What if we took a new approach to measuring outcomes for young people with SEND?

In this blog series, AoC and Natspec are exploring alternative approaches to SEND provision in FE colleges. The ideas discussed do not represent formal policies by either organisation.

In its SEND and alternative provision improvement plan, the last government positioned ‘poor outcomes’ as one of three main problems to be solved. ‘Poor outcomes’ for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) has also formed part of the current government’s rhetoric about the SEND system they have inherited. It’s been cited by other parties, too, as evidence of the broken nature of the current SEND system: we’ve had the ISOS report, Towards an effective and financially sustainable approach to SEND in England, commissioned by the Local Government Association and County Councils Network and the National Audit Office report, Support for children and young people with special educational needs. But what outcomes are they looking at and are they the right ones?

The most frequently mentioned outcomes measure is educational or qualification attainment, particularly in relation to GCSE English and maths, where those with SEND underperform compared to those without. This kind of comparison is meaningful for some young people (for example, those with a learning difficulty such as dyslexia or a sensory impairment) where high quality teaching and support, suitable exam arrangements, and other reasonable adjustments should level the playing field. But qualification attainment, especially at Level 2 and above, is irrelevant for many young people with a cognitive impairment. However well taught they are, Level 2 will be utterly unachievable for most young people with more severe or profound learning difficulties, and qualifications will play no part in determining whether or not they go on to lead fulfilling adult lives.

So perhaps we should be redefining ‘outcomes’ to better measure achievements that do constitute success for this group of young people with SEND. And maybe we should be listening more closely to young people and their families to help us identify what they see as good outcomes. Take the mother of former Seashell Trust student, 24-year-old Armaghan, for example, who is delighted at the outcome of her son’s specialist college course. Armaghan has autism and ADHD. While at college he undertook a work placement at a local merchandising company where he has remained in paid employment since leaving education. His mother explained: “Work ethos is really strongly ingrained in our family and we think there is a lot of dignity and respect in working.” Having a job has given her son a purpose and structure to his day. “This is a person who has a meaningful life now and a quality to his life. He is a very calm person now, a happy person.”

Any new set of outcome measures would need to be co-produced with young people and their families, but I could hazard a guess that they might want to include some or all of:

• being happy

• feeling confident

• feeling optimistic about the future

• having a sense of purpose

• feeling valued by others

• having a sense of agency or self-determination

• having friends (maintaining friendships from school or college, and/or cultivating new ones)

• spending their leisure time in a meaningful and enjoyable way, e.g. through engaging in hobbies, taking part in sport, attending social groups

• being in paid employment for a desired number of hours per week

• securing (and then completing or being on track to complete) a higher education course

• volunteering or actively contributing to their communities in other ways

• living arrangements where they feel comfortable and their needs are being met, whether that’s independent living, supported accommodation or a residential care setting, and/or

• having as good physical and mental health as possible.

In effect, the hopes of young people with SEND for their future are similar to those of all young people. The difference is that they need greater support to realise them. They are also relying on their further education to help them achieve a more diverse range of outcomes than their non-disabled peers, whose expectations in relation to their college course are likely to be mainly focused on gaining the qualification.

Some of the success indicators which are most meaningful to young people with SEND are far harder to measure than qualification attainment – particularly to measure objectively and to aggregate. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. After all, relying on easily measurable outcomes is what’s led us to the approach we currently have, which is meaningless for many. One way forward would be to build on the well-understood existing preparation for adulthood goals to co-produce a national set of success indicators valued by the young people themselves. These could sit alongside educational attainment measures. As part of planning for transition out of education, the young person and their family could select those indicators that are most significant to them. With the support of a transition worker, they could identify more specifically what ‘good’ means to them in relation to their chosen indicators. For example, one young person might want to be in full-time paid employment while another might want to be in a volunteering role for at least half a day per week. These personalised goals could then be captured in the young person’s Education, Health and Care Plan in a dedicated preparing for adulthood section.

At the point at which they leave school or college, young people could record what they have achieved against these indicators. Then one to two years later, a further review could be undertaken. Reflecting on the extent to which successes have been sustained will give us a more powerful set of data than simply capturing end of course attainment and post-college destinations which can quickly break down. A 2022 report, for example, found that only a quarter of successful supported interns were still in paid employment a year after their internship ended. Young people and their families could be asked to score their actual circumstances against the outcomes they had hoped for, using a simple, standardised scale. The review could be done by a new post-college support service (as proposed in the ISOS report) or we could have a tracking fund which previous education providers could draw down. Any young people not in the position they’d hoped to be in could then be directed to sources of support to enable them to get back on track.

There’s a well-worn adage in education that we should ‘measure what we value’ rather than ‘value what we measure.’ If we could develop a better, broader set of metrics and a more meaningful approach to measuring outcomes for young people with SEND, then just maybe we’d be able to do both. We’d also be able to build some strong evidence for whether or not any reformed SEND system was helping young people achieve good outcomes. Critically, by considering a more holistic set of metrics, we’d avoid the risk of reforming the system to meet a mistaken notion of what good outcomes are. And we’d be more likely to enable more young people to achieve the broader, more ambitious vision for a good life that current government SEND adviser, Tom Rees, describes in his 2022 paper, A good life: towards greater dignity for people with learning disability. That really would be something to celebrate.

Ruth Perry is the Senior Policy Manager at Natspec.

You can simply fill out this form to share your views with us. We will be collating responses to each article and sharing a summary with readers. And if there is appetite for it, we plan to hold an online symposium to talk through any differences of opinion. If you would like to be alerted as articles in this series are published, please send your email address to Will.Marshall@natspec.org.uk.