The SEND Green Paper consultation is asking whether having alternative provision (AP) attached to every multi-academy trust (MAT) is a good proposal to strengthen inclusivity.
On the one hand, this idea shows promise. Many young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) will benefit from smaller AP settings and the additional resources promised in the Green Paper.
However, there is also a concern that the proposal could discourage inclusive practice across a MAT, and this is something that we need to carefully weigh against any potential benefits.
We can start by learning some lessons from a seemingly unrelated event: the financial crash of 2007-08.
We know that insider self-interest was a major contributor to the crash. Indeed, former chancellor Nigel Lawson admitted that far greater regulation was necessary to prevent financial organisations colluding for their own profits rather than those of their clients.
There are worrying parallels to education here. Our system may not be driven by individual greed but it is an overtly competitive one, in which schools are judged on their results. This encourages decisions that are not always in the best interests of pupils with SEND.
Currently, there is very weak regulation of pupil movement out of schools and the practice of “off-rolling” - where schools take challenging or poorly performing pupils off the school roll - is far more common than it should be.
I worry that an internal, MAT-based referral process would come with the risk of “insider dealing”.
We expect schools to have a high standard of ethics but, when financial or performance pressures create circumstances where unregulated MATs come to rely on placing their “too difficult” pupils in their alternative provision - rather than building up the skills and knowledge for inclusive practice - the whole concept of inclusion starts to become meaningless.
In this situation, funding will likely be used to pick up the pieces in AP rather than provide much-needed early intervention and secure effective inclusive practice in mainstream classrooms.
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But it doesn’t have to be that way. The Wellspring Academy Trust, in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, shows how having AP as part of a MAT can work well.
Within the MAT, there is one secondary school, 11 primary schools, eight special and eight AP academies. Leaders are developing systemic safeguards and self-regulation with the specific intent of incentivising inclusion.
The alternative provision academies provide places commissioned by local authorities, and are embedded in local referral and admissions systems.
Inclusive principles are being translated into practice: specialist staff from AP offer the other schools welcome support to keep children in mainstream wherever that is appropriate.
There is no MAT-based referral system for moving pupils into the AP settings, and the trust’s academies have not permanently excluded any pupils since its inception in 2012.
This is a model we can learn from. Any new proposal for AP must focus on building capacity in mainstream schools. Effective “ethical walls” will be required to stop “insider dealing” within a MAT structure where AP could conceal a lack of inclusive practice.
In this way, we can focus on developing strong trusts with shared values, and on repositioning AP not as an alternative to effective inclusion but as a support system that helps to build capacity for inclusive practice across the whole system.
Margaret Mulholland is the special educational needs and inclusion specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders
