SEND sufficiency means having enough of the right support and places for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole area.
It’s not just about having enough – it's also about making sure the support is good quality and really helps children and young people live better lives.
The council wants to build a system that:
- Helps children and young people reach their full potential
- Improves the results by finding the SEND needs early and give the right support quickly – including help with mental health
- Is trusted by parents and carers
- Uses the council money wisely – focusing on early help instead of expensive specialist services.
Children should be able to go to school close to home, in their own communities. This helps them:
- Be with other children nearby
- Take part in more learning and activities locally.
This is the Council’s plan is to Work with schools, health services, and families to make sure there are enough good quality places and services for children and young people with SEND. It helps:
- Meet children’s needs within our financial budget
- Support the High Needs Block Recovery Plan (a plan to manage SEND funding).
The SEND Sufficiency strategy runs from 2023 to 2026 and focuses on:
- Responding to rising demand
- Creating more places
- Making sure support is available from early years to adulthood.
The Council knows that the need for specialist school places continues to increase. We are working with schools, health services, and families to understand the mix and range of services we need for children and young people across Education, Health and Care. So far we have:
- 319 Specialist places delivered since 2022, including:
- 24 early years places
- 182 primary school places
- 113 secondary school places
(Most are for children with autism)
- 224 Places in the Pipeline: Places planned for delivery during the 2025/26 academic year and 2026/27 for children with autism and social, emotional and mental health needs.
- Better Data: This is being used to understand what our children and young people need.
- Better Communication: Improving our communication with schools, partners, health services, and families to build trust and understanding needs of our children and young people.
- Workshops and events: we have held SEND Sufficiency and Inclusion workshops, events and conferences with our partners in education and parents/carers to share understanding and knowledge that will help improve our services. Please direct all inquiries to: sendsufficiency@bcpcouncil.gov.uk. You can complete the expression of interest form
- SEND Improvement Board: we set up the SEND Improvement Board to oversee progress. (Click here to see the Terms of Reference). For more information click here for an easy read guide to the SEND Improvement Board (SIB).
- Lived Experience: we are listening to our children, young people and families at locality meetings to understand their real-life experiences of the changes to our services and what this means to them. Click here to see more information.
- Funding: We are using the High Needs Provision Capital grant allocations to build new places. The Council has also been successful in getting funding for a new special school as part of the Department for Education (DfE) free schools programme, but we are waiting to hear from the DfE about what happens next.
1. Alternative Provision
- Help schools be more inclusive
- Train school leaders
- Create a 3-level support model
- Develop more options for primary schools
For more information see the publication section for documents including the Alternative provision Easy Read Summary (provide link to document attached), the Council’s Belonging Strategy and Council's Accessibility Strategy.
2. Secondary Schools
- Work together across services
- Use shared ideas to improve support
- Make mainstream schools more inclusive
For more information see SEND aged 11 to 18 years transition in education section of the local offer.
3. Post-14 and Post-16 Support
- Build flexible and inclusive learning pathways that meets the needs for young people.
- Work with partners to fill gaps in this provision.
For more information see Further education - Preparing for adulthood section of the local offer.
4. Post-19 Support
Planning for young people who need help after age 19, which includes
- Identify young people who will continue in education after the age of 19
- Support young people into adulthood, jobs, and independence
- Help families understand future options
- Work with health and social care teams
- Prepare for national changes in SEND and Inclusion
- Understand changes to national reform of the White Paper on SEND, Alternative Provision, and Inclusion in 2026 and the impact that has on the support we provide to young people.
For more information see Higher education - preparing for adulthood section of the local offer.
5. helping young people prepare for adulthood
The Council wants to make sure young people with SEND are supported to:
- Become independent
- Find jobs
- Stay healthy
- Take part in their community
For more information see Preparing for adulthood section of the local offer.
To help with this, the Council is:
- Creating supported internships and job programmes so fewer young people need to go to expensive schools far away
For more information see Apprenticeships and Internships section of the local offer.
6. Creating More Places – Turnkey Opportunities
The Council is working on making more SEND places available, that does not need much time to setup or work.. This means:
- Building or using sites that can offer lots of new places for children with SEND
- These sites could give between 400 and 580 new places
- One site being looked at is the former Parkfield School, with help from the Department for Education (DfE).