Educational Psychology
Service
Handbook
for schools
Contents
Section 1
Structure and personnel
Section 2
Principles and goals
Section 3
Services provided
Section 4
Description of the service
Section 5
Quality assurance
Section 6
Customer satisfaction and complaints procedure
Section 7
Equal opportunities in relation to the work of the EPS and
the role of the EPS in promoting social inclusion
Section 8
Customer care plan
Section 9
EPS strategy for assisting the local authority and schools to
raise
educational
standards
Section 10
Guidelines for operating the time allocation system and
principles informing the creation of the time allocation model
Section 1
Structure and
personnel
Staff list – September 2009 Educational Psychology Service 42 York Street, Twickenham TW1 3BW
www.richmond.gov.uk
Phone: 020 8487 5464 Fax: 020 8487 5465
Principal Educational Psychologist: Simon Evans
Snr Educational Psychologist Nicholas English
Snr Educational Psychologist: Wendy Quill (part-time)
Educational Psychologist: Joanna Grant
Educational Psychologist: Susana Sao Joao Goncalves Educational Psychologist: Andrea Lloyd (part-time) Educational Psychologist: Helen Holroyd (part-time)
Educational Psychologist: Caroline Bick
Trainee Educational Psychologist Jennifer Head
Trainee Educational Psychologist Mark Coates
Office Manager: Valerie Kershaw
Administrative Assistant: Leeanne Sadd (part-time)
Peripatetic Learning Support Assistant Service 42 York Street, Twickenham TW1 3BW
www.richmond.gov.uk
Phone: 020 8487 5463 Fax: 020 8487 5465
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Structure of Richmond upon Thames
Educational Psychology Service
A dmin A ssistant Office Manager Snr Educati o n a l Ps y c h o logist (Multi-Age n c y ) Snr Educati o n a l Ps y c h o logist (Autism) Peripatetic LSA Service Peripatetic LSAS Manager F or Sensor y Impairme nt
Service for Chil
dre n w ith Sensor y Impairme nts Simon Evans Princip a l Ed uc ation a l Ps ych o logist Gerald ine H e ra ge Hea d of Servic es for Chil dren w it h Disa b ilitie s and Le arn ing Difficulties Nick W h itfield Director of Edu c ation a nd Chil dre n ’s Serv ices Barbar a Murray D e pu ty Di re Speci a list Ch ildren s ctor ’s Service
Section 2
Principles and goals of the Educational Psychology Service
The Educational Psychology Service aims to assist in raising educational standards and improving the general wellbeing and adjustment of children
and young people within the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames by assisting the local authority to carry out its responsibilities
Quality commitment
We work with children and young people and those who have responsibility for their care and upbringing. We strive to provide high quality psychological advice and to contribute to the formulation and implementation of relevant local authority policy. We have a unique and distinctive contribution to make in this process because we are the only group of applied psychologists working within the education service. Our professional practice is regularly evaluated and maintained by training and development. We are committed to equal opportunities in all that we do. Above all, we are committed to the quality and equality of educational opportunity for all the borough's childrenand young people, especially those with special educational needs and disabilities.
Applying our psychological skills, our general goals are to:
• promote a high standard of education in Richmond upon Thames;
• enhance the development of all children and young people, but particularly those with special educational needs, so that they can lead fulfilling lives and participate as far as they are able within the community;
• help parents to facilitate the social and emotional development and the learning opportunities of their children;
• provide, within a multi-professional context, parents, schools and other institutions with advice and assistance on learning and behaviour difficulties;
• help individuals and institutions to develop their own skills so that they can respond to changing needs;
• assist in the monitoring, evaluation and development of special educational needs provision within the local authority;
• carry out thorough psychological assessments of children's special educational needs and to communicate these findings clearly and promptly to parents, schools, the local authority and to other relevant professionals;
• work in partnership with teachers to ensure that children's special educational needs are identified and met as effectively as possible;
• ensure that, wherever possible, children have their special educational needs met within mainstream settings; and
• set up appropriate procedures to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the EPS.
Section 3
Service provided by the Educational Psychology Service
The Educational Psychology Service provides a range of services to children, parents, schools and the local authority to raise pupil standards.
These include the following:
• A consultation and support service to schools to enable them to function as effectively as possible as institutions.
• Comprehensive psychological assessments and reports of individual children at Early Years and School Action Plus, Statutory Assessment and further assessment of children with statements. Assessment may involve observations, psychometric and other forms of psychological testing, teaching and parent interviews, child interviews, self-rating questionnaires and curriculum-based assessment.
