Teaching support for SEND pupils gets £600k boost

An extra £600,000 a year is to be spent by a council on employing more staff to work with pupils who have special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), including those with visual and hearing impairments.

According to a report to Barnsley Council's cabinet, a hearing support team of three specialist teachers and one support worker currently helped a total of 222 children.

Meanwhile, the vision support team consisted of three teachers and one support worker helping 137 children, including 23 who were blind.

The report said the new funding would pay for more specialist staff for those children, and would also pay for extra staff to support SEND children at risk of exclusion from school.

Specialist teachers and support workers already help children in mainstream schools, but there has been an increase in SEND pupils and some have complex needs.

The report stated there had been a "steady growth" in the number of children requiring British Sign Language, and those children had "the highest level of complexity".

"There may not be a high number of children with these needs, but they do require highly specialist support," it said.

"If support was not made available locally, more children may be required to attend specialist provision out of the borough."

According to the report to go before Barnsley Council's cabinet later this month: "All these children require specialist support."

"Children with high needs who are in a mainstream setting require access to an additional curriculum, for example touch typing, visual stimulation and Braille," it said.

"For children who require support to enhance their independence, including independent travel and living skills, the caseload is currently 91 children, with one specialist and no support workers.

"Fifteen of those children are cane or pre-cane users, and 16 require the highest packages of support."

The report said that four new hearing and vision support workers would be employed by the authority at an annual cost of £173,548.

In addition to that, £426,322 would be spent on employing 11 SEND teachers and support workers.

Those workers would help SEND children who were at risk of being excluded from school, the report said.

Currently two specialist teachers had a caseload of more than 200 pupils.

The council said keeping children in mainstream schools benefited them, but it was also cheaper as the average cost of a special school place was £70,000.

Barnsley Council's cabinet is expected to discuss the report's findings at a meeting on 28 May.

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