SEND reforms: inclusion bases

‘Every mainstream secondary school is to have an inclusion base’ is one of the government’s ambitions of its SEND reforms. A research report alongside guidance has now been published by the Department for Education, clarifying how such bases are to further its ambitions for more inclusion in mainstream education.  

We outline below 10 key legal takeaways for headteachers and school and academy leaders from these publications.

1. The term inclusion base replaces ‘SEN Unit’, ‘resourced provision’ and ‘pupil support unit’. There will be two models of inclusion bases: specialist bases will provide ‘local authority commissioned’ support; support bases will provide ‘school commissioned’ support. Support bases at one school may be commissioned by a group of schools based upon need. Specialist bases may be jointly commissioned by neighbouring local authorities based upon their joint needs.
2. Setting up a new specialist base, or making changes to a specialist base, will require schools to go through a formal process (significant changes for academies or prescribed alterations for maintained schools (as is currently the case), but setting up or changing a support base will not (unless other changes to premises or provision require that process). 
3. Schools will be expected to work with local authorities on the strategic planning for their local area. This is to ensure that local authorities commission the “appropriate volume and types of specialist base places”. Both kinds of inclusion bases are to contribute to meeting the goals set out in the strategic plan.
4. Local authorities should set out clear and transparent processes for selecting schools in which specialist bases will be set up. They should enter into ‘service level agreements’ specifying certain parameters of the commissioning arrangements, including (but not limited to) pupil entry/exit criteria, funding and governance arrangements.
5. Specialist bases will provide places for children with Education, Health and Care (EHC) plans, which will name the school of which the base is part. 
6. Some support bases may provide alternative provision to promote the inclusion of children (including from other schools [1]) with challenging behaviour.
7. Entry and exit criteria for both kinds of inclusion bases are to be specified. However, it is more likely that children in specialist bases will be spending less of their time (on a continuum) in mainstream classes, and children in support bases will be spending more of their time in mainstream classes, with their gradual full reintegration being facilitated, not least by curriculum alignment expectations for inclusion bases.
8. If one school is using a place in another school’s support base, then the child must be dual registered for their placement. For children without an EHC plan, normal admissions arrangements will apply to a child who is to be admitted to the school, even if they are to be dual registered and will spend the majority of their time in the support base.
9. If children within a support base are receiving support for their special educational needs at the current ‘SEND Support’ level (or ‘targeted’ or ‘targeted plus’ levels under the reforms), the school must comply with its duties contained in the SEND Code of Practice.
10. While support bases may be used as a place to which schools may direct a child ‘for the purposes of improving their behaviour’, they should never be used as a sanction, but should provide a period of supportive intervention, with a view to transitioning them back into mainstream schooling. 

It will be for schools with inclusion bases to facilitate the actual inclusion of pupils within them in the main school community. This will be the case even for schools which are running specialist bases for children whose needs are such that they will be spending minimal time alongside their peers. 

While the guidance reminds schools that they have a statutory responsibility to do this, for example, by enabling children in the base to participate alongside their peers in extra-curricular activities and school trips, importantly, the extent of this duty on schools will continue to be limited by the (statutory) caveat “so far as is reasonably practicable”.

Elizabeth Fortin is a Senior Associate at Stone King.

[1] This may be by way of a direction off-site for the purpose of improving behaviour.