November 9, 2018 4.10 pm This story is over 36 months old

Local Democracy Weekly: “Biggest change” for special education needs

A by-product of parents struggling to find places
Heather Sandy, chief officer for education at Lincolnshire County Council. | Picture: Calvin Robinson

It was dubbed the “biggest change” that the county council had made to special educational needs, now the authority is set to tackle the creeping increase of school place demand with £50 million of cash.

Senior officers at Lincolnshire County Council warned that there was a “clear need” to increase places in the region.

But, rather than throw money at building new schools, the authority has looked to kill two birds with one stone.

A by-product of parents struggling to find places is that they have to travel further than necessary to take their child to school.

In some cases, this involves families having to go out of the county to find a suitable place.

Travelling hundreds of miles to get your child an education is not only frustrating, but it kills the important family time left between getting home and going to bed.

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As Councillor Patricia Bradwell pointed out, a “major change” was needed in the way education was delivered in the region.

Roll on the “Building Communities of Specialist Provision Strategy”, a plan to relocate, expand and merge schools in the county in an effort to create 500 places.

It’s fair to say it’s an ambitious proposal that comes with a £50 million price tag which will include two new school builds.

It means the region will see new builds as well as improving existing ones in an effort to allow parents to find places at schools closer to home.

But it should deliver a fairer distribution of school places, in fact it needs to.

The region is facing a six% increase in demand for places over the next five years.

Fortunately, of the ten schools involved in the plan, most of the academies agreed the proposals long ago and hit the ground running.

For the council’s sake, it has to work as money is not going to come easy once pressure increases on adult social care and other services in the future.

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