The DfE Consultation response on ‘non-school’ alternative provision.
The Government’s response to Strengthening Protections in non-school alternative provision.
I wasn’t expecting to pay much attention to the pages of response analysis in the document – I’m more interested in what the outcomes are. My experience of consultation processes are that they tend to produce very similar plans to those the consulter started with.
One statistic did stand out in the first section though. I was very surprised that there were only 308 responses to the consultation considering responses included schools, LA’s and parents that means that a lot of providers didn’t engage with the process at all – only 96 in fact! Some LA’s have more providers than that just for their area - maybe they were equally as sceptical of their opinions having an effect as I was. I think that does reflect on how well (or not) the sector works together and communicates though. I have been part of setting up ‘Align’ with a number of other people working across ‘non-school’ AP. If you work in this area and you’d like to work together more with the sector as a whole do join. It’s free – no catches. Just head to: https://align-ed.uk we’ve our first network meeting next week so it would be great to see you there.
Key intentions from future legislation are:
1) We can lose the term ‘unregistered alternative provision’ with its negative associations of unregulated cowboys. Unregistered provision is now officially ‘non-school alternative provision’. It’s not perfect but it is better.
2) The aim is for non school provision to offer good quality, bespoke, time-limited interventions informed by the child’s individual needs.
3) Legislation will be put in place to ensure that:
· Commissioners only use providers that have been approved, against the standards by local authorities.
· The quality of the LA’s QA will be checked as part of their Ofsted inspections.
· All students in placements with providers will be expected to be on the register of a school.
· All students should have a plan for reintegration to school.
· Schools will have to inform the DfE of all their placements and will need to ensure each placement is meeting each child’s needs – a QA of the intervention rather than the provision.
· Every placement should start with a full assessment of needs and a child-centred plan.
· Every placement will be time-limited with this only extended in ‘exceptional circumstances’. This was detailed in the consultation as 12 weeks (this can be full-time) or longer, part-time interventions of up to 2 days or 4 sessions per week. This is actually easier to work with than the 18 hours ‘part-time’ loose definitions we previously had. It’s also not really any different for providers who can still have part-time students long-term. It mentions several times about part-time placements being supplemented by time back in school so this probably disadvantages those APs who have been working with others to put together full-time packages for schools using at least 2 different providers.
· Placements should support transition back to full-time education at the end of them.
· Local authorities will no longer be able to meet their section 19 duties by placing children who are not already on a school admissions register in non-school alternative provision. Interesting they will be allowed to place children with online education providers. I can see this developing into lots of children accessing online providers as a solution – in my opinion that is well short of the support and care they’d get in a strong ‘non-school’ AP where they are being seem by staff, socialising with others and can form strong trusted relationships with professionals in a way that is harder online.
· Reviewed guidance around registration as a school and ‘full-time’ definitions will follow the passing of the ‘Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill’ through parliament. This document seems to suggest that 5 or more students on a full-time 12 week placement won’t necessitate registering as a school – this is the way I understand it works currently but it has always been a bit of a grey area.
· Settings that only deliver to EOTAS young people will be outside the scope of the legislation – we wait to hear how they will be regulated.
The standards are going to be implemented on a voluntary basis to begin with until ‘parlimentary time allows’. I have no idea what kind of time-frame that means but it makes sense to start working to meet these standards now.
You can read the full 60 page document here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68b17bca3f3e5483efdba7ff/strengthening-protections-in-non-school-alternative-provision-government-response.pdf
Don’t forget you can download a free audit against the standards from our website here: https://www.closethegaps.co.uk/updates/dfe-guidance-for-non-school-alternative-provisions and Close the Gaps already helps APs and schools support young people struggling in education. Get in touch if we can help you.
