On Monday 23 February, Sheffield City Council approved the £10M funding, from the Department of Education, to support SEND in schools throughout Sheffield.
This decision will help reintegrate children in need of SEND support into mainstream schools by creating 220 specialist places throughout schools.
Councillor Dawn Dale, Chair of Education, Children and Families Policy Committee, said that she hopes this funding will ‘ensure all of our children and young people feel like they belong within their neighbourhood, within their community and within their school’.
She added: “They shouldn’t have to be transported across the city to a school that can provide care for them.”
This funding will help generate additional ‘high needs bases’ across the city, while also allocating a part of the funding to expand existing special educational needs schools, including, with the help of the Department for Education, creating a new 80-place SEN school for key stages 2 to 4 .
Strategic Commission Manager for Special Education Needs and Disabilities for Sheffield City Council, Matthew Peers said: “There is a clear consensus, this is a genuine opportunity to improve our approach and do more of what works for us here in Sheffield.”
However, he also agrees with a general worry expressed by various Council members on the sufficiency of the funding.
Peers said: “It is a challenging funding allocation, we need to make sure we spend the money wisely.”
Councillor Douglass Johnson agreed: “£10M might sound like a lot, but in this context it doesn’t sound like nearly enough for the task that is facing the city.”
Councillor Angela Argenzio, a former secondary school teacher, was also in agreement, and added that this isn’t a new initiative – this has been tried before and, unless it is enforced, it will not work.
She said: “This goes in a circle and comes back to the same place.”