• Advice on a wide range of special educational needs including specific and general larning difficulties, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorders, speech and language difficulties, social communication and autistic spectrum disorders, emotional and behavioural difficulties and co-ordination difficulties.
• Specialist advice aimed at enabling children with physical or sensory disabilities to gain maximum access to the curriculum in mainstream settings.
• Working with school staff, parents and, when appropriate, other agencies to create and evaluate intervention programmes for individuals and groups of pupils.
• Working directly with a child or group of children in school.
• Advice on screening and monitoring pupil progress in order to facilitate early identification and intervention.
• Working with schools to help them establish, monitor and evaluate innovative ways of meeting the special educational needs of their pupils.
• The service has an expanding resource base of information, research papers and journals, advice sheets, educational programmes, therapeutic work and in-service training materials which can be made available to schools.
• Provision of in-service training to teachers, other members of staff, parents and other professionals.
• Supporting schools in reviewing their policies and the provision they make for
children with special educational needs for example, behaviour, bullying, attendance difficulties and special teaching arrangements.
• Provision of whole school systems analysis, for example investigating the dynamics and organisation of different aspects of school systems with a view to helping them function more effectively.
• Specialist advice to the Local Authority on all aspects of special education provision and policy.
Section 4
Description of the
service
Description of the service
Educational psychologists (EP) are applied psychologists who work within an educational context. They use a range of psychological techniques to carry out assessments of children who have learning, behaviour or emotional difficulties. They provide advice to parents, schools and the local authority on children's special educational needs and how those needs might best be met. The Service has responsibility for children and young people within the age range 0-19 and over.
Until recently the training route for educational psychologists was an honours degree in Psychology, a Postgraduate Teaching Qualification, a minimum of two years teaching experience and a higher degree in Educational Psychology. They underwent a year of supervised practice and then had eligibility for chartered status. The new training route follows the pattern set for other applied psychologists. After gaining a first degree in psychology followed by gaining relevant experience of working with children, trainees undertake a three year programme leading to a doctorate in educational psychology. The Borough is divided into five areas knows as quindrats, each of which is served by one or more psychologists who work with children, their families and schools within that area. Each school has an attached EP. There are currently eight educational psychologists (6.5 full time equivalent) and two trainee educational psychologists employed by the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames and they are supported by a small administrative team.
The role of the educational psychologist
Our work in applying psychology to education operates at three levels within the education system:
• Working directly with individual children.
• Helping adults, usually parents and teacher who are responsible for the care of the children.
• A more general contribution of advice and support to schools and colleges (including the provision of training courses).
The educational psychologists work within a consultation framework; refer to the document: The Consultation Approach: Delivering a High Quality Educational Psychology Service – Information for Schools.
Children may also be referred for statutory assessment by the LEA under the terms of the Education Act (1996).
Referrals of pre-school children with marked learning, physical or sensory difficulties to support services, including the EPS, are normally made via the Child Development Team.
Psychological reports
If a report is written on a child, a copy is always sent to the school and parents.
Statutory psychological assessments
If a child appears to have special educational needs which can only be met by resources not generally available within mainstream education, the Local Authority will arrange for a full assessment of his or her needs under the terms laid down by the Education Act (1996). This involves reports being prepared by a psychologist, a medical officer, the child's
teachers (when the child is of school age) and any other professionals who have knowledge of the child.
Parents or carers views and the views of those who work with the child are sought and recorded and parents and schools receive copies of all reports. The psychologist will always attempt to elicit and record the views of the child.
At present, with current staffing levels, the EPS is only able to accept referrals of pre-school children with very significant or complex special educational needs.
Section 5
Quality assurance
• All statutory psychological advice is read and monitored by the Principal Educational Psychologist.
• Time taken to complete statutory advice is monitored to ensure compliance to Code of Practice timescales.
• The Principal Educational Psychologist reads and monitors a wide cross-section of School Action Plus reports.
• The Principal Educational Psychologist meets with each psychologist at least once a week for a feedback, support, information or a supervisory session. Every education psychologist (EP) has regular professional supervision.
• Compliance with the Borough's Customer Care Standards is monitored with respect to time limits for acknowledging and replying to letters from members of the public.
• Continuing Professional Development is facilitated through the Staff Appraisal and Performance Review Scheme. Funding is made available for EPs to upgrade their skills through attending advanced professional training courses. EPs are enabled to review their skills and development needs annually in an individual meeting with their line manager. Each EP has a personal development file.
