Schools minister Catherine McKinnell recently said that fixing the problems in SEND inherited from the previous government will be “huge and complex” and will come “in due course”. The reality is that we need to start now, and we need to be radical in our efforts.
The job of running a special school (or one heavily involved with the SEND continuum) is becoming harder and harder. If the perfect storm has not yet arrived, it is only a matter of time, and incremental change to our broken system will not be enough to ride it out.
For my part, and I recognise this government won’t deliver this, I believe we should abolish Ofsted.
Our special schools cannot deliver change en masse unless they are freed from the spectre of the next Ofsted inspection. This spectre invariably leads to risk-aversion “until Ofsted is out of the way”.
But it is never out of the way, and the cycle repeats until schools find they’ve done little more than manage the day-to-day for decades at a time.
If government is committed to keeping schools under the Ofsted yoke, it should at minimum gift special schools a freedom to innovate. This means: a promise of no detriment if attempting something radically different.
Of course, this would require stakeholder engagement. And of course, the schools would need to demonstrate that the needs of the children/ young people are being fully considered.
And herein lies one of the many binds that special schools face: there are many stakeholders involved for whom schools engagement is very high-stakes. This reality inhibits the motivation to innovate.
So, here’s a radical suggestion – the all-year-round special school, open for fifty weeks per year (assuming a Christmas and New Year closure period).
Students attend school when they can. If they are unwell or if their family wants to take a break for respite or recovery (neither of which is uncommon in special schools) then they can, with no detriment, no threat of fine and no shame or additional stress.
Government should gift special schools a freedom to innovate
By opening for two-hundred-and-fifty days per year, the school gives the students maximum opportunity to hit their one-hundred-and-ninety-day 100 per cent attendance target. At the same time, this helps families by taking some of the pressure off.
The cost of holidays would reduce. The opportunity to spend quality family time together would increase. The ability to tend to the needs of the child would improve. And so on.
The proposition for staff would also change. People would be able to take time off when they chose to, like happens in most other fields of work. As long as there was a sufficient workforce available each day, leave would be flexible. This alone could transform the sector’s recruitment potential overnight.
Roles would necessarily have to have greater flexibility and there would be an inclination towards more ongoing workforce development training. Staff absence (a huge challenge in special schools) would reduce. Retention (an even bigger challenge at some grades) would improve in line with improved prospects and better conditions of service.
A school operating in this way would require an enlarged senior team – thereby also growing the leadership pipeline in a sector that is endemically short of leaders.
Of course, there are obstacles to overcome in making this vision a reality. But without a vision to begin with, we won’t get anywhere. Without a permissive environment to think differently, no one will. And without a starting gun, we’ll just stay in the blocks “until Ofsted is out of the way”.
It might seem too radical, but I don’t hear any better ideas. At Wellspring, we are ready to do it. With five special free schools in development, yet to be built, we are actively engaged in conversations about how we can bring radical solutions forward.
The system needs them. Our stakeholders need them. Ours is an otherwise intractably difficult environment, with very few obvious means by which to improve it. It demands radical leadership.
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