On March 8th the SPACE Team attended a Family Information Day hosted by PIPS Stockport. The events are a valuable source of information for families of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.
For the SPACE group these events are a brilliant way to meet new parents, catch up with friends from other organisations, attend informative workshops and feedback new information to our parents and carers. As always it was nice to see parents and carers from our group on the day.
The latest information day included a session from Chris McLoughlin and Gillian Miller providing an update on the SEND code of practice. As many of you already know, Stockport had a SEND inspection from OFSTED and the CQC which identified a number of serious weaknesses.
As a result of the inspection the area was required to produce a written statement of action detailing what steps will be taken to improve the current situation. On February 26th Stockport submitted their plans for approval by Ministers. Once such a plan is approved by ministers it is then published and available to view by the general public. Since the Family Information Day the plan has been approved and is now available to view on the Local Offer website.
During the presentation questions were raised by the audience on a variety of topics including the population of home educated children and what would happen if the proposed plans highlight improvements which are likely to cost money, particularly as it has recently been announced that Stockport will be required to save even more money.
Another thing we discovered at the Family Information Day is that GPs in Stockport are offered a quarterly masterclass and this quarter’s takes place today and will be on the topic of SEND. We don’t have a great deal of detail on the content but we are hopeful that this will be an important step towards reducing the problem of GPs being misinformed about special educational needs.
Ongoing updates on the Stockport SEND Review will be made available on the Local Offer website.