• The EPs meet as a team at fortnightly intervals to discuss issues that affect the service as a whole. There are also opportunities for peer supervision within the service.
• Educational psychologists are registered with the Health Professionals Council and abide by standards of conduct, performance and ethics laid down by this statutory regulatory body.
• The EP monitors and analyes parental satisfaction with the service and the impact of consultation and intervention on the child’s subsequent progress.
Section 6
Customer satisfaction
and complaints
Parents and carers: Analysis of consumer questionnaire
April 2008 – March 2009 Background
A questionnaire designed to allow parents or carers to provide feedback on the EP service they received was initiated as part of the consultation phase of the Best Value review of services to schools (2002). The EPS decided that it would be a good idea to build this parental feedback into the routine administration of the Service as a means of monitoring one aspect of service quality. Continuing with these parental questionnaires was therefore included in the Best Value Service Improvement Plan.
During the discussions that preceded the first questionnaires being sent out it was acknowledged that, although it is important to gain a measure of how the Service is
perceived by parents, it would be impossible to obtain a “pure” measure as parents’ views are likely to be influenced by a number of factors. These are likely to relate to outcomes, some of which will be beyond the control or outside the responsibility of the EP.
Parents were not asked to identify themselves but filled in the questionnaires anonymously. In order to encourage parents to respond they were sent a stamped, addressed envelope in which to return their replies.
Results
Respondents were asked to give a rating to four different aspects of the service that they received together with an overall satisfaction rating. Each of the five ratings used a five point scale with one = not satisfied and five = very satisfied.
Space was also provided for open-ended comments.
59 questionnaires were returned (55 were returned last year).
The figure in brackets was for the financial year 2007-8.
1. The psychologist explained their involvement in the current situation. Mean Score = 4.63 (4.36)
2. The psychologist took time to ask for my views and feelings and listened carefully to my answers.
Mean Score = 4.64 (4.65)
3. The recommendations made by the psychologist were appropriate to the special educational needs of my child.
4. The content of written or verbal feedback received from the psychologist was satisfactory.
Mean Score = 4.46 (4.34)
5. Overall, how satisfied are you with the involvement of the Educational Psychology Service?
Mean Score: 4.47 (4.4)
Discussion and conclusions
• The ratings indicate a generally very high rate of satisfaction with the service provided, with mean scores tending to cluster between 4 and 5. This is particularly gratifying given that parents or carers can be, and often are, very critical consumers. They have a huge emotional investment in their child and this is raised further when they become aware that the child has special educational needs.
• Most parents gave the Service a uniformly positive rating with a very small number of parents giving mainly low ratings. There was no single reason given by parents who gave low ratings but generally the reasons were outside the remit of the EP. A few parents have such high expectations of the Service that it would not be possible to deliver to them a service that they would find satisfactory.
• The two parents who noted that they disagreed with the EP’s conclusions tended to give a very low rating to all five questions.
• Further analysis of the data was carried out by assigning each parent or carer’s set of ratings to one of three categories: Highly satisfied (ratings of 4s and 5s); Satisfied (ratings clustering around a 3); Not satisfied (ratings of 1s and 2s).
88% (85%) of parent or carers were highly satisfied, 8.5% (11%) were satisfied and 3.4% (4%) were not satisfied. The figure in brackets was for last year.
• Parents used the opportunity to make many very positive comments about the service they received. Indeed, the great majority of comments were positive. EPs were commended for being helpful, sympathetic, insightful and being good listeners. The quality of recommendations and advice was frequently praised. Several parents also welcomed the opportunity to “bounce ideas” off the psychologist. Many parents expressed their confidence that the intervention would help their child get the help they needed.
• This year’s results are extremely similar to those we received last year: there does not appear to be a significant difference although the satisfaction levels have increased, once again, from an already high base.
Customer satisfaction and complaints procedure
• Periodic customer satisfaction surveys are carried out
• Parental satisfaction is monitored on a continuous basis through questionnaires. • The EPS follows the Council’s complaints procedure.
Section 7
Equal opportunities in
relation to the work of
the EPS and the role
of the EPS in
promoting social
inclusion
Equal opportunities in relation to the work of the EPS
Educational psychologists (EPs) work with children and families from a wide range of cultural, economic and linguistic backgrounds. We are committed to maintaining absolute equality of opportunity and fairness of treatment towards all children. To this end we
support measures which are designed to eliminate unjust discrimination in whatever guise it may appear and to encourage educators to raise the standards of achievement of all pupils. The EPS abides by the Council's Equal Opportunities Policy.
