Our Virtual School team works with schools and other educational settings, as well as social care teams and carers, to help improve the educational journey and outcomes for Children in Care from Early Years to the end of Year 13. Advice and information is also available for young people beyond Year 13.

Our aim is to ensure all Children in Care have the best possible education that matches their needs and enables them to realise their potential. We support and challenge practitioners to have the highest aspirations for every child and young person, including those with SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities), in line with RADY (Raising the Attainment of Disadavanted Youngsters) principles.

Through the PEP (Personal Education Plan) meeting and monitoring of progress and attainment, the Virtual School will understand those children requiring extra help and have an additional need or SEND, and how these needs are being met.
Targets and interventions are agreed and written to support the child/young person’s education progress, their interests and voice.
Interventions are reviewed at subsequent meetings and adjusted according to the progress achieved.
These contribute towards the school’s graduated response to meeting the child’s special educational needs.
PEP meetings should be linked to other education focused meetings such as SEND/ EHCP (Educational Health Care Plan) Annual Review.

For our SEND children, we:

Monitor the use of PP+ so that it has the maximum impact for our children
Ensure targets are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-framed, often referred to by the acronym SMART.
Ensure PEP targets are linked to long term EHCP outcomes, where applicable.
Make sure all SEND information is updated on the PEP
Track the progress of EHCP requests and annual reviews.
Work closely with the Staffordshire SEND team and those of the child/ young person’s area authority to facilitate SEND provision

Schools are responsible for identifying and matching their provision to meet the needs of any child on their roll.

Local offer:

SEND Local Offer

SENDIASS

Staffordshire Parent Carer Forum

Graduated Response Toolkit:

Early Years Toolkit

School Toolkit

Post-16 Toolkit

Enhanced Assess, Plan, Do Review Pathway

EAPDR for Children in care and those attending a PRU.

For Staffordshire children in care in Staffordshire schools and those looked after to other authorities, attending a Staffordshire school. Make a request using the One Form.

This is an early, pre-statutory, intervention and forms part of the Graduated Approach. It is available to all Staffordshire schools requiring additional support and resources in order to support pupils with SEND.

To access the EAPDR Pathway, schools need to evidence their existing efforts of graduated approach/APDR (two cycles), including evidence of how advice from specialist support services has been implemented, along with a costed provision map to show how available funding (AWPU + notional SEND budget) has been used.
The two APDR cycles needed in order to refer is ‘a guide and decision making will always be made on the individual needs of the child and the circumstances of the school’.
Schools complete the One Form to refer into District SEND & Inclusion Hub where meetings are held weekly.
The Hub members consider the request and refer to the Locality Management Group who decide whether to agree (schools will receive specific feedback and signposting if a request for EAPDR is not agreed).
Funding for EAPDR interventions will be up to £3,000 (subject to a costed provision map) with a 50% contribution from the Local Authority. Schools are required to ‘match’ this amount by also contributing 50%.
Not all cycles of EAPDR will require additional funding and some will not require as much as £3,000. For example, some ‘Do’ phases may require changes to current practice or the use of existing resources in a different way.
Once agreed, the school will be informed and asked to call the Team Around the Child meeting as quickly as possible.
In most cases, EAPDR can be accessed for no more than 2 cycles. Should further support be required, the TAC should consider whether it is appropriate to make a request for an EHCNA. If so, the EAPDR will support the EHCNA process.

EAPDR is available to school aged children (YR – Y11). Work is underway to extend the model to the Early Years and Post 16 settings. EY settings should continue to access support via the Early Years Forum.

EP time is not part of schools traded offer, i.e. schools do not ‘lose’ any of their traded EP hours when a child receives EAPDR EP involvement.

EAPDR is non-statutory, so if professionals feel a child needs EHCNA, the EAPDR does not need to be followed first.