Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) have today informed East Sussex County Council and NHS Sussex that an inspection of SEND services and support for children and young people will take place, starting today and continuing for three weeks. You may have heard this called a ‘local area SEND inspection’.
SEND stands for Special Educational Needs and/or Disabilities
Parent carer survey
A vital part of this process is a survey for parents and carers of children and young people aged 0 to 25 with SEND. It is a key opportunity to share directly with inspectors your views and experiences of SEND provision in East Sussex.
The survey is NOW LIVE and will remain open for only six working days, closing at 9am on Tuesday 12th November 2024:
Complete Ofsted parent carer survey
There is also an EASY READ version available, for those who need it:
Complete EASY READ Ofsted parent carer survey
Please do complete the survey if you can and share widely with other parent carers in East Sussex, as soon as possible. There is only a small window of time to raise awareness of the survey and ensure as many parent carers as possible know about it, so please spread the word, as it all helps.
The questions are a combination of multiple-choice options and text boxes where you can provide more information.
Questions include whether your child/young person gets the right help and support, what could be done better, and what is working well, across education/training, healthcare, and social care.
There is also a separate survey for children and young people to complete:
Complete children and young people survey
About the inspection
The inspection happens over three weeks, starting from today, and looks at education, social care, and health services across the county for children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Specifically, it is evaluating the effectiveness of the local area partnership’s arrangements for children and young people with SEND. In simple terms, this means looking at how well local services are supporting children and young people with SEND.
‘Local area partnership’ refers to those in education, health and care who are responsible for the strategic planning, commissioning, management, delivery and evaluation of arrangements for children and young people with SEND who live in East Sussex.
ESPCF’s role in the process is to present your views and experiences of SEND services. We have been working hard to collate as much evidence as possible based on all the feedback you have provided across different workstreams, projects, groups, and via email, phone calls and on social media. We anticipate being involved in meetings with local partners and inspectors at various points during the three weeks. We will keep you updated throughout the process and encourage you to continue to share your views with us which we can feed in during the inspection.
Useful links
Watch video about SEND inspection for parent carers (YouTube)
Click here to read SEND inspections: information for parents and carers
Click here to read SEND inspections: information for parents and carers EASY READ
Click here to read SEND inspections: information for children and young people
Click here to read SEND inspections: information for children and young people EASY READ
All the above links, along with British Sign Language videos, are available on the government’s SEND inspections web page.