EPs are careful when making their assessments to eliminate, as far as possible, any cultural or gender bias from their assessment techniques. They are aware that because, in practice, the ideal is impossible to attain, account must be taken of unfair cultural
assumptions. Psychologists abide by the British Psychological Society's Code of Conduct which requires that Psychologists:
"Shall not allow their professional responsibilities or standards of practice to be diminished by considerations of religion, sex, race, age, nationality, party politics, social standing, class, self-interest or other extraneous factors."
The standards of conduct, performance and ethics laid down by the Health Professionals Council state:
“You must not allow your views about a service user’s sex, age, colour, race disability, sexuality, social or economic status, lifestyle, culture, religion or beliefs to affect the way you treat them or the professional advice you give.”
Where appropriate, EPs will arrange for interpreters to be present at school meetings and assessments. They may also arrange for reports to be translated.
The ethnicity and gender of referrals to the service is monitored and analysed annually. EPs have a particular duty to promote the opportunities of children who have special educational needs. This goes beyond challenging prejudiced attitudes and unfair
discrimination. EPs have a duty to try to ensure that young people with special educational needs gain full access to the National Curriculum, are encouraged to develop their social, personal and educational skills to their full potential and become as independent as possible.
In many cases these aims will best be realised by encouraging the inclusion of children with Special Educational Needs in mainstream schools. Account must always be taken,
however, of the needs of the individual child, parental preference and statutory considerations.
Section 8
Customer care plan
1. The main principle educational psychologists follow is that the child’s needs come first. Educational psychologists will undertake to assess the special educational needs of children in consultation with their parents, carers, teachers and others who have a professional concern for them. They will, however, maintain a professional
independence by expressing views and making recommendations that they believe to be in the best interests of the child.
2. Educational psychologists treat all the people who use their services, be they children or adults, with courtesy and respect. We provide the best service of which we are capable and, if mistakes are made, we acknowledge responsibility, apologise and try to rectify the situation.
3. Educational psychologists will make every attempt to ensure that verbal and written communication with parents is made as clear and easily understandable as possible. When necessary, interpreters, signers or other people to aid communication will be employed. Educational psychologists will attempt to create an atmosphere in which discussion with parents can be candid, open and responsive to their concerns. Communication with parents may be facilitated through the use of:
• Language Line
• The Interpretation and Transcription Service • The Braille Transcription Service
4. Educational psychologists will abide by the Council's policy on equal opportunities. 5. Educational psychologists are subject to professional codes of ethics and conduct
through their royal chartered body (the British Psychological Society), through whom they may be registered as Chartered Psychologists. They are also subject to the complementary ethical code of their professional association, the Association of Educational Psychologists. They must also be registered with the statutory regulatory body, the Health Professionals Council and must abide by their standards of conduct, performance and ethics.
6. Educational psychologists only assess children with parental permission unless there is a statutory duty or court order to the contrary. Parents will be informed of the date(s) on which the assessment will be carried out.
7. Psychological reports on children are confidential. They are only made available to parents and to those professionals who have a legitimate concern for the child. 8. Educational psychologists will always attempt to elicit the views of the child.
9. Although the child is the prime client, educational psychologists have a range of other clients including parents, teachers, school governors, elected members and the educational department. Educational psychologists undertake to provide these clients with high quality, professional advice and where appropriate, with specialist training.
10. Educational psychologists are required to continue their professional development through attending in-service training courses and by keeping up with developments in the profession through, for example, journal articles.
11. Educational psychologists are professionally accountable for their work through the Principal Educational Psychologist (PEP). The PEP is accountable to the Head of the integrated service for Children with Disabilities and Learning Difficulties. In addition to any external monitoring, the Psychological Service undertakes to monitor its own effectiveness and efficiency (see customer satisfaction).
The service operates within the Council's Customer Care Policy. This lays down certain standards of performance that EPs will adhere to:
• Document response times: letters from members of the public must be acknowledged within two working days with a full response within one week.
• All incoming post is monitored. Details are entered in a ledger including outcomes (acknowledgement and final response dates).
• Telephone response times: the telephone should be answered within four rings. All staff are aware of this.
• Waiting times: clients should not be kept waiting for more than five minutes from the time of their appointment. All staff are aware of this.
