Welcome to our mid-week round-up of Alternative Provision and SEND news across the South West and beyond.
Below you'll find summaries and links of what's been in the news recently, the latest thinking and some of the great training links we think you'll find useful. Grab a coffee and take 10 minutes to get updated and through the midweek hump.
How Christmas Classrooms & Timetables can Affect Students with Autism
Christmas is almost here and if you're a fan of traditions, you might be thinking about decorating your classroom, organising Christmas games and loosening the timetable.
Many neurodivergent students find these changes hard to manage but there are things we can put in place to make a transition to Christmas celebrations easier.
Gradual decorating can help, as can preparing a timetable or letting students know ahead of any planned changes.
I really like these two blogs, one a lived experience of Christmas with Autism and the other with handy tips for making your school Christmas a fun time for everyone.
Children's development 'put back by years' due to failure of the SEND system
Complaints about schools and special needs provision accounted for 26% of the local government ombudsman’s cases in 2023-24, with 92% upheld.
"England’s special education system is failing," says Amerdeep Somal, the local government ombudsman, responding to the National Audit Office's latest report. "It's causing thousands of children to have their development put back by months or even years," she explains, echoing a recent National Audit Office report.
You can read more about her comments here.
Suspensions and Permanent Exclusions in England: Latest Data
Headline facts and figures for suspensions and exclusions across Autumn term 2023/2024 were released this week by the DfE, detailing marked increases in both suspension and exclusion compared to the previous year's Autumn term.
National suspension rate: 4.13
National permanent exclusion rate 0.05
Devon suspension rate: 7.13
Cornwall suspension rate: 7.33
Somerset suspension rate: 6.67
Devon exclusion rate: 0.05
Cornwall exclusion rate: 0.09
Somerset exclusion rate: 0.02
Cornwall tops the table for the greater South West in both suspensions and exclusions. You can see and create your own comparisons of the data on the education statistics website.
New Initiatives at Next Steps
Over the past few months we've been excited to put in a number of initiatives to support not just our students but our wider community too. We have in place a tutor network for our teams across Devon, Cornwall and Somerset with regular CPD events. New this term we have teamed up with a counsellor who is working with parents of our students and have offered this to local schools too.
Next week we begin our Parent Hub meetings, bringing together parents who are facing the challenges of supporting their children through their education journeys.
You can find our more about our events here.
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