Report of the Director of Education and Head of Access and Sufficiency attached

The Executive considered a report of the Director of Education, which set out the proposal to adopt two Home to School travel support policies. These proposals would apply to all applicants for pupils starting at reception in primary schools and year 7 at secondary schools in September 2023.   It would also apply to young people entering post 16 or post 19 provision in years 12 and 14

All children and young people would have an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) to be eligible for support.

Both policies are based on the following principles:

·                A commitment to ensuring children and young people could fulfil their potential and that all children and young people with significant special educational needs or disability should lead lives that were as independent and as free from restriction as possible;

·                Promoting inclusive opportunities to enable children and young people to  travel to and from school or college independently or using family based approaches similar to those used by other children and young people wherever possible, taking account of their age and needs;

·                Promoting sustainable, safe, healthy and appropriate travel solutions by working in partnership with parents/carers to support them with their legal responsibility to make sure their children attend school;

·                A commitment to equality of opportunity and the celebration of diversity and an opposition to all forms of discrimination; and

·                Efficient use of public resources, delivering better outcomes and providing better value for money.

Feedback from young people through different forums and through the recent OFSTED inspection had been consistent. Young people with SEND wanted to learn to travel independently and where possible travel to school or college in the same way as their peers.  Consequently, the policies would introduce a number of new travel solutions to support this principle. The aim was for children and young people with SEND to be able to walk or cycle to school and to travel independently using our public transport to attend education provision. Travel by minibus or taxi would remain an option where families required this transport support.

As part of a review of wider service improvement, a review of current active routes would be undertaken to ensure that vehicles were being fully utilised.  In addition discussions with current operators would take place to review their capacity in order to provide additional journeys in September and also review what support would be required from the Local Authority to ensure these journeys could continue into the next academic year.

Decisions

The Executive:-

(1)      Agree in principle the Home to School Travel support policy for 5–16-year-olds, the Home to School Travel support policy for post 16 and the Home to School Travel support summary.

(2)      Agree that the Director of Education consults on the proposed implementation of these policies.

(3)      Authorises the Director of Education to consider any responses received to the consultation and to agree to the implementation of the proposed policies if she considers it appropriate to do so.

(4)      Note the work to date on the wider service improvement programme and agree to progress the identified areas of improvement.