What do you want to know about the Children and Families Act?
Unless you have been living overseas for the last 12 months, you will know that the biggest reforms in Special Educational Needs are almost upon us.
In September 2014, there will be big changes in the world of SEN and Disability, including:
- Farewell to Statements of Special Educational Needs
- Welcome to Education, Health and Care Plans (EHC Plans)
- Farewell to School Action and School Action plus
- Welcome to School based Category
- Goodbye to Individual Education Plans (IEP)
- Welcome to “well it’s not very clear what is replacing this”
If you haven’t heard anything about this, then have a look at Special Needs Jungle, where they have been chatting about it for a few years and giving unbiased information in parent-speak and also at IPSEA’s updates.
So, what questions do you have? How will this affect you and your child?
There are many concerns, especially with the changes to SEN funding within schools, and there are many many rumours doing the rounds. So we have invited Jane McConnell, the Chief Executive of IPSEA along to a web chat with us to answer some of your questions.
The timing is great as the Department for Education decided to offer a new consultation on their proposed Code of Practice (obviously, this was during the Easter holidays and with more bank holidays coming up, we have in effect 11 working days to read, compare, understand and raise concerns). Jane and her colleagues at IPSEA will, of course, have gone through the amended Code of Practice with a fine tooth comb and so we will be asking her if there any particular areas we need to be responding to.
The Code of Practice is the “devil in the detail” and will be the document that education, health and care will be looking to for guidance on how to implement the changes – remember, there were only 30 Pathfinders (so there are many more Local Authorities who will be trying to implement the changes without much preparation).
So, ask Jane about the changes and the questions you have. Tell us about the rumours you have heard and we can help to clarify what is truth, fiction, wishful thinking and poor communication.
The Webchat will be on Thursday 24 April from 1pm-2pm. You will have to register to be a member to post questions on the actual forum. However, as this is not an exercise to build up our membership, we will also be happy to take questions from Facebook or Twitter. In order to help us find the questions though, we are asking people to use the hashtag #askjane so we can search with ease. These questions will be posted into the webchat by us and at the end of the web chat, we will be putting together a summary of all the questions answered and also any unanswered questions so others can help out.
If you have a child aged 0-25 with Sen and/or Disability, then this is your opportunity to find out more. Don’t miss out.
Mum to three great kids, each with a different SEN.
Transplanted from the NW to the SE.
Co-founder and Director of Bringing Us Together
