Devon County Council is working with the Special Partnership Trust (SPT) to create additional resource and capacity in the county to support pupils with special educational needs and disabilities.
The council wants to improve inclusivity in mainstream schools, and with the right support enable more children with SEND to attend their local schools alongside their friends and peers.
That means making sure schools have the resources, expertise and capacity they need to provide the additional support required to meet pupils’ needs.
Schools have always provided additional support to pupils who have additional needs, whether diagnosed or not, and they continue to do so increasingly.
But mainstream schools across the country are facing the same significant challenge: rapidly growing numbers of young people identified with SEND year on year; insufficient funds nationally to meet needs; and more expectation on them to support pupils with SEND without the finances to do so.
So, the Council and Special Partnership Trust (SPT) – a specialist educational trust focused on improving standards for special educational needs across the south west – have been working closely with a number of multi-academy trusts to help address this issue of capacity, resource and expertise.
As a result, SPT is developing locality-based SEN hubs that will provide additional resource and capacity to support pupils with SEND, if their local mainstream school isn’t able to meet their needs.
These SEN hubs would also deliver outreach support to schools in their locality, providing expertise and guidance to help them support more pupils in their home school with additional resourcing.
SPT, working with a number of multi-academy trusts, will develop SEN hubs in partnership with Devon County Council, in East and Mid Devon this academic year, with more hubs to follow later.
The first SEN Hub will be opened to pupils in Totnes, by Education South West in January 2026.
Guy Chappell, CEO of Special Partnership Trust said:
“We are very proud to be working together with the Local Authority, Multi Academy Trusts and partners. We believe that strong partnerships will realise capacity and maximise organisational potential to deliver inclusive communities, benefiting all children, young people and their families”
Councillor Denise Bickley, Cabinet Member with responsibility for services that support children with SEND, said:
”Improving real inclusion in Devon’s mainstream schools, and enabling more children within a broad range of special educational needs and disabilities to access their education close to home and alongside friends and peers, is a central part of our improvement programme.
“We need to start seeing children in terms of what they can do, not what they can’t, and encourage the positives while helping them with the areas they find more difficult.
“With early identification of need and the right level of support, children with additional needs should be able to thrive and excel in local mainstream schools.
“This initiative with Special Partnership Trust is another element of the improvements we’re encouraging with our partners, to embed genuine inclusion, reduce the number of pupils who feel they cannot attend school, and improve attendance through positive engagement and a trauma-informed approach.”
