Children with 'limited' SEND will be moved to mainstream schools

Education chief David Chambers said parental consent and “appropriate provision” would be put in place.

A children and families overview and scrutiny panel met on Monday (November 18) for an update on Worcestershire’s progress against an action and improvement plan, drawn up after Ofsted found “widespread failings” in the county’s special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) services.

EXTRA PLACES: Education chief David Chambers (Image: Worcestershire County Council)

These included a lack of specialist SEND places in schools across Worcestershire.

Cllr Chambers, the cabinet member for education, told the panel: “We are looking at increasing the additionality of special education needs provision across the county.

“I’ve visited a number of schools and one school has put forward a very good proposal and we have agreed to increase provision in that school.”

Cllr Chambers said he’d be visiting a specialist school in the next week that is “also looking for additionality”.

But he said the priority was to create extra places “as close as possible to where children actually live”.

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“In addition to that - and this only applies to children with limited special educational needs - we are starting a programme where we are creating provision in mainstream schools where we can, with parental consent, move children who are currently in a special school who could be better accommodated at their local school with the appropriate provision, and then they’re not going to have to travel, in some cases, halfway across the county to go to school.

“However, the biggest difficulty is the availability of funds. There was not sufficient funding in this area from the previous government and I’m not aware at this stage that there is going to be the appropriate funds necessary from the current government.”

Sarah Wilkins, director for education, early years, inclusion and education place planning at the council, said: “We are in the process of building a new special school in Malvern.

“We were really disappointed that the Department for Education (DfE) delayed that by a year. But it still is being built, along with the spend of other high-needs capital for additional places attached to special schools.

“The creation of buildings can take some time. The original plan was for the school in Malvern to be open in 2026 but the DfE, probably due to the size of the national programme, delayed that by a year.”

Director of children’s services Adam Johnston said the council is being “very loud and vocal” in lobbying the government for funding for additional SEND school places.