Joint Strategic Needs Assessment SEND Panel

Introduction

A child or young person aged from 0 to 25 years has special educational needs or disability (SEND) if they:

have a learning difficulty or disability which makes it much harder for them to learn than other pupils of the same age
they require special educational provision to be made for them

Children with SEND may need extra help or support, or special provision made for them to have the same opportunities of other children of their age. Most children and young people with SEND attend their local, mainstream school. If a child has SEND, their needs will fall into one or more of the following areas:

Communication and interaction needs
Cognition and learning difficulties
Social, emotional and mental health difficulties
Sensory and/or physical needs

Local situation

Please use the links below to access the latest academic years’ data for pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities for each Local Authority. An infographic is also available which shows contextual needs for children and young people. For more information on children and young people’s health in general please see the children and young people’s data page and the annual JSNA narrative.

BCP local area SEND Report

Dorset local area SEND Report

BCP SEND infographic 2022

Dorset SEND infographic 2022

Local Insights

The Special Educational Need and Disability Needs Assessment is for BCP only and is connected to the BCP Send system challence map below.

Special Educational Need and Disability Needs Assessment (BCP only)

The system challenges for SEND services at Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) local authority were identified through workshops with practioners and health and care partners, to inform the JSNA summary. Key themes expressed by stakeholders on these challenges included:

A key driver in the system is engagement from families and providers and the developing perceptions of need for this cohort of children.
The pressures on the system may be unintentionally forcing the system to lower service provision goals and increasing waiting times. Both of which disadvantage children and increase the potential for frustration, appeals and legal action, which overwhelms efforts being made to improve the SEND offer.
How can the SEND offer be maintained with declining budgets, develop a better shared understanding of accountability and knowledge of what interventions are the most effective.

For greater interactivity and access to side panels containing additional information and links, follow this link to the embedded Kumu map. For guidance on how to use it look at this link (how do I read a systems map).

JSNA SEND System challences (BCP only)

SEND systems challenge in Kumu

This workshop covered need from the perspective of BCP stakeholders at the time of the workshop, and does not include perspectives from Dorset. Stakeholders identified key questions to support further knowledge around desired changes, in the areas of further understanding population need, developing shared-understanding of key outcomes and how these could be measured, and latest best practice in effective interventions with the best cost-benefit profile. The group did not identify any further JSNA work to be undertaken at the time of the workshop, but this will be reviewed under the JSNA process.