Section 9 - Special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)

Did you offer provision for children with Special Educational Needs & Disabilities? If yes then can you share examples?

In Gloucestershire we have commissioned training from Active Impact to ensure that all providers on the HAF programme are aware of the adjustments they can make to ensure their activities are more accessible to children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disablities. We have also provided sensory tents to 60 providers to help them to create quiet spaces that children can access during the provision.

Children with SEND account for 18% of those attending the HAF programme.  This includes 10% with a recognised disability, and 8% with a special education need.

As part of our HAF Framework we have also allocated Lot 3 for Special Educational Needs and Disability providers to bid to deliver activities from.  These include SV Mentoring; Belmont and Patnernoster Special Schools, Goals Beyond Grass and the Spring Centre.

We work closely with the members of the Gloucestesrhire Parent Carers Forum to review our provision and receive feedback from their members and to ensure that the activities we are commissioning are inclusive and meet children and young peoples and their families needs.

During the Winter HAF in 2022 we piloted a new project All About Me and All about Us, as we recognised that families needed more information about what was available and providers needed more information about children and young people to ensure that they had the best experience.

‘All About Me’ enables families to provide more information about their children and young people and ‘All About Us’ enables providers to share more detailed information including photographs of the provision. This helps families decide whether the provision will be right for their child.

Our parent and carer survey shows a steady increase in the number of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities attending and their safisfaction with the range and quality of the available provision and food.

© Crown copyright 2023