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education & Childcare Health Care Plans

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Information on education services from portage to post-16, including travel assistance and options for schools and childcare

Education and Childcare

Find information on all mainstream and specialist education provision in the borough including support services.

Education Services

Portage

Portage is a home visiting service for children aged 0 to 3 years who have additional needs. It is based on the common-sense principle that parents and carers are the key figures in the care and development of their child.

Portage home visitors explore the needs of children between the ages of 0 to 3 years. They work in partnership with parents and carers to

  • build on the abilities the child already has
  • teach the skills the child is yet to learn

Home visitors offer a carefully structured but flexible system to help parents and carers become effective teachers of their own children.

You can find more information about Portage on the National Portage Association (NPA) website: 

National Portage Association

Early Years and Childcare

Here you will find help, advice and information about the services available for children or young people from birth to 18 years with Special Educational Needs and/or Disability (SEND).

This information is to support the understanding of Early Years settings, SEND and provide resources to help you through this process.

Early Years settings are referred to throughout all information, these include:

  • Childminders
  • Day Nurseries
  • Pre Schools
  • Out of School Clubs
  • Holiday Clubs
  • Foundation Units in schools

Find childcare in Rotherham

Find a school or college

View the directory of all schools and colleges in Rotherham. The directory includes links to each school’s website and their SEND information. Some colleges are in neighbouring boroughs such as Sheffield, Barnsley, or Doncaster.

View school directory

Find and compare schools in England

You can also search for primary, secondary and special needs schools and colleges near you and check their performances and view and download exam and test results compared to other schools.

Find and compare schools in England (gov.uk)

Find independent special schools and colleges

You can also search the full list of independent schools in England for pupils with special educational needs

Independent special schools and colleges (gov.uk)

School Attendance

Children who attend school regularly are much more likely to achieve positive outcomes throughout their childhood and later in life. We want all children in Rotherham to thrive throughout their lives and attending school to learn and develop socially is an important part of achieving this. However, if your child has Special Educational Needs or Disabilities (SEND), there can be extra challenges around this.

We know that the barriers to attending school can be incredibly complex for some children and in Rotherham schools and the Local Authority will work with families to remove any barriers to attendance by building strong and trusting relationships and working together to put the right support in place.

The School Attendance Matters Pathway is the pathway in Rotherham which explains Rotherham’s approach to attendance. Families will be offered support through an Early Help Assessment and plan (or other avenues of support) and enforcement will only happen if the School Attendance Matters Pathway has been followed appropriately.

You can find out more about the School Attendance Matters Pathway on the RMBC website.

School Attendance (RMBC)

We also have information on the Local Offer about supporting children in school who have medical needs which may affect attendance:

Education and Childcare – Managing medical conditions in school

Support in Education – Support for medical needs

For children who struggle to attend school due to emotional factors or experience, we also have information on Emotional based school avoidance (EBSA) and support for mental health needs in school:

Support in Education – Support for mental health needs

Support in Education – Emotional based school avoidance (EBSA)

Resource Provisions

A resource provision is attached to a mainstream school providing specialist therapeutic input and support for pupils with a specific SEND need type. Pupils access support from the resource provision based on their individual need whilst also accessing mainstream classes and curriculum.

The resource provisions will provide the specialist therapeutic input and support based upon their specialism and the delivery model may differ between schools. The Local Authority will monitor and quality assure the provisions while working alongside Schools within Rotherham to promote positive outcomes for children and young people accessing the resource provisions.

Children are on the roll of and are fully included in the mainstream school whilst receiving the specialist interventions they require to meet their individual needs.

Transitions within education

Transitions can be classed as any of the following:

  • Moving between home and school
  • Moving between lessons
  • Moving between familiar situations and unfamiliar/new situations e.g. school trip
  • Moving between year groups
  • Moving between key stages

Transitions for SEND children with complex needs

Travel assistance

There is an expectation that, whenever possible, families will make their own arrangements to get their child to school.

Travel assistance is not automatically given if a child has an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) and many children with SEND travel to school without special provision. However, some children with specific needs will require additional support, often for an agreed period of time. As children and young people get older they may be able to start travelling independently.

Some children may not be able walk or travel by public transport to school because of their particular needs, or a parent or carer may not have access to an appropriate vehicle to take them to school themselves. An individual’s needs will determine their entitlement.

Parents or carers should complete the age appropriate transport request form to enable the child to be assessed for eligibility.

Eligible pupils may receive transport assistance to and from school. This may be a personal transport budget to allow parents to arrange transport assistance to suit their child’s individual transport needs, bus pass, minibus, coach or shared taxi.

It is only in exceptional circumstances that details of home to school transport will be included within an EHC Plan. Where applicable, we would look at the potential for it being included within a personal budget.

To find out more about schools transport and travel in Rotherham, click below

School transport and travel – Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council

To make a transport request, click below

Apply for specialist home to school travel assistance – Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council

Managing medical conditions in school

The document ‘Supporting pupils with medical conditions’ gives statutory guidance from the Department for Education.

