Matthew Keer

Government admits key final decisions on the SEND Tribunal have already been made, despite consultation on its SEND reforms being open till 18 May. It's at odds with ministers' statements on the consultation engaging people 'before any final decision'. lawgazette.co.uk/news/key-final…

NEW POST: @CaptainK77 and @TaniaLT have some words of advice about answering the Government’s 39-Step White Paper #SEND consultation, including their—and your—use of AI specialneedsjungle.com/39-steps-guida…

@BeckyWhin Oh, that sucks so much 😢

NEW POST: We take a close look at the proposed “Specialist Provision Packages” and discover they’re more of a Trojan horse, reducing the #EHCP rights of children with SEND. specialneedsjungle.com/specialist-pro…

A large chunk of this happened to us as well. School tried hard to be inclusive - the rest of the community, not so much

Few people have as much expertise and policy knowledge of SEND than @JohnGRoberts - the @tes SEND and Inclusion Editor. This piece on the SEND reforms is critical reading for all and the very personal final section is incredibly important tes.com/magazine/analy…

In his final report as HMCI, with off-rolling at its height and thousands of SEND pupils fleeing mainstream for special schools and AP each year, this is what he had to say

Incredible commentary here from Wilshaw, barking out bot mots on inclusion and a ‘scandal’ that he basically presided over as HMCI Like Caligula pointing out all the newly-dropped horseshit on the floor of the Roman Senate and wondering why independent.co.uk/voices/ofsted-…

@DanielHugill @Georgia_Gould @BBCWomansHour @SEND_Action @SpcialNdsJungle I can’t see anything in the consultation document that says how ISPs would interact with the m/s admissions process, including how pupil access to a support base would be prioritised or sorted

.@Georgia_Gould seems to suggest on @BBCWomansHour that ISPs would grant school preference rights. Is this correct? @SEND_Action @SpcialNdsJungle

@EmInYorkshire @DudeAdhd It will be picked up. Same as the difference between the content and framing of yesterday’s official intro speech (left) …and the careful caveats in the research paper’s technical note (right)

@DudeAdhd This needs picking up @CaptainK77

The DfE has been cherry picking studies that are irrelevant to the UK. No surprise there. It goes to show how poorly the DfE is staffed.

@SENMuminSEast Looks like this £ is paying for some mainstream secondary “inclusion bases,” so your mileage might vary on how ‘specialist’ they are

@CaptainK77 “60,000 specialist places” let’s hope so. But on the ground, LA’s have been reneging on their plans to expand special over the past year or so.

There’ll be a lot of references to different pots of SEND funding today Here’s a table with recent announcements- some new, some not

Ahead of the SEND white paper tomorrow, there are two sides to every story. So here's the performance of the local authorities around SEND. These are people charged with upholding the law so these children & families can get the support they need. ehcpcompliance.com

@KShabby16334956 @SteveBroach The core philosophy here is that every leader is a Good Chap in a Bad System, and that’s why bad things happen Good Chaps have ID’d things that get in the way. Once these things are changed or removed, the Good Chaps will then be working in a Good System, and All Will Be Well

@SteveBroach @CaptainK77 Even the top slicing of EHCP funding is happening right now in academies (we had a 3 week strike over this and more), what can parents do when this is what happens? And now they want to take rights away and make LAs/schools even less accountable? What the hell is even going on??

First look at the £4 billion figure that most media outlets will be leading with today Plus some extra work for special schools that doesn’t seem to come with any earmarked funding

@SteveBroach The press release measured their contribution in days to be served, which gives it an unfortunate ‘community service for misdemeanours’ energy

@CaptainK77 ‘Unfunded expectations on special schools’ was top of my bingo card for this morning

Utterly harrowing testimony, collected by @civicwatchblog

After 18 months of waiting (and reading DfE media leaks), we'll all soon find out exactly how the Govt plans to reform SEND. Or not. Before tomorrow's white paper is published, here are 4 important messages. ...

Better commissioning of specialist provision would eventually drive council general fund SEND spending downwards As would hamstringing some children's rights to an appropriate education Tomorrow should reveal what the government has chosen

TPA haven't published their report, but the numbers indicate the figures are based on revenue spending There are delegated revenue and capital funding streams for pothole repair: SEND admin & transport is revenue-only Weak, weak sauce

Even by DT standards, this is half-arsed: unpublished TPA report, no specific examples in the article to back up what the headline says Buried in para 11: "average share of LA spending on SEND increased from 1.7% to 2.8%" over 8 years Adult care spending the biggest driver