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The HOPE Work package 4 at the University of Cambridge explores the lived experiences of children and young people with SEN in more detail, alongside the experiences of parents and carers of children with SEN, and SEN professionals across education, health, and local authorities. In addition, we are exploring local and national variation in SEN identification, assessment, and provision across local authorities in England.
Throughout HOPE's various studies, we have regularly consulted advisory groups made up of children and young people with SEN, parents and carers of children and young people with SEN, and SEN professionals working across education, health, and local authorities.
At every stage, their inputs have been invaluable in shaping our research and whether our research questions, aims and analysis are relevant to the lived experiences of our target populations.
We would like to take this opportunity to extend our thanks to every person who has shared their time, insight, and guidance during our research. We are indebted to your generosity and commitment and are greatly appreciative to everyone who has supported our work.
If you would like more information about any of the studies outlined above, or would like to get involved with the HOPE Study going forwards, please contact:听
- Email: hope21@medschl.cam.ac.uk
- X/Twitter:
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HOPE Work package 4
We are using mixed-methods to achieve these aims. This includes three national surveys, two qualitative components, and a number of studies using secondary data. Further information about each of these can be found below.
1.听听 听National surveys of children and young people with SEN, parents and carers, and SEN professionals
We co-produced three accessible and relevant surveys with our advisory groups, aimed at capturing and comparing experiences of SEN identification, assessment, provision, and the local offer across children and young people (N=77), parents and carers (N=770), and SEN professionals (N=863).
Following a snowballing recruitment strategy, we completed descriptive analysis of survey responses. We are writing up our findings into three separate papers, comparing responses across 1) All three groups, 2) Children and parents, and 3) Different SEN professionals.
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2.听听 听Qualitative timeline interviews with children and young people, and with parents and carers
We completed over 35 separate interviews (online and in-person) with children and young people with SEN, and with parents and carers, who had taken part in our surveys. These interviews utilised a timeline approach to jointly construct a narrative of the child鈥檚 experiences through the SEN system. We talked through support received during the past and the present, alongside it鈥檚 impacts on education and health outcomes, and finished up with aspirations for the future and how their support may need to change going forwards.
We anonymised and transcribed each interview and followed the methodology of framework analysis to inductively generate commonly discussed themes across the interviews. We have completed analysis for children and young people鈥檚 interviews and our analysis is underway for parents and carers. This will form two separate papers.
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3.听听 听Qualitative focus groups with SEN professionals
We completed 6 focus groups with over 35 SEN professionals who had taken part in our survey and who worked in a variety of backgrounds across education, health, local authorities, and the third sector. Each focus group discussed experiences of delivering services, inter-agency working, and outcomes for children and young people during the stages of either SEN identification, assessment, or provision.
Following anonymisation and transcription, we again followed the framework analysis methodology to generate common themes from these multi-professional discussions. This completed analysis will now inform the write up of one paper.
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4.听听 听Local Offer Study
This first study using secondary data analysed all 151 local offer websites in England responsible for signposting available SEN services in the local area. Each website was assessed against criteria generated from the code of practice, alongside additional criteria to assess the accessibility features of each website.
Analysis found variation in quality including widespread poor adherence by local authorities to statutory requirements for these websites. There was also a lack of accessibility features. This study has been published in the British Educational Research Journal and the full manuscript can be found below alongside a guest article written on Special Needs Jungle:
5.听听 听Ofsted/CQC Study
This study using secondary data involved a content analysis of local area SEND inspection outcome letters, jointly completed by inspectors from Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission. We extracted data about the identified strengths and areas for development from a representative sample of these inspection letters.听
We inductively generated categories and subcategories and then counted their occurrences, finding the most commonly discussed category was SEN provision, followed by relationships, and then systems, leadership and infrastructure. Notably, the latter was the most prevalent category under the significant areas of weakness identified by inspectors.
We used these findings to discuss how suitably Ofsted/CQC鈥檚 new inspection framework builds on the findings from these previous inspections. We found a number of important admissions to the new framework despite a few relevant omissions that we recommend being integrated going forwards. We are currently writing up these results into one paper.
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6.听听 听Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman Study
This study using secondary data describes trends and variations in SEND-related complaints to the local government and social care ombudsman, and their respective outcomes, between 2018 and 2022. Data sourced from the Ombudsman鈥檚 website, in addition to schools data, was used to calculate relative proportions of different complaint types, rates per 10,00 pupils, and the proportion of complaints upheld, by local authorities, and by year.
We found 鈥楽EN鈥�-related complaints and the complaint rate per 10,000 pupils had increased during this period, as well as the proportion of complaints that were upheld. There was considerable variation across local authorities. These results, and their accompanying implications for policy and practice, are currently being written up into one paper.
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7.听听 听Scoping review of grey literature, peer-reviewed literature, and open access SEND-related data sources
This study using secondary data was a scoping review of evidence which documented variation in SEND provision at local authority and multi-academy trust levels in England. Compiling over 120 studies with open access data sources provided evidence for variability in provision at the local authority level. The evidence produced by local authorities was graded as poor quality and there was scarce literature on multi-academy trusts.
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