Forty primary schools across Devon including Plymouth and Torbay have been selected to work more closely with local education authorities, NHS Devon and Parent Carer Forums to improve the way that young neurodivergent pupils are included in school.
The term ‘neurodivergent’ includes, but is not limited to, conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, anxiety, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, developmental language disorder, foetal alcohol syndrome, and other forms of developmental learning differences and needs, whether diagnosed or as yet undiagnosed.
It’s thought that around 15% of children and young people in Devon have a diagnosis of neurodivergence, or neurodivergent needs, equating to at least 30,000 children and young people across Devon, Plymouth and Torbay.
Twenty-six primary schools in Devon County Council’s area, nine in Plymouth, and five in Torbay, have been chosen locally to be part of the NHS England and Department for Education-funded PINS project (Partnership for Inclusion of Neurodivergence in Schools).
The schools were chosen based on criteria, including the number of pupils attending with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND), attendance rates, the SEND profile for the school, and suspension and exclusion rates of pupils with SEND at those schools.
The aim of the project is to help schools identify children with additional needs, with or without a formal diagnosis, at the earliest opportunity in their education, and to provide the right support to help them engage with education and to achieve. It’s come about following feedback from some parents who felt their children with SEND were not feeling included in their school communities or supported by way of reasonable adjustments by the school.
In Devon County Council’s area, staff at the twenty-six primary schools have been undertaking additional training delivered by specialist teams from the council.
The Parent Carer Forum Devon, an independent group that represents parents and carers of children and young people with SEND, has also been holding workshops with families and school staff to explore what a positive difference it can make to children’s experiences by working together.
The focus of the project is to provide support to help schools’ approach to neurodivergence, rather than providing targeted support to individual children.
Sarah Lord, who works with the Parent Carer Forum Devon and the Devon Information and Advice Service (DiAS), is one the people who has been visiting schools in recent months to talk with parents and staff. She said:
“Our initial work has been to understand what parent carers of children with a wide range of needs think about the support their children receive at school, and also to help school staff reflect on the support they provide.
“We’ve been basing our conversations around the Four Cornerstones of: Welcome and Care; Value and Include; Communicate; and Work in Partnership. These values and ways of working are central to the Devon SEND strategy. They help us to measure whether families feel the schools, the education authorities, and the health service, are working well in partnership to bring about the best outcomes for their children.”
Part of the purpose of the workshops has been to find out what’s working well and how parents and staff can come together to make the support provided by the school even better.
“Families have shared with us many instances of good practice in their schools,” said Sarah. “Examples include schools that have approachable staff, such as SENCOs and teachers, who lead on the school’s support. They listen to families and act on what parents and carers tell them.
“The intention of this learning has been to highlight and to celebrate what schools are genuinely doing well, whilst getting new perspectives on how to improve further.”
Staff and parents have welcomed the PINS project, both groups saying how valuable they have found the sessions to reflect on their experiences and to plan how to further improve support for neurodivergent children in schools.
Bringing the two viewpoints together means that the schools can work with parents and children to develop their own action plans to improve support further.
Hannah Pugliese, Director of Women, Children & Young People’s Services for NHS Devon, said:
“Children and young people who feel they might have autism or ADHD, or see themselves as neurodivergent in another way, need all the adults around them to understand how to support them to have good experiences and to be able to learn and achieve.
“We know that by working together across health services, schools, settings and wider children’s services we can help to get the right support in place and ensure that getting this support is not dependent on a diagnosis being made.
“This is what the PINs project aims to achieve and gives us a great opportunity to work together to support the change needed and create inclusive environments and responses to neurodivergency.”
Devon County Council’s Cabinet Member with responsibility for services that support children and young people with special educational needs or disabilities, Councillor Lois Samuel, said:
“We know, because parents and carers of children with additional needs have told us, that they would prefer their children to go to their local school alongside their friends and peers.
“We are doing a lot of work with schools, young people, and their parents, to ensure that pupils with additional needs receive the same high quality inclusive support at school, whichever school they attend.
“I’m delighted to see the progress being made and to hear how parents and school staff are coming together to develop local action plans to improve support for children with neurodivergent needs in Devon.”