This statutory guidance is for:

  • governing bodies of local-authority-maintained schools
  • proprietors of academies
  • management committees of pupil referral units (these are places that provide education for children who can’t go to a mainstream school)

It’s also relevant for anyone supporting children with medical conditions.

The template document below gives example text that schools can use to:

  • create and invite parents to contribute to a child’s individual healthcare plan
  • ask for parental agreement for administering medicine
  • keep a record of medicine administered to children
  • keep a record of staff training in administration of medicines

Statutory guidance sets out what schools and local authorities must do to comply with the law. You should follow the guidance unless you have a very good reason not to.

Supporting pupils with medical conditions

Find out more information

Medical tuition guidance

Part-time timetables

All children of compulsory school age should receive a full-time education.

In very exceptional circumstances there may be a need for a temporary part-time timetable. This must be to meet the individual needs of a pupil and not because a school does not have enough resources, such as the availability of one-to-one support. Everybody involved with the pupil should agree that attending school on a part-time basis is in their best interest.

If a parent does not agree to a part-time timetable, it must not be put in place, or this may be viewed as an unlawful exclusion.

If you believe your child has been unlawfully excluded from school, you should refer to the school’s complaints procedure in the first instance.

In some cases, parents can argue that their autistic child is being denied the right to attend on a full-time basis because the school does not have the resources to provide the pupil with the support they require on a full-time basis, which would be discrimination arising from disability, unless it can be justified. You might find our information about disability discrimination  helpful’ (The National Autistic Society)

Disability discrimination in schools in England (autism.org.uk)

Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council have produced an information booklet for parents about part-time timetables:

What is a part-time timetable? (PDF)

Alternative provision

Alternative provision means a child or young person spending time in a different learning environment away from their usual mainstream school.  

It is individualised, person centred support for pupils in school which is agreed in partnership with families and the pupil. It is considered that a child or young person may benefit from additional, specialist alternative education provision, in conjunction with their school, when:

  • They need support to re-engage with their learning
  • They need support to re-integrate into a mainstream school after a period of time away
  • They require a specialised or bespoke education timetable
  • They are unable to access full time, mainstream education for any clearly identified reason
  • They have social, emotional or mental health needs which are impacting significantly on their school placement
  • They are on the verge of exclusion
  • They have poor school attendance which is having a detrimental impact on their academic progress

By spending some time at an Alternative Provision, your child can be supported to keep up their academic provision whilst having some therapeutic support and a flexible, personal timetable to help them succeed in mainstream school.

Your child will still be on the roll of their school and this does not mean they are failing, it should help them to develop an understanding of their emotions and help them to stay in a mainstream school feeling more settled.

If you think this could help your child, or their school has contacted you as someone there thinks alternative provision may help for a period of time, then it would be great for you and your child to visit the alternative provision to see if it is right for you all.

Managed moves and Off-site directions

Sometimes it may be necessary for a child to be educated somewhere other than their current school.

  • Off-site directions
    To support a child with their behaviour, a school can decide that the child will be educated somewhere else for a limited period.
  • Managed moves
    In some cases, a child’s school may decide it is best for a child to move to another school permanently. This is known as a managed move. A managed move should only occur when it is in the child’s best interests and all parties, including the new school and family, agree it would be best for the child to move to another school permanently.

Remote Education

School attendance is essential for children to get the most out of their school experience, including for their attainment, wellbeing, and wider life chances.

Remote education should only ever be considered as a last resort where a decision has already been made that attendance at school is not possible, but a child is still able or well enough to continue learning. This could be because they are:

  • Recovering from a short-term infectious illness.
  • Preparing for or recovering from an operation.
  • Recovering from an injury.
  • Affected by a special educational need or disability (SEND) or a mental health issue which is impacting attendance (in exceptional cases).

If pupils with SEND are not able to attend school and require remote education, their teachers are best placed to know how to help them continue to learn effectively.

Where pupils have access to appropriate devices, remote education might include recorded and / or live direct teaching time, as well as time for pupils to complete tasks, reading, and assignments independently, depending on their age and stage of development.

Schools may use external providers such as Oak National Academy or supplement own resources with those available online. See pdf attached to email.

For longer term absence from secondary school, an online school provider may be commissioned such as:

TCES National Online School

Nisai Virtual Academy

Academy 21

Minerva’s Virtual Academy

Some pupils with SEND may not be able to access remote education without adult support. In this instance, the school must instead consider, in cooperation with the local authority (if the child has an education health and care (EHC) plan), other ways in which it and the local authority can help. This may include a tutor coming to the child’s home or use of alternative provision in the community, depending on the child’s circumstances.

Whatever the form of remote education the school will still have responsibility for the monitoring of attendance, attainment, behaviour and welfare of the child as if they were attending the school site.

School Exclusions

Education and training for 16 to 25 year olds

There are a number of organisations that can help you find further or higher education courses once you have left school or if you are looking to go to university.

Information regarding local learning and training opportunities is available.

Further Education advice from UCAS

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