Sheffield SEND Manifesto
Learn Sheffield have been commissioned by SCC, on behalf of the Local Area SEND Partnership, to support improvement in SEND in the city.
In 2024/25 this led to the development of the SEND Manifesto proposal below (in both a detailed and overview version) to provide the basis for further discussions across Sheffield. Feedback on the proposal was collected during the autumn term of 2025: SEND Manifesto Feedback (October 2025)
SEND Manifesto: A ProposalSEND Manifesto: A Proposal - An Overview
Sheffield SEND Manifesto Proposal – Full Version / Overview Version
The analysis in the manifesto was informed by a SEND Enquiry which was completed in May 2025, just after the Local Area SEND Inspection.
The manifesto provided a starting point for the development of a long-term strategy for Sheffield for the Local Area SEND Partnership in Sheffield, which includes:
- Sheffield City Council
- South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board
- Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust
- Sheffield Parent Carer Forum
- Learn Sheffield
More information about the building blocks for this work will be added below as it becomes available – please use the links below to access the content that you are interested in:
SEND Manifesto Analysis
This is the shared analysis of the Sheffield Local Area SEND Partnership. It is based on the
SEND system features that are included in the SEND Manifesto (as described on pages 12 and
13 in this document).
The evidence base for this analysis includes the professional judgment of the partners,
and the organisations and sectors they represent (summarised by Nick Whittaker – Learn
Sheffield), the findings of the SENDAP Inspection in March 2025, and the SEND Enquiry
activities carried out in May and June 2025 (led by Lee Carey – Learn Sheffield).
Section 1: Experiences, progress and outcomes
| Children have a positive
experience of education, health
and care services. |
Children and families have highly variable experiences
of the local area SEND system. Sometimes they
receive timely and well co-ordinated help while
on other occasions professionals and services fail
to work together to provide the effective support
children and families need. Positive experiences are
typically the result of the work of a single professional
or a small group of professionals and rarely reflect
a family’s experience of the local area system as a
whole.
|
| Children and families are
meaningfully included in dialogue
and decision making about their
current and future lives and how
best to support them. |
Children and families do not have strong voices in
dialogue about their current and future lives. Children
and young people’s views and experiences are
neither sought nor valued consistently well and they
rarely get the help they need to influence important
decisions about how they are supported.
|
| Children make consistently
strong progress towards
ambitious outcomes relating
to their cognition and
learning, communication
and interaction, physical and
sensory development and social,
emotional and mental health. |
Outcomes for children are rarely ambitious or
functionally meaningful enough. They focus too
little on important areas of children’s learning and
development and are often imprecise. There is limited
evaluation of the progress children make towards
the outcomes in their plans. As a result, the plans are
often inaccurate and out of date.
|
| The outcomes children achieve
prepare them well for their
adult lives. They belong and are
valued, visible and included in
the communities where they live,
learn and work. |
Outcomes for children do not focus enough on the
things they need to achieve to be well prepared
for their lives as adults. The local area partnership
is ambitious for children to be valued, visible and
included as adults in the communities where they live,
learn and work. Significantly more needs to be done
to achieve this goal for Sheffield’s children.
|
Section 2: Practice
| High-quality and inclusive
universal education, health and
care services. |
There are examples of high-quality and inclusive
education, health and care services but there is too
much variability and too little joined-up working. The
partnership’s approach to identifying, assessing and
meeting children’s needs has become increasingly
short-term and reactive.
|
| Knowledgeable and highly skilled
education, health and care
workforce. |
There are many knowledgeable and highly skilled
individuals in education, health and care services.
The local partnership’s approach to developing the
children’s workforce is not coherent or connected.
|
| An effective graduated approach
to identifying, assessing and
meeting the needs of children
who need something additional
or different. |
Despite several examples of strong practice, there
is no effective graduated approach to identifying,
assessing and meeting the needs of children with
SEND in the local partnership.
|
| Strong person-centred practice
and effective systems to support
engagement and co-production
with children and families. |
There is no embedded culture of working in a
person-centred way with children and families.
Similarly, the way practitioners work together is not
underpinned by strong dialogic principles. Practice in
some parts of the education, health and care system
is effective but there is too much variability in the
experiences of children and families.
|
| Effective multi-agency working
across education, health and
care. |
There are few examples of effective multi-agency
working across the education, health and care
system. The features of effective practice and the
conditions needed for this to flourish have not been
identified or agreed.
|
| Practice that focuses on
improving children’s experience,
progress and outcomes,
especially their preparation for
adulthood outcomes. |
The local partnership has a partial picture of
children’s experiences, progress and outcomes.
Local area leaders are too reliant on provider-level
measures that give limited insight. The partnership’s
strategic analysis provides minimal assurance.
|
Section 3: Strategic Leadershipe
| Strong Local Area
Partnership and the
conditions for highly
effective multiagency working. |
The local partnership is forming, and there are examples of,
effective multi-agency working. Relationships between senior
leaders are developing and trust is increasing. However, the
conditions required for highly effective multi-agency working are
not currently in place.
|
| Shared ambitious
vision for children
with SEND. |
The local partnership is ambitious for children with SEND but
this is not articulated clearly in a single compelling voice.
|
| Effective engagement
and strategic coproduction with
children and families. |
There are examples of effective engagement but co-production
is less evident in leadership and practice in the local partnership.
Sheffield Parent Carer Forum is a strategic asset but more work
is needed to genuinely ‘develop, design and do’ together.
|
| Accurate
understanding of
the strengths and
needs of children
with SEND and their
families. |
The local partnership has some understanding of the strengths
and needs of children with SEND. Local area leaders are too
reliant on provider-level measures that give limited insight into
children’s experiences and outcomes. The views and experiences
of children feature minimally in the local area’s analysis.
|
| Effective strategic
commissioning of
universal, targeted
and specialist
services. |
The partnership’s current approach to commissioning and
providing services for children with SEND is ineffective. It does
not align with the graduated approach or the requirements
specified in the SEND Code of Practice.
|
| Strong systems for
decision making and
the allocation of
resources. |
There are examples of effective joint decision making. In general,
however, decision-making systems lack transparency, undermine
trust and cause inequity. Resources reside in different parts
of the system which do not connect. Too often, decisions that
affect parts of the system are made without reference to them.
|
| Strong governance
and oversight of
the quality and
performance of
services, children’s
experience, progress
and outcomes, and
value for money. |
Governance and oversight of the quality and performance of
services, children’s progress and outcomes, and value for money
is undermined by outdated structures and systems and a lack
of shared understanding. There is no system of escalation when
there are concerns about quality or performance.
|
| Effective workforce
development
focusing on children
who are vulnerable
or have SEND. |
There is strong practice and some examples of effective
workforce development but this is rarely connected between
different parts of the SEND system. The approