Rutland Schools Forum acknowledges parents’ concerns about ‘generic’ approach to children with special educational needs

Members of the schools forum of Rutland County Council have acknowledged some parents concerns for their approach to children with special education needs.

Speaking to members at their meeting on Thursday (December 8), Ben Solly, chair of the Schools Forum and principal of Uppingham Community College, said: “I received an email from two parents who had some raised a couple of concerns having watched the online meetings that we’ve conducted.

“Because it was addressed to me personally, I agreed to meet with them, and they felt that some members [of the Forum] referred to the parents of children with special education needs rather generically, and not always positively was their impression.

“There perception was that sometimes members of the Forum didn’t always display empathy for the various challenges that families faced, and the mum described to me this notion of ‘othering’ that she felt was apparent at some of the meetings. Now, I had to go back and look at the meetings that she was referring to because I couldn’t recall anything untoward occurring.

“But it was useful to talk to her face-to-face about these elements of feedback that she provided, and the outcome of the meeting was that we had a discussion about it and I said that I would feed that back to the group because we treat feedback as a gift, whether you agree with it or not.

“One of the key reflections is that we must remember these meeting are in the public domain – they will be scrutinised – and I would just recommend that we all reflect on the perceptions that have been articulated on to us, take these views onboard and realise that when we are referring to parents they’re not a homogeneous group, they will always be specific circumstances with each case.”

Members of the Schools Forum noted the comments from the chair.

At the same meeting, the head of finance for Rutland County Council, Andrew Merry, said there would be an overspend of £375,000 for 2022/23 for children with high needs, leading to a total deficit of £1.5m.

But he added that the funding will be changed when the latest census is published, with the funding changed to reflect the new position.

Overall, core schools funding (including funding for mainstream schools and high needs) is increasing by £1.5bn in 2023-24 compared to the previous year, on top of the £4bn increase in 2022-23.

Nationally, High Needs funding is to be increased by a further £570m, or 6.3 per cent, in 2023-24 – following the £2.6 billion increase over the last three years. This brings the total High Needs budget to over £9.7bn.

All local authorities will receive at least a 5 per cent increase per head of their two to 18 population, compared to their 2022-23 allocations, with some authorities seeing gains of up to seven per cent.

Members were asked for their support in asking the government for the increase to be at least five per cent, and this was agreed unanimously.