Head teachers’ views sought on the DfE Safety Valve programme
At Head Teacher Forum on 30th November 2022, head teachers were asked to add their thoughts around the DfE Safety Valve programme, which aims to bring Bexley and other high-spending boroughs’ high needs spending budget back into balance through a transformational five- or six-year plan. Bexley’s proposals which had been discussed at the Strategic Education Partnership board meeting on 15th November 2022, include early identification of need and support for pre-school children, bringing children back from independent out of borough special schools at transition points, using Bexley’s two new special free schools and reviewing EHC plans at transition points to see whether need for support has decreased.
In the carousel discussion, facilitated by the co-chairs of each of the Strategic Education Partnership sub-groups, head teachers were asked to share what they believed their schools did well to identify and support need early and which intervention programmes they used. They were also asked about the challenges they were facing and their ideas on how schools could be supported to meet children’s needs going forward. The key themes identified through the conversation will be incorporated into Bexley’s discussion with the DfE going forward.
Head teachers agreed that need was rising, especially in speech, language and communication, school readiness (including toileting) and SEMH. They thought that there were not enough special school places in Bexley and that the CAMHS threshold was too high. In addition, they suggested that more work needed to be done with health visitors to understand children’s health needs before they arrived at pre-school settings. School budgets are under extreme pressure which affects how much extra funding schools can contribute to meet the cost of specific support named in children’s EHC plans; finances also contribute to the recruitment and retention issue for teachers and support staff, which may be compounded by the ULEZ charge coming into effect in outer London boroughs at the end of summer 2023. Other concerns included that all staff in schools and PVIs needed to be upskilled in how they implement interventions and in behaviour management. Two further areas suggested for investment were in engaging and education parents and ensuring more information was transferred to schools by PVIs ahead of children joining reception class.
At the meeting head teachers also learnt about a consultation underway to redesign the School Nursing Service, by January 2024. The current consultation will be finalised by June 2023 after discussions with all stakeholders.
They then saw exclusions and suspensions data for the year to date and for the previous three years and noted that continual disruptive behaviour and physical assault on another pupil were the most common reasons given. It was acknowledged that the mechanisms around exclusions, managed moves, elective home education and the fair access process needed to be reviewed within a focus group, which would be set up in 2023.
Lastly, the Education Performance and Achievement sub-group co-chair, Carmel Longley, relaunched the sub-group’s Closing the Word Gap toolkit, with its accompanying training presentation. She explained that the toolkit had been launched originally just ahead of the pandemic, following a positive response from the 13 schools which piloted it. It is a management tool for leaders, governors, subject and phase leaders, which uses evidence from research and best practice to create a framework in which schools can self-assess to ensure that language development runs as a golden thread throughout their curriculum provision.
