Alternative provision pathway
The Council recognises the need for greater capacity in alternative provision to meet the growing demand and our statutory duty around 6-day provision.
However, our priority must be to enhance the support available to our mainstream partners in meeting the needs of the most vulnerable children and young people without resorting to exclusions, ensuring that exclusion is seen as an undesirable outcome rather than a justifiable sanction so that every child or young people feels part of their local school community.
That is why our first strategic vision for alternative provision is a preventive model, which we believe will support mainstream schools to avoid permanent exclusion wherever possible and strengthen their ability to meet the behavioural needs of their pupils.
Alternative provision: effective inclusion in mainstream
It is our intention to explore further opportunities to reduce the number of permanent exclusions, by providing capital support for mainstream schools, to provide enhanced intervention spaces within the existing school footprint.
These individually designed spaces would provide the opportunity for regulation and interventions throughout the school day, for those pupils whose behaviour places them at risk of exclusion.
They could be achieved by the remodeling of surplus accommodation, identified through analysis in all schools across the county. This development will provide physical spaces for mainstream schools to support their pupils back into their learning, with guidance and support on the effective running of the spaces from our quality and effectiveness team. The outcome from this early intervention will be to reduce exclusions across the county, empowering schools to meet need without resorting to sanctions which place pupils outside of their local communities.
Mainstream AP hubs
We will continue to explore the feasibility of mainstream AP hubs, in partnership with viable and committed schools and academies, to increase our AP sufficiency. AP hubs will form part of our inclusive mainstream offer, providing an enhanced level of support and provision for pupils who have been permanently excluded from their current setting. They will be run by mainstream schools as an integral part of their school, providing a base and support alongside opportunity to access aspects of the school day within the mainstream environment.
AP hubs will be provided by mainstream staff with a higher level of training and specialist expertise in meeting the needs of pupils that have been permanently excluded. A training offer for the setting up and ongoing professional development of staff would be provided by the council and the Lincolnshire SEND alliance. A bespoke package of training has been developed with sector experts, designed to grow and enhance staff skills and knowledge base.
AP hubs will primarily focus on key stage 3 and 4 based within secondary settings as this is where our AP demand is currently situated, though the need for primary provision will remain under review.
Each provision will be a maximum of two classrooms for a maximum of eight council commissioned places per class, with 2-3 additional transient places for the host school to access per classroom. This will provide the host school with the opportunity to utilise the provision to support their whole school inclusion approach and strengthen their ability to meet children and young people’s needs within their school.
Each pupil place will come with an agreed allocation of funding that will enable each class to be staffed by one teacher and two learning support assistants.