Swindon SENDi & AP strategy 2023-2028

In Swindon, we believe that Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) is everyone’s business, which means everybody has a key role to play in making sure that children, young people and families with SEND receive the support they need. Our vision is that everyone in Swindon lives a healthy, safe, fulfilling and independent life, and, where required, are supported by professionals and the wider community.

The Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND), Inclusion and Alternative Provision Strategy (SENDi & AP Strategy) outlines the vision over the next 5 years, which outlines the identified priorities that we will be working towards. This document is available to read below:

Our previous strategy was called the SEND & Inclusion Strategy 2020-23, and was created in response to the Written Statement of Action (WSoA) in April 2019. The new SENDi & AP Strategy follows from a positive re-inspection in 2021, when OFSTED concluded that the Local Area had made significant improvement in all 8 areas. You can read the previous strategy, and the one page version, below:

This strategy has been written in response to the information gathered from our online consultation survey, as well as focus groups held by STEP and feedback provided by local students. We received:

  • 166 responses to our online survey.
  • Over 100 responses from local children and young people.

We asked you which of our previous priorities you thought we’d done the best at, and which we needed to improve the most upon. You told us that:

  1. We had done the best at Priority 3: ‘We ensure that every child and young person with SEND makes good progress.’
  2. We need to improve the most upon Priority 6: ‘We ensure financial stability and sustainability for SEND.’

At the SEND Programme Improvement Board meeting on 13 March 2024, a decision was taken that Priority Six would no longer be a separate priority.

The Board supported the separation of the two parts of this priority with the work on sustainability of SEND provision becoming a part of Priority Two and the financial stability work being removed in its entirety from the strategy; as this work is part of a separate council-led project on The Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) High Needs Block.

Within this document, you can find:

  • Our 5 new priorities for the Local Area.
  • Information on what SEND looks like in Swindon currently, and how this can be compared to national data.
  • Updates on our previous commitments to supporting children, young people and families with SEND, and what we plan to do moving forward to continue this.

We would like to say a massive thank you to anyone and everyone who provided feedback, and to the children and young people working with STEP for sending in some wonderful pictures and drawings to be included.

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