Hello and welcome to the March edition of SEND News!

I know that many of you have shared views about how challenging it is on the ground in schools right now. I will be stepping into the space of SEND and Inclusion after Easter and know what many of you will be looking for is a steer on how we manage these challenges.

What we have committed to as a Children’s Services Management team is to look at all aspects of what we do and make some deep-rooted changes. This will be about the whole of children’s services working better together. This will only work if we plan that transformation so you genuinely believe we are headed in the right direction. We will need to make fast decisions about how to make things work better. Some things I fully expect we will be able to do immediately. Other things will be harder and take longer, but we will still be ambitious on timescales.

It’s really important that everyone has a chance to scrutinise and shape proposals. Going forward, we will be using time to talk this through and shape the direction in Education Change workshops.  Dates for parent carer engagement sessions will be shared in the April edition of the SEND newsletter and will take place in May/June. This will be give you the opportunity to tell us if there is more to do from there, and whether they want to be personally involved in getting that right.

Amelia.