What's the picture of local areas and how well they are working to prepare children and young people with special educational needs for adulthood? What support are they offering to allow young people to reach their full potential? Preparation for adulthood arrangements in local areas: a thematic review - GOV.UK

Briony Balsom  0:07  

Hello everyone, and welcome to this edition of Ofsted talks. I'm Briony Balsam, and this time we're focusing on preparing for adulthood. In December 24 Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission jointly published a report considering how well children with special needs and or disabilities or send are being supported in their preparation for adulthood. We considered survey responses from more than 2000 children, young people, parents and practitioners, and visited six local area partnerships to explore how children and young people with SEND are being prepared for adulthood. Later, I'm going to be chatting to Jess Taylor Byrne from the CQC, who jointly produced the report with us. But today, firstly, I'm delighted to be joined by guests from Newcastle College. We spoke to practitioners and leaders at Newcastle as part of our visit, and we found some really positive practice in this area. So joining us, we have Rachel Gibson, who's the Assistant Director at Newcastle College. We have Maxine Johnson, who is the SEND manager, Sabarina Logan, who's currently studying for a level three National Diploma in Business at Newcastle college. And also we have Adams Sproston, who is Ofsted senior HMI for SEND. Hello everybody!  To kick us off, I'd really love to hear from you, Adam, about what innovative ideas we came across that are really working at this really key juncture of a young person's life? 

Adam Sproston  1:29  

Thanks, Briony.  We found lots of positives across the six areas that we visited, typically, professionals in education, health and social care, working in very challenging contexts to meet the needs of children and young people, and they shared with us challenges in the economy, but also after COVID 19 and the impact that that's having on some young people. In particular, we found that providers that give high quality careers, information, education, advice and guidance are able to prepare young people better for adult life. May that be courses that they move to, careers that they want to be interested and and thrive in, or in other aspects. So for some young people with SEND that might be improving their independence or supported living as they become an adult. So that was really important to see where professionals know children and young people really well. They can be best placed to meet their needs and tailor their approaches to work for the child's aspirations.

Briony Balsom  2:36  

Wonderful. So let's come across to Newcastle and hear a little more about exactly what it is that you're you're doing so well. 

Maxine Johnson  2:42  

So within our support offer within Newcastle college for our learners with with high needs, so we have a dedicated team of SEND advisors who support our learners with HCPs, transition into college and transitioning with the school, the provider that they're currently with, liaison with any external providers to ensure that we can obviously meet their learners needs and support that kind of smooth transition in a college before they've even started, whether that's coming in on transition visits and doing tastes within the curriculum, or seeing the learners and doing observations in the classroom to see how their learning works and how this how they supported to again, make that transition as smooth as possible. We also do as part of our transition, we have a summer school within our life skills hub, which again, just cements and kind of builds those foundations for our students to be able to know the campus, become familiar with certain spaces that they may access when they're here, which again supports that transition into into college. So we have a dedicated team that specifically work with our learners. With HCPs, in terms of the wider offer. We do have an access hub as well, so that is again, supporting our more complex learners. For us, it's about making our curriculum as inclusive as possible. We have an incredible Assistive Technology Team, and I hope you kind of get from the way that we talk about this, the offer. It's about promoting independence, giving students the tools, strategies to be able to take that to the next level, whether that's the next program of study for us as well, we're lucky. We have a higher education provision here, which a lot of our students aspire to progress on to. We've got, obviously, apprenticeships, supported internships or employment. So it's about how we support the students to be able towards that independence. It's about those independent skills being able to be once you've let College, be able to access and be a well rounded citizen.

So much to unpack all day, which is fabulous, and you're clearly so passionate about it. Listen, I'm itching to come to Sabarina and talk, because this is potentially a really exciting time, a time of big decisions as you work out next steps, whether you want to work go into further study. How does that feel?

Sabarina Logan  4:55  

Feels amazing, but also like quite nerve wracking. And obviously, I'm in my final year of college, and this September, I'm going to be coming back to the uni here, just because I'm so familiar with the support that I get, and I just feel quite comfortable. So I know what's where I can get help, and I know my way around. So yeah, it's, it's going to be a big step. I'm going to do business and a degree, which will be three years. So I'm looking forward to it. 

Rachel Gibson  5:29  

You know, we don't just focus on the qualification and the life skills club in particular, do a lot of work around independent living skills on a on a social level, as well as a sort of teacher, student or staff student level as well. And all of those sorts of opportunities are really important. And they might seem like really small things to other people, but actually at an individual level, all of those small things, a small thing to me, might be a huge thing for another, for a student, and from having two or three conversations with Sabarina about a couple of other things and more about Sabarina just from having that conversation with us. So what we'll get, what the students get from each other as well, through the through the sort of dedicated hub approach that we have.

Briony Balsom  6:11  

Adam,  can I come across to you and just see whether that is the kind of thing that we've seen replicated in other places, or is that something that Newcastle college have that's fairly unique?

Adam Sproston  6:20  

We did. We did see that approach in in many settings that we visited the differences about knowing the children, seems obvious saying it doesn't it, but when you know your children well, you're more able to flex resources and also to meet their needs in a more bespoke way. Something else that we found commonly was, of course, when those relationships are built, it also supports a sense of belonging, and actually that students may stay longer and sustain educational outcomes, or those life skills outcomes that you discuss there, I wanted to pick up also something that we did find at Newcastle, the links to families as well as to the students.

Maxine Johnson  7:02  

We are trying to incorporate even things like independent travel training with that as well, which I know for a local authorities, is a huge kind of thing with with send transport. So we're using those individual life goals and life skills. Is of being able to access public transport is absolutely huge. So even in incorporating things like that into the work that we're doing with our special school is so important. Already, the students came in last week for the very first time, and it was an absolute pleasure to have them on site, and a lot of them did incredibly well. And we were all asking how it went, and a lot of them were saying, can't wait to go home and tell parents. And for us, that's the main thing that they're going home and telling their families they feel safe. And they really enjoyed the experience, so that they will continue to kind of come in again, become familiar with the setting, become familiar with how we are as a as a college to again, support the students, if, hopefully one day, if we can meet the needs that they they may end up coming and studying here, which is, which would be an absolute pleasure.

Rachel Gibson  7:57  

I think, as well at a wider level. So we also have a lot of young people with with additional needs who don't have an HCP. So our teams are present at every open event. We're present throughout the whole of enrollment. We have a dedicated support hub in our main library, so it's very accessible, and we know a lot of parents will come along with their students at the on the enrollment and open events and where we will talk to parents at those events and talking about the support we can offer if a student wants to come and meet us, but wants the parent there, or the parent feels they need to be there to ensure that we get all of the information, then we're quite happy to do all of that. Those relationships with parents are absolutely key in terms of ensuring a really strong and positive experience for our students.

Briony Balsom  8:38  

That's wonderful to hear. I mean, I was going to ask about potential barriers, or perceived barriers. Adam, is there anything you'd want to add to that, in terms of barriers that we've seen, we saw elsewhere in the in the work?

Adam Sproston  8