In the week that the Prime Minister was busy announcing his new Cabinet, a re-shuffle that saw Sarah Teather lose her job as Minister for Children and Families (and responsibility for what she called the 'greatest reform of SEN in a generation'), the Government has published draft legislation to be included in the Children and Families Bill. The Bill is expected to be put before Parliament in 2013 and be enacted in 2014.
The draft legislation follows on from the Department for Education’s Green Paper, Support and Aspiration published in March 2011 and its consulation response Next Steps published in May 2012.
My initial very quick reading suggests nothing new of great significance that we were not aware of from the previous documents. However, as far as non-maintained special schools, such as Paces School, are concerned the draft legislation does seem a step forward in certain respects with no down-sides not already known.
I expect to undertake a more careful reading in the next couple of days and will post my comments then. Already responses are being published on the internet and I will aim to gather these for a future post here.
Meanwhile, I urge you to read the document for yourself: this link will automatically download a .pdf version