We firmly believe that every child is unique and brings their own gifts regardless of their needs. That’s the premise we always start with, we work with our education providers to ensure an excellent understanding of the wide variety of needs that children can have.
There are several ways in which all practitioners in the system are supported to meet all kinds of need. All our education settings can access several detailed guidance documents to ensure they are able to apply the graduated approach for a range of different support requirements.
All schools have a termly problem-solving meeting with their link educational psychologist and specialist teacher to support them in meeting all children’s needs and to help identify those that require more support.
If you are concerned that your child is falling through the cracks, they please do share this with your school or contact the locality teams at Locality teams in Dorset - Dorset Council
Universal support
All children and young people should receive high-quality teaching through ordinarily available provision. We call this universal support.
SEN support
Some children and young people need additional and different targeted or specialist support. We call this SEN support.
The graduated approach is a 4 stage cycle where educational settings will:
- assess – the education setting assesses the child's needs. They listen to the views of the child and their parents or carers
- plan - the teacher and the SENCO plan how to support the child
- do - The SENCO helps the class teacher support the child
- review - Everyone discusses how effective the support has been. The school adapts the support depending on the child's progress
You can find out more detailed information on our website The Graduated Approach - Dorset Council.
Yes, we love this question. We have been working with partners including DPCC (Dorset Parent Carer Council) to create and improve existing provision and create more resource.
Our goal is to have more local provision, closer to where our families live and grow, we have developed plans as a partnership to make this happen. We recognise that for some children, alternative provision is a really great way of regaining confidence in education and learning. We’re committed to providing high-quality provision, so that children are supported to be the best they can be.
The opportunities for our young people are different to those that you might find in a more urban area. We have a higher number of small businesses with seasonal work who may not be able to offer the secure work which our young people are looking for.
Internships Work is a DfE initiative to 'kick-start' and double the number of Supported Internships locally.
If you are interested about finding out more about options for young people post 16, please sign up for our next session on Microsoft Virtual Events Powered by Teams.
We have already increased funding available for short breaks and have been working on developing services to use this. So far, we have developed a new overnight short breaks children's home in east Dorset with outreach to support families as a part of this.
We have also worked with providers to offer additional services to families to purchase with Direct Payments. And we have three providers on the new children's section of the Dorset Care Framework, who can provide individual support in the community or care at home; these are RedJacket, Oxford Human Capital and Lily Staffing Solutions.
Providers make their services known through the Xchange newsletter as well as the Family Information Service, which can be be found on the SEND Local Offer Local Offer activities - Dorset Council.
Each school has an education challenge lead assigned to the school with inclusion leads on hand to support the schools around children with special educational needs. Every half term the school holds a planning meeting where a team of professionals come together to discuss what additional support and advice is required to ensure the child/young person remains within their local school.
The budget for SEND in Dorset in 23/24 financial year is £48.9 million. This is part of the total money that schools get and which is allocated to support children and young people with special educational needs. Next year it will be £50.8million.
All transport including SEN transport is paid for out of Dorset Council funding and does not come from the same budget.
We currently have a SEND capital programme in progress which will see 779 places built with Dorset by September 2026. Dorset Council have also made another bid for capital funding to the Department for Education recently, which if successful, will see a further 116 places added to this. So far we have delivered 281 of the 779 places which we planned for in the strategy.
Each request for funding is discussed with the individual school. Support is put in place to support the settings to ensure they can meet the needs of the children. We think we need more specialist provision and are working to increase capacity. One of the ways we are doing this is through the development of inclusion hubs, dedicated spaces and an approach to meet children’s needs, within our mainstream schools. Those we have already opened are proving successful, and many other schools are expressing an interest.
There is always more we can do to ensure every young person can be their true authentic self. We are working with all our settings to ensure that they have a mix of children and children have peers who are similar to themselves, so they have a sense of belonging.
I would be interested in hearing more about your experience and to learn more please get in touch by email: Miriam.leigh@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk
We’re saddened to hear that this has been your experience, we are confident that for the most part we meet the needs of children as early as possible and have invested in this heavily. We assure you, that we are working very hard to make sure no one falls through the cracks, and that no families end up in crisis before getting the support they need.
