA Area	Summary of bid	No. of schools	Sec	Pri	Nur	Funding  Requested
Strand one (Family Support)	Rye Alliance	Rye Alliance	Rother, Rye & Hastings	2 P/T Family worker to support families of children with EHCP/Support	6	1	5		£66,000
	UoBAT	Hastings	Rother, Rye & Hastings	2 family keyworkers to work with families of children with SEND and those on pathways	7		7		£171,536
	St Richards Deanery	Deanery schools	Countywide	Key worker to support, families and support learning across the deanery schools	5	1	4		£87,000
	Uckfield College	Wealden	Wealden & Ashdown	3 trained family support workers to support attendance,  transition and work with families	14	1	13		£325,688
Strand 2 (Early ID and Intervention)	FSN	Hastings	Rother, Rye & Hastings	Recruit a part- time SEND worker to work with families and schools to improve identification of SEND support transition into mainstream schools.	5		2	3	£60,607
Strand 3 (Improving expertise)	STEP Academy Trust	Haven Alliance	Eastbourne	Recruit SEN strategic lead to support SENCOs and a support professional to  train school staff	5		5		£321,000
	Fletching PA	Chailey Alliance	Wealden & Ashdown	Recruit 2 teachers to train teachers and support pupils	10		10		£182,056
	Eastbourne EIP +Swale	Eastbourne	Eastbourne	Improve inclusive and adaptive teaching, provisions management systems and promote parental understanding of SEND provision in schools	37		37		189,000
	Heathfield Community College	Wealden	Wealden & Ashdown	appoint 3 x HLTAs to train as family SEND Support workers	9	1	8		£206,200
Strand 4 (Workforce Development)	Eastbourne Alliance 2	Cavendish	Eastbourne	CPD for all staff across schools around SEND ensuring  all schools have specialist TAs to support learners	10		10		£82,300
	Uckfield College	Wealden	Wealden & Ashdown	Employ experienced SEND to lead workforce development programme for TA's and LA's leading to level 3 certification	8	1	7		£113,132
	Langney Primary Academy	Eastbourne	Eastbourne	Collaborative development of identifying, tracking and supporting children presenting challenging behaviour. This includes staff training and family support	9		9		63,700
Strand 5 (Transition to secondary school)	Seaford Head	Seaford	Eastbourne	SEND teacher and TA to support transition from yrs 4-9 for SEND students	5	1	4		£257,933
	Hailsham Alliance	Hailsham Alliance	Eastbourne	6/7 Transition across schools with a SEN Transition worker	8	1	7		£65,000
	Denton Community Primary School & Nursery	Eastbourne	Seahaven	Transition worker to work SEND families and schools from Y4- Y7 who are at risk poor attendance	8	1	7		£79,400
	Beacon	Wealden	Wealden & Ashdown	address EBSA students across transition through whole school training, resources development and recruitment of support workers	6	2	4		224,000
	Seahaven	Eastbourne	Seahaven	Two specific SEND project workers will be appointed to work across town, developing relationships in each of the four feeder Primary Schools and continue to support students into Seahaven Academy using their existing relationships and knowledge of the students and families Student Profiles and personalised planning will be carried out with all students identified with SEND (K & EHCP) and class Specialist initial assessments carried out, bespoke interventions will be delivered with summer school.	5	1	4		286,765
Strand 6 (Transition to Post 16)	Plumpton College	Lewes	Lewes	Seek to establish collaborative approaches to enhancing inclusive practice through better transition by providing CPD for schools and colleges , reviewing current position and enhance identification of need	7	2	5		£488,985
					164	13	148	3	£3,270,302