Improving SEND provision in schools and colleges, leading to better outcomes and sustained employment for young people with SEND

Our vision for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) is the same as for all children and young people - that they achieve well in their early years, at school and in college, that they find employment; lead happy and fulfilled lives; and experience choice and control. In 2014, we made significant changes to the way the SEND system works.

Those reforms were designed to put children and young people with SEND at the heart of the process, by joining up services for 0-25 year olds across local authorities, schools and colleges, and health and social care, and by focusing on positive outcomes in terms of employment, independent living, health, and community participation. Since 2014, school leaders, SENCOs and teaching staff have been working to realise the vision of these reforms in their schools and colleges to ensure that children and young people with SEN have their needs identified and met as early as possible.

We have seen many examples of good practice, but the experiences of children and their parents is clearly still inconsistent across the country. That is why the SEND system is being reviewed to deliver lasting improvements to the way that we identify and support need across education, health and care.

The new contract will focus on improving SEND provision in education settings, including for children and young people without statutory Education Health and Care (EHC) plans to improve outcomes . We aim to do this through one single contract focused on early identification of need and support for staff in meeting that need, effective intervention and preparation for adulthood, in particular for sustained employment, within both mainstream and special sector providers.

Bringing together activity aimed at schools and colleges, will enable us to better share best practice and learning between the sectors, whilst recognising the distinct needs of the sectors. This approach will be more efficient in that it will drive performance, impact and value of activity.

We expect bidders to build upon the successes of work delivered to date by the Whole School SEND Consortium, the Autism Education Trust, the Education Training Foundation (ETF) and the National Development Team for inclusion (NDTi ); whilst also proposing a refreshed strategic approach to improve outcomes for children and young people with SEND. The functions of the contract for "Improving SEND provision in schools and colleges, leading to better outcomes and sustained employment for young people with SEND" will include, but not be limited to, the requirements set out below. Participants are invited to populate Section 3 of the attached, however as previously specified the requirement, objectives and structure of the potential opportunity going forward may be subject to change.