We have set up a termly monitoring group to review school Accessibility Plans. This is made up of representatives from across our teams including a representative from the Dorset Parent Carer Council. The monitoring group will give feedback to schools. Schools will be provided with helpful tips and links to training or resources.
As part of this work, we will also be reviewing our guidance to schools about accessibility planning. This is to ensure that schools understand the barriers that children and young people with disabilities face and to encourage them to take actions to overcome these. It will also focus on creating a welcoming environment where children and young people with physical disabilities feel included.
Our service contact details are on the Local Offer - Physical and Medical Needs Service (PMNS) - Dorset Council (for parents and carers) and Nexus - Physical and medical needs service (PMNS) | Dorset Nexus (for schools). Anyone can contact us with a query in relation to physical and medical needs.
The graduated approach is a 4 stage cycle where educational settings will:
- assess – the education setting assesses the child's needs. They listen to the views of the child and their parents or carers
- plan - the teacher and the SENCO plan how to support the child
- do - The SENCO helps the class teacher support the child
- Review - Everyone discusses how effective the support has been. The school adapts the support depending on the child's progress
You can find out more detailed information on our website The Graduated Approach - Dorset Council.
Whether something is ‘reasonable’ depends on things such as:
- the child or young person’s needs and what support, if any, they receive through an Education Health Care Plan (EHCP)
- how practical the changes are and the resources of the education setting
- the cost of making the change or providing the aid
- if the change requested would overcome the disadvantage the child or young person experiences
- if there are other ways of overcoming the disadvantage
Health and safety considerations and the interests of other children and young people
Schools and settings must consider in advance what they need to do to make sure all disabled children and young people can access and participate.
If the costs of a supported internship exceed £6,000 the local authority would work with the provider to agree further funding. You can read more about supported internships on GOV.UK.
The sensory audit is from the Autism Education Trust (AET) and we will be using in all schools we are working with as part of any AET whole school training. It helps schools review the school environment from a sensory perspective. Individual assessments for sensory processing are carried out by qualified occupational therapists.
The autism in schools project is being implemented in a small number of schools and as a result we are also rolling the training out to other settings who are ready to implement changes. We will continue to do this together with colleagues from special schools and CAMHS.
The Youth Voice Team are meeting young people in a variety of spaces and places. We have attended SEND youth clubs on evenings and weekends and been along to several alternative provision arrangements. Please email the Youth Voice Team if you would like to invite us to a space at youthvoice@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk.
We are currently looking at post-16 provision and working with leaders to understand how we can support the right education for all. I would be happy to pick up a individual conversation with you please email me gaynor.howlett@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk.
I would be happy to have a separate conversation with you to understand the full situation and to provide support. Please email me at gaynor.howlett@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk.
We are proud to say we are not reducing this support, but expanding it. We have listened to families with young children and know that support through health visiting services, portage and from early years settings is valuable.
We are strengthening this offer. We will put more support into early years settings to enhance the amazing work our early years practitioners already do.
We will increase the number of people who are trained in the National Portage Association principles to help our youngest children with additional needs to have the best start in life.
Intersectionality is high on our agenda across the partnership – we have a number of events planned in the summer to celebrate diversity and we are confident that you will see that intersectionality is better understood. We would like to be doing better and more, so if you’d like to share insights with us then we’d love to hear from you at amanda.davis@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk.
We would like to understand the individual situation for your son and understand any support the school has put in place to support you and your family. Please do not hesitate to have a conversation with us so we can understand more and help. Email: gaynor.howlett@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk.
Dorset Council works with the education settings to ensure they can meet the provision as set out in section F. Should an education provision feel the level of funding is not sufficient to support the child/young person then we will work with the school to understand the details and agree what funding is appropriate to meet your child’s needs. All requests will be considered by a panel of experts in special educational needs. In the panel, the views of the child and family are always taken into consideration.
We’re really sorry this is your experience, and we clearly haven’t got this right for you. We do try to avoid change in practitioner and limit the risk of you getting inconsistent advice or information. Please do get in touch with us at kath.saunders@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk.