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CHILDREN AND YOUNG PERSONS WITH SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS

FUTURE NEEDS ASSESSMENT

220. The Future Needs Assessment and subsequent reviews provide a framework for considering and planning for the needs of the child in the last years of schooling. The aim is to help maximise a child's potential, to extend the choice of post-school routes available to recorded school leavers, and to enable plans to be prepared for the transition from school to other education or training, or to employment. Leaving school is a pivotal point in everyone's life and is challenging for all children and their families. For children with Records of Needs there is the added task of ensuring that their special educational and other needs continue to be adequately supported when they leave school. This is likely to require the involvement for the first time, or at a new level of intensity, of a number of agencies, for example, the careers service, colleges of further education, universities, the Employment Service, voluntary agencies operating specialised adult training, social work services and health boards and trusts.

221. The 1980 Act requires education authorities to consider and make a report on what provision would benefit a recorded child after he or she ceases to be of school age (section 65B). This must be done during the period beginning 2 years before a child ceases to be of school age and ending 9 months before then. The assessment will often most conveniently be performed in conjunction with a review of the Record of Needs.

222. The Future Needs Assessment seeks in particular to:

223. However, existing best practice among education authorities is to use the Future Needs Assessment as an early opportunity to consider, and prepare to make provision for, the wider needs of the child post-school. Education authorities therefore have an important co-ordinating role and the key task of identifying and involving the agencies whose support will be necessary to the post-school development of the individual child.

Preparation for Assessment

224. In view of the importance of this point in a child's life, authorities will wish to involve parents and the child concerned from early in the process of future needs assessment. Authorities will wish to identify and discuss with parents and, wherever possible the child, the range of options which is likely to be, or become, available for the child when he or she ceases to be of school age, and so becomes entitled to leave school. To help them to identify a full range of post school opportunities for a pupil, education authorities should consult widely with other services. Parents and the child concerned will often have views and preferences which it is essential to take into account. Where possible, parents and the child concerned should have the opportunity to visit the places where the child might be educated or trained after leaving school.

Assessment for Future Needs Provision

225. Before an authority makes a report about the future educational needs of a recorded child it must first ensure the child has undergone a process of observation and assessment. The assessment must be of an extent which the authority believes to be appropriate or of such an extent as the parents may require when making representations to the authority about the process of observation and assessment which they wish to see carried out.

226. The education authority must also give prior notice to parents of:

Matters to be considered in making a Report

227. In making a report on the future needs of a recorded child, an education authority must take into consideration the advice arising from the process of observation and assessment and any views expressed by the parents and the child. Where previously .the child has attended a school not under the management of the authority it should also obtain and consider any reports or other information about the child from the managers of or teachers at that school. The authority must also consider any other reports or information relevant to the child's future needs that the authority is able to obtain (section 62(l)(a), (c), (d) and (e), as applied to a future needs report by the Education (Modification of Enactments) (Scotland) Regulations 1982, regulation 6 and Schedule 4).

Contents

228. A Future Needs Assessment report will contain recommendations on what provision the education authority considers would benefit the child after he or she ceases to be of school age and a note of any transitional arrangements such as work placement or part time experience in an anticipated post-school placement. It will be helpful also to include in the report information about the support that other agencies plan to provide during the transition to post-school life and thereafter.

DISSEMINATION OF REPORT

To Parents

229. Once completed, the report must be sent to the parents. At the same time the authority must inform the parents that their child will have a right, on ceasing to be of school age, to request that the Record of Needs be discontinued. As the child who is the subject of the report will shortly be able to ask for discontinuance, it will usually be helpful to inform the child about this too. (The right of a young person to require discontinuance of his Record of Needs is discussed in Paragraph 63).

To Others

230. Where the education authority considers it appropriate to do so, it must send a copy of the future needs report to the social work authority, and to the health board. It should also consider whether any other persons who make provision from which a pupil might benefit when he or she ceases to be of school age should receive a copy of the report. Before passing the report to such persons, the authority must first obtain the consent of the parents. If a child has by that time become a young person he or she also should be consulted. Usually the education authority would be expected to wish to disclose the report to any relevant organisations likely to be involved in post school arrangements, including further education colleges and adult training centres. These will have been identified during the assessment process. They should receive the report well in advance of and not less than 6months before the pupil's school education is expected to end.

Review of Future Needs Assessments

231. The Disabled Persons (Services Consultation and Representation) Act 1986 provides for Future' Needs Assessment reports to be reviewed. Section 13(7) of that Act requires education authorities to keep under consideration the cases of all children and young persons for whom they have made a future needs report and, if they consider it appropriate to do so, they must review the information contained in it. In reviewing the report, care should be taken to ensure the continued relevance of the information and recommendations contained in it. This may be ascertained by consultations with the child's parents, or, depending on timing, with the young person or his parents, as appropriate, and with professionals in contact with him or her. It will seldom be necessary to carry out a full re-assessment, though assessments made as part of a review of a Record of Needs may usefully contribute to a review of a future needs report. Nevertheless, each case must be assessed on its merits.

Frequency and Timing of Reviews

232. Neither the 1980 nor the 1986 Act stipulates fixed frequency or depth for any reviews which authorities must undertake. That will, as appropriate, vary from case to case. However authorities must exercise their discretion properly in deciding whether a review is appropriate at any particular point in time. It is recommended that any child expected to remain at school for a year or more after he or she ceases to be of school age, and once he or she becomes a young person, should have his or her future educational needs reviewed at least annually.

Appeals

233. There is no statutory right of appeal against the terms of a Future Needs Assessment report or any reviews of it which may subsequently be carried out. An education authority's decision in either however involves exercise of its discretion and that is always open to judicial review if exercised improperly or unreasonably. It is important, therefore, to reach a consensus on its terms with the child or young person and his or her parents.

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