Additional provision for children with special needs at The Queenswell Federation consultation

Overview

The council’s Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Strategy (2021 – 2024) sets out ambitious and realistic objectives to ensure Barnet’s provision is the first choice for children and young people with high needs and their families.

A priority of the SEND Strategy is the need to ensure that there is sufficient high-quality provision in Barnet for children with special educational needs who need access to specialist educational provision. The local authority is also committed to ensuring that children and young people with SEND benefit from inclusion in their local community by ensuring that they can access the right provision as close to their home as possible, and thus reducing the need for them to have to travel long distances to access out of borough or independent provision due to a lack of suitable in-borough provision.

The local authority’s SEND projections show that the number of primary school pupils with an Education Health Care Plan (EHCP) with Cognition and Moderate to Severe Learning Difficulties will increase from 417in 2022 to 512 in 2025. The majority of these children will have their needs met in mainstream schools, with appropriate and necessary support. For those children with a greater level of need, access to more specialist provision is required. This is either a place in an Autistic Resource Provision (ARP), or for a far smaller number with the most complex and significant needs, a special school.

What we are seeking your views on

We are proposing to open an ARP at The Queenswell Federation to help meet the growing demand of pupils with SEND.

Give us your views

We want to hear your views on our proposals, in particular we want to hear from parent carers of children attending The Queenswell Federation, parent carers of prospective pupils to be placed at the ARP, staff at the school and other stakeholders.

To find out more, please take the time to read our consultation document and then give us your views on our proposals by completing the online questionnaire.

For any further information, or to request a questionnaire in an alternative format, please email nick.burr@barnet.gov.uk or telephone 020 8359 7288.

What happens after the consultation closes?

Subject to the outcome of the consultation, the council intends to make a final decision on the proposal in June 2023