How are we doing?

In order to assure that health, social care and education services in North Tyneside effectively support children and young people who have Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), we are regularly inspected by the Office for standards in education, children's services and skills (OFSTED). This is the body that inspects and regulates services that care for children and young people.

They inspect relevant services to assure that, as a local area, we are effective in identifying and meeting the needs of the children and young people with SEND and supporting them to improve outcomes.

We also carry out regular checks ourselves to assure ourselves that the activities and services offered to children and young people locally are fit for purpose. 

• The partnerships and leadership across education, health and care is strong, and they are actively driving forward the SEND agenda.
• The relationships between the Local Authority and schools is effective, resulting in strong educational outcomes for children with SEND.
• As a result of early identification and intervention in a child’s early years we are able to support the child quickly, effectively and can help to prevent needs escalating.
• The North Tyneside Local Offer has been co-produced with parents and carers to make it more accessible and user friendly.
• The health Designated Clinical Officer has increased resource to support the SEND system locally.
• There is an extensive Special School provision in North Tyneside with generous numbers of specialist nurseries and a strong Connexions offer for older children..

• Improve the way we use information and intelligence across health, care and education to improve and predict demand for services and support.
• We work together with partners, children and young people, parents and carers, however we want to do more to regularly co-produce our policies and procedures and to make service improvements.
• We want to introduce relevant checks to assure ourselves of the quality of the assessments and plans and provision offered to children and young people, and their families.
• We want to ensure that partners and agencies are improving the information they hold and the information they share with each other to build upon our string early identification and early help offer.
• We want to ensure that health and social care needs and support are better reflected in the Education, Health and Care Plans for children and young people. As a result we have ‘seconded’ a senior manager from children social care to the SEND service to focus on this area of development.