In addition, the EPS gives top priority to ensuring that statutory psychological advice is submitted within the six week deadline. Compliance is monitored and reported annually.
Section 9
Guidelines for
operating the time
allocation system
Principles informing
the creation of the
time allocation model
London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
Educational Psychology Service
Amendment to time allocation model: September 2006
Following consultation with headteachers it was decided to reinstate the 25% top-sliced hours to the schools’ time allocations. The top-slice was introduced last year to facilitate
Every Child Matters related work. We will revert to our previous practice of negotiating
project and training activities with individual schools and clusters.
As of this year, each special school and special unit will have an allocated EP and a time allocation. In previous years EPs had an allocation of time to be used for all their work in special settings in the borough. This time has now been attached to their specific special schools or units.
The time allocation model has also been simplified. Educational pyschology work and activities will now be described as taking place at one of three levels:
Level 1: Work with mainstream schools, special schools and special units in the borough.
This will also include work carried out as part of a specialism,for which there is a time allocation (for example visual impairment; physical disability, and consultation work on autism).
Level 2: Work with pre-school children and with out-borough schools. Contingency time,
used to cope with peaks in demand for statutory assessments, ‘emergencies’, critical
incident management and some project and training work commissioned by schools, is also included under this heading.
London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
Educational Psychology Service
Amendment to time allocation model: September 2005
The EPS needs to respond to the Every Child Matters agenda. The EPS will be part of the new Integrated Service for Children with Learning Difficulties and Disabilities and we will need to be organising the services that we deliver with respect to the ECM Outcomes Framework. In order to meet the full breadth of our responsibilities with respect to the five outcomes and to provide appropriate support and input to Early Years providers, schools and to those responsible for children in out of school settings we will need to devote more of our time to activities, such as:
• parenting skills
• facilitating social and emotional development of children • supporting those responsible for looked-after children
• helping to develop peer support projects to combat racism and bullying • training of teaching assistants (for example in behaviour management and
counselling)
• developing and supporting nurture groups
• helping educational settings to meet the needs of children with complex needs such as ASD, ADHD and specific language impairments
• small group work (for example SULP, anger management) • personal organisation and study skills
In order to free up time for these activities, a 25% top-slice has been made to individual mainstream and special school termly time allocations as well as individual EPs’ specialist time allocation. This has allowed each EP to have a termly allocation of ECM related
project and training time. EPs will discuss with their schools ideas for projects or training
and will be encouraged to engage in joint work with other EPs or colleagues from other agencies. Work with clusters of schools or across the whole borough will also be
encouraged.
This new allocation of time will also allow us to respond to commissions from within the Integrated Service or from the broader Children’s Service.
London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
Educational Psychology Service
Amendment to time allocation model: September 2004
To coincide with the change to delivering our service within a consultation framework, the time allocation model is being amended to make it more transparent to school users. Formerly, only the amount of time that the EP spent in school, carrying out direct work on behalf of the school, was allocated by formula. From now on, the time taken for report writing and administration will also be included in the time allocated by formula, as referred to in the document Educational Psychology Service: The Consultation Approach (May
2004). This will allow schools to make more informed decisions as to how they use their
allocated time.
The net hours available for a full-time EP remain at 308 each term.
To the 54% of available time currently allocated to direct work in schools is added the 26% previously allocated (internally) for report writing or administration in relation to that direct work. This makes 80% of available time allocated to direct work in relation to schools plus the associated report writing. This amounts to 246 hours each term.
This time is allocated proportionately in accordance with the last amendment (September 2004) as follows:
Borough mainstream
Borough special Pre-school and nursery Outborough
68% 12% 16% 4%
167 hours 29 hours 40 hours 10 hours
The allocation for each borough mainstream school is then made annually on the basis of the existing formula.
London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
Educational Psychology Service
Amendment to time allocation model: September 2002
The number of referrals for statutory assessment to the EPS of pre-school children with significant or complex special educational needs has risen markedly. Priority has to be given to these cases as the EPS must abide by tight statutory deadlines. Given the nature of the cases the assessment procedure is particularly time consuming.
In order to continue to meet our statutory targets it has become necessary to allocate more EPS time to school work. Up until this point the Service allocated 11% of its time to pre-school work. This has been increased to 16%.
