Annual Reviews & TOPs
Each student’s provision is driven by their individual EHCP outcomes.
All students will have specific outcomes set which directly relate to their special educational needs and social circumstances. This could include targets such as their ability to travel independently, maintenance of their attendance at the academy despite negative environmental factors which make attendance difficult, and their ability to make and manage healthy friendships with their peers. These outcomes will be intricately linked to their EHCPs and will be formally reviewed each term via Termly Outcome Plans (TOPs).
Each student’s EHCP will be formally reviewed once a year in line with statutory guidance. As well as this meeting, there are 3 further parents’ evenings during the year for families to discuss their child’s achievements and progress with key adults in school.
Education, Health & Care Plans (EHCPs)
Each EHCP should be a single plan containing all key information regarding the educational, health and social care needs of the child or young adult. The Plan brings together all providers of support for the child or young person to work together. The EHC Plan is intended to be ‘portable’ across different educational sectors. This means that in many cases students will continue to have an EHC Plan when they transfer to their local FE college at post-sixteen. The primary focus of each EHCP is on achieving individual ‘outcomes’ for the child or young person.
When joining Bloxham Grove Academy, each student will have an Individual Education Health and Care Plan document, known as an IEHCP. This single document draws together the outcomes, resources and strategies used by the class teacher to ensure that the EHCP remains live in practice and that the provision stated within the document is embedded in classroom practice to meet the needs of each individual student.
Bloxham Grove Academy holds an Annual Review meeting for each child to review the outcomes and provision held in the document. This is an opportunity for amendments to be made to the EHCP that best reflect the context of the child and their current areas of focus.
Each child’s voice is paramount in this meeting. As the young person prepares for adulthood we recognise that their outcomes should reflect their ambitions which could include higher education, employment, independent living and participation in society. This meeting is chaired by a member of the Senior Leadership Team.
Throughout the academic year we hold 3 parents/carers’ evenings where we share with parents/carers their child’s Termly Outcome Plan (TOPs). We find these meetings invaluable in building trusting and respectful relationships between the school and parents/carers.
Outcomes
Setting, reviewing and updating the ‘outcomes’ in a child’s EHC Plan is crucial to realising the young person’s potential. Outcomes need to be ‘SMART’, which means they must be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound. A typical EHC Plan will contain around half a dozen key long-term outcomes to be achieved over a given timeframe. Some of these time frames will be longer term, covering a whole Key Stage, such as KS3. To make this more workable, shorter term outcomes will be developed each academic year which are reviewed at key points through the year. These are known at Bloxham Grove Academy as Termly Outcome Plans (or TOPs).
Some Outcomes will continue to be set by key professionals, for example a Speech Therapist may suggest an outcome around working successfully with particular sounds. But we also want to be guided by you, the parent, and greatly value the consultation process in Termly Outcomes Planning.
Termly Outcome Planning (TOPS)
Outcome Planning is intended to ensure that across various support areas we are on-track with supporting your child’s broader development. We therefore ask our supporting agencies (Speech & Language Therapists, OTs etc.) to contribute to termly outcome planning and review. They use the same format as our teachers, so that the process should be as seamless as possible.
In addition, Outcome Planning from Year 9 onwards includes preparation for adulthood planning, to support our programme of Careers Education, Independent Advice and Guidance (CEIAG). Outcome planning could include outcomes to be achieved by the end of a work experience placement, or a college link. Independent travel will also be included where this is appropriate. Some Outcomes will therefore have short-term review dates, and others will be monitored over a longer period.
Additional Statutory information:
The Local Offer
The Local Offer outlines what is available in the local area for all young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. Oxfordshire County Council have developed a website that contains information and links to further information covering all aspects of support available in Oxfordshire. It is great to have all of the information in one location, however learning to navigate this information and locating information relevant to each individual child will be a challenge for many.
This link will take you to Oxfordshire’s Local Offer information:
Personal Budgets
A personal budget is an amount of money identified by the Local Authority and Health Provider (as appropriate) to deliver provision set out in an EHC Plan, where the parents or young person has requested that some limited aspects of their care or provision are given via a personal budget. However, Personal Budgets are not created from any new money available to services. Funding for personal budgets comes from releasing the value of a child/young person’s provision from the services they might otherwise be expected to make use of.
Not all services can have money removed in this way without adversely affecting other children that use the provision. These services are therefore not eligible as funding sources for personal budgets. For example, currently all the funding for speech and language therapy, physiotherapy and occupational therapy in Oxfordshire is in a block contract and this means that children/young people cannot have a personal budget for these therapy services.