The weaknesses in our alternative provision (AP) system are well-rehearsed.
Regulation is loose and processes often opaque. Quality is patchy. The reasons why children and young people move into AP are both varied and many, yet it is often not the right decision.
And while the absolute maximum any child should spend in an AP setting is the length of a key stage, and ideally much less, some spend all their secondary school career in one. So there is plenty to fix.
We must hope, then, that the government’s proposals to tackle these challenges, published today as part of its plan to improve provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), are the answer.
Alternative provision as a staging post, not a destination
I have been especially pleased that a stated aim is that AP should be merely a staging post for the majority of children, not a long-term destination, and it must be viewed as an intervention within the system, with children returning as soon as possible to mainstream education.
To achieve this, there are three clear areas where AP needs reform - changes to fair access panels (FAPs), changes to commissioning, and early intervention.
First, FAPs must be given statutory powers.
The government states that it will “work with local authority, trust and school leaders to develop options for ensuring transparent decision-making on pupil movement with the child’s best interest at heart”, and this is the right principle - but it does not go far enough.
Because, often through no fault of their own, many FAPs are ineffective and ignored by schools that don’t take students from other mainstream schools on managed moves.
This means children end up in AP when their issues could have been resolved with some good behaviour improvement strategies - and some patience - by the school they are leaving; or by a mainstream school they might join.
When it is time for the child to leave AP, again the FAP can’t force a mainstream school to take the child. So many children are left in limbo, and in AP.
Good FAPs are characterised by an area-wide agreement that all heads (mainstream and AP) have bought into. But they need to be able to instruct because relying on goodwill is not always enough.
The need to improve commissioning
Secondly, commissioning is also largely absent from the government’s plan. The churn of children into (usually) and out of (less often) AP makes financial planning really difficult.
Settings have to work out when each child started with them, how long they stayed and when they finished, so they can then send the recharge. It is a hugely time-consuming process and allows for no financial certainty.
But in Essex, where we run Beckmead Moundwood Academy, an AP setting in Harlow, the local authority pre-pays for places, meaning there are no gaps in income. The system started in September and is proving successful.
FAPs in Essex also work very effectively, with the local authority upholding principles and mainstream and AP headteachers understanding their moral collective responsibility.
Early intervention
Thirdly, high-quality special needs assessments of children must be carried out early in mainstream schools - and on this, the government is more encouraging in that it highlights there must be early support in mainstream.
At the moment, so many children arrive in AP with no education, health and care plan (EHCP) when it is clear they have needs - it does not take much to know that a 14-year-old with the reading age of a six-year-old has special educational needs.
But by then the need is too late to be resolved, and AP is the right setting. That life could have been so different.
So, as well as children being stuck in AP when they should be in mainstream because the system will not let them back in, others are stuck when they should be in a special school because their needs were assessed too late.
At Beckmead, we are developing an AP model with a local authority that we believe should be best practice.
It would be a 12-week intervention setting, its 40 places pre-paid by the local authority, with children (some permanently excluded, some not) placed with us by an inclusive FAP that all mainstream schools are fully signed up to.
Our objective is solely to engage the children again with education and to get them back into mainstream.
We would also be involved in the transition back to mainstream for four weeks - something we would have time for because our intake would be managed, without a revolving door of students.
And finally, we hope to do some high-quality outreach to the mainstream schools, delivering behaviour support to reduce the flow into AP.
An approach like this is simple, easily achieved through clear collaboration, and it gives clarity and purpose to professionals, and is in children’s best interests.
But it is far from widespread.
The government says it wants to create a three-tier alternative provision system focusing on “early support within mainstream school, time-limited intensive placements in an alternative provision setting, and longer-term placements to support return to mainstream or a sustainable post-16 destination”.
These are absolutely the right aims - but whether the government plan goes far enough to achieve them is the key question.
Jonty Clark is the CEO of the Beckmead Trust, a multi-academy trust of 11 special schools in London, Sussex and Essex