The number of available hours for direct work in relation to individual children is now divided, in proportion:
Borough mainstream Borough special Pre-school and nursery Outborough
68% 12% 16% 4%
Guidelines for operating the time allocation system
1. Mainstream schools' time allocations refer to the educational psychologist's direct work in relation to individual children. This includes time spent observing and individually assessing children; consultation with staff and parents over individuals; reviews and providing INSET (see note 6). Time spent in report writing, administration, travelling and breaks is not included. 2. Educational psychologists and mainstream schools will need a termly meeting to agree
priorities and to decide how the allocated time is to be used. As this will take place in the school's allocated time, it will be in everybody's interest to keep this meeting as brief and focused as possible.
3. Educational psychologists will log the time that they spend in each school and will aim to keep within a range of plus or minus 10% of the allocated hours.
4. Unused time may be carried forward into the following term(s) but only within the same school year. Care should be taken to ensure that only small amounts of time are carried forward to avoid overload during the summer term.
5. Educational psychologists will always have to give priority to statutory work. As this is a legal requirement it is non-negotiable.
6. The model allows for flexibility by incorporating an allocation of 'contingency hours' to each EP. First priority for the use of this time must go to unexpected surges in statutory demand, regardless of whether the pupil is of pre-school age, at a borough mainstream, borough special or out-borough school.
Contingency time may also be used to deal with 'emergencies' for example a pupil with extreme difficulties who moves into a borough mainstream school at a point after priorities for the term have been agreed.
Care should be taken, however, to ensure that contingency time is not being regularly put into the same school, or schools, as this would undermine the rationale behind the needs-driven model.
In accordance with the aim of encouraging a proactive, preventative approach, together with early identification and intervention, the Educational Psychology Service would welcome and encourage bids for a proportion of contingency hours to be used to support school-based projects designed to help schools to identify and meet the special educational needs of their pupils. Similarly, requests for school-based staff INSET by EPs would be welcomed. Work of this nature could involve the use of some of the school's allocated hours topped up by
contingency time.
7. Mainstream schools' time allocations do not include work in relation to pupils in their nursery classes, if they have them. Nursery classes were excluded from the school rolls when time allocations were calculated. Work with these children will come out of each EP's time allocation for pre-school/nursery work.
Principles informing the creation of the time allocation model
1. Time allocated should be weighted in favour of need.
50% of time allocated to each mainstream school is calculated on the basis of the proportion of pupils receiving free school meals (FSM). The remaining 50% relates to the school's population. FSM was used as a proxy indicator of special educational needs because:
• This is consistent with the LEA's practice when calculating an SEN weighting as part of the delegated funding of schools.
• FSM is acknowledged to be a valid proxy indicator of SEN. • FSM is an objective indicator.
2. The distribution of educational psychologists time should be weighted in favour
of early identification and intervention.
A disproportionate allocation of time (11%) has been allocated to work with pre-school children. This reflects existing practice. Secondary school populations, for the purpose of time allocation, have been calculated on the basis of their Year 7 and Year 8
population (cf. total roll).
3. Flexibility should be built into the model to allow for contingencies such as
'emergencies' and unpredictable surges in legitimate demand.
Total available EP time has been top-sliced by 12% to allow each EP 42 hours (pro rata for part-time EPs) of contingency time per term. This is consistent with the practice in neighbouring LEAs.
4. The statistical model used should be transparent, justifiable and easy to
understand.
The guiding principles and the method of calculation have been made explicit.
5. The model should permit annual adjustment of allocated time to take account of
demographic shifts.
The model adopted allows for this.
6. The model should encourage and facilitate proactive work at School Action and
School Action Plus Stages of the Code of Practice.
The time allocated to each school is weighted in accordance to need (via the FSM proxy indicator) but is not divided into separate 'statutory' and 'non-statutory' components. Time has not been allocated on the basis of the proportion of children with statements of SEN. School's already receive additional funding (and staffing) for such pupils. Thus,
schools that are able to meet pupils SEN at School Action and School Action Plus of the Code of Practice, are not penalised under this model by receiving a reduced allocation of EP time.
7. The model would guarantee that no mainstream school would receive a minimum
time allocation of less than four hours each term.
The lowest formula-generated time allocation was five hours each term.
8. A desirable, though not essential, outcome of the model would be that the
formula-generated time allocations would approximate to current informally negotiated allocations as this would ease adjustment difficulties on the part of schools. This outcome would occur if EPs had, as they had always believed, weighted their informal time allocation in accordance with need.
Having inspected the formula-generated allocations, all the EPs have expressed the view that they do not differ significantly from the time that they have been allocating to their individual schools.
