Summary of the key findings
The key findings are:
- The number of children who are identified as having a Special Educational Need is rapidly increasing, it is unclear whether this is a temporary increase caused in part by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic or whether this increase will continue at the present rate. This is in part because the City of Coventry continues to grow, even though birth rates are dropping, the number of children moving into the area is creating that demand. Coventry has a younger than average population age, and higher ethnicity than other cities like Coventry, this is in part driven by the two universities within the city and the special welcome that Coventry residents give to those fleeing conflict.
- Coventry has a higher level of deprivation and as such more children living in Poverty than other areas in the region, this mixed with fewer children being school ready, makes for a challenging school environment. There is a known link between educational attainment and deprivation. Despite this, 89% of schools in Coventry are categorised with an OFSTED ranking of good or outstanding.
- In Coventry, we would want to see better outcomes for all our Children, as good school outcomes lead to better paid jobs which leads to healthier adults, and in turn, healthier families. The lower the number of children living in Poverty the better the outcomes will be in all areas of a child’s life.
- There is a wide range of services, some universal, other specialists available to all families who have a child with additional special educational need in Coventry, however these services could work together better, thus reducing duplication, improving communication, and therefore improving the lives of local children and their wider families.
- Much work has gone on since the last inspection to improve the services we offer, but as always, more work needs to be done.
- The pandemic had a significant impact on services and assessments across a wide range of stakeholders. The impact felt by schools and the clinical services run by our local NHS trusts for children has been doubly hit because of delays in undertaking assessments and increasing numbers of referrals. Whilst a lot of work has already happened, the significant growth in demand will put pressures on the improvement we have seen. We need to consider new ways of working to ensure that improvements continue within the financial resources available.
- We should ensure that all services across the partnerships are outcome focused, led by children's need - thus developing needs-based criteria rather than led by service need. Developing a joint commissioning strategy would ensure that all services were working together to a set of common outcomes.
- We continue to do well at identifying children early with additional educational needs however, some children fall through the net, we need to tighten up to ensure that children with a need are supported as early as possible.
- It is felt that Children in Coventry have move complex needs than seen in our statistical neighbours, this level of need should be defined more accurately, so that the need can be quantified. We need to look at how we can use data to express this better.
- We do well in supporting Children at the age of 16+ with supported internships that includes career coaching. We need to ensure that there are options for all young people 16+ to do what they want to do.
- Communication between partners is good, however, we need to tighten up on Governance and ensure that all communication is timely and allows all partners to work together to support children and their families get the best outcomes that they can get. This is needed across the system from strategic to frontline delivery. Any governance structure needs to pull together all the boards and strategic groups working on SEND including the Autism Strategy, the Learning Disabilities and Autism (LDA) board and other child-related strategic groups.
- Professionals tell us that some children cannot access regular services because of their SEND diagnosis, other children may require additional support to remain in school because of unmet health needs, this requires the system to work together to ensure all care is timely.
- We have heard that some children have a special educational need because they have unmet mental health needs. This is not acceptable, and we need to ensure our prevention pathway to support children with poor mental health provides support as soon as is practically possible so that children can engage with and make the most of the educational opportunities that are offered.