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East Sussex SEND Strategy

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East Sussex SEND Strategy 2022-2025

The East Sussex Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Strategy 2022-2025:

The SEND Strategy 2022-2025 aims to develop more opportunities for co-production with our key partners (also known as stakeholders), so that it becomes a regular feature of service design.

SEND Strategy Governance Board

As part of the SEND Strategy 2022-2025 development, a SEND Strategy Governance Board (SGB) with an independent chair meet to monitor how the identified priorities will be delivered in East Sussex. The board will have oversight of the Strategy and will provide direction to working groups that are implementing action plans to deliver change for the SEND community. 

What the Strategy Means to You

For children, young people and families, the SEND Strategy is a document that explains how different SEND services, support and pathways will be improved. For example, the Strategy outlines different expectations about how partners will all work together and be responsible for delivering improvements.

For professionals, the SEND Strategy sets the high-level plans and goals for improving education and provision for the children and young people they work with.

For schools, the SEND Strategy highlights high-level plans and priorities that will influence how educational settings will improve support for SEND children and young people.

Developing the SEND Strategy

The SEND Strategy was developed in collaboration with a steering group, which was formed by representatives from various groups within the East Sussex SEND Community, such as:

Co-production

The collaboration of these groups set a foundation for ongoing strategic co-production. This means partners will work together to ensure everyone's knowledge and skills are used to create better outcomes for children and young people with SEND, and their families.

We aim to create more opportunities in East Sussex for strategic co-production. This is where all partners, including parent carers represented by East Sussex Parent Carer Forum (ESPCF), children and young people play an equal part in strategic decision-making processes.

Priority Themes

Education East Sussex worked with stakeholders and the Children’s Disability Council to identify 5 overarching priority themes for SEND development in East Sussex:

These themes provide the framework for collaborative working for SEND in East Sussex. The recommendations from the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) recommendations and Ofsted feedback have also been used to identify priority areas of work under each theme. Working groups have already been set up to carry out the plans needed to develop services and processes.

Engagement Events

Education East Sussex worked with ESPCF to host engagement events to talk to parent carers and school leaders about the SEND priorities to include in the Strategy.

Parent carer events

In February, March and June 2022, ESPCF hosted engagement events with parents and carers. The events:

The events highlighted valuable suggestions that fed directly into the SEND Strategy.

Children and Young People events

Workshops were held with young people from different youth groups, like the Young SEND Ambassadors.

The young people created a statement that is used as a foundation for the Strategy:

‘All people who work with Children and Young People with SEND understand what matters to them, they listen to them and know how to help them be included and happy. This allows them to enjoy their education and make good academic, social and emotional progress to achieve their ambitions.’

School events

A series of events were held with school leaders to develop a shared understanding and vision about the priorities and how SEND Services can support best practice in school settings.

Consultation

In October 2022, a consultation (also known as a survey) was published so we could collect more comments and views. The results of that consultation were considered ahead of the final version of the Strategy.

Previous SEND Strategy

You can still view the previous, SEND Strategy 2019-2021:

Please note: ​​​​​we know these files might not be suitable for users of assistive technology.

If you use assistive technology such as a screen reader, please contact us. We will do our best to help and we will contact you about the next step.

You can contact us on localoffer@eastsussex.gov.uk

The East Sussex SEND Strategy 2022-2025 is the latest, up-to-date Strategy:

Get Involved

Visit this websites' page on how to ‘Have Your Say’, which offers various ways in which your voice can be heard and contribute to the developments of various Education East Sussex services. 

You can also visit the ‘You Said, We Did’ web page, which outlines how feedback has already shaped various services.

Glossary of East Sussex SEND Terms

Some of the terms used on this website are explained on our page, Glossary of East Sussex SEND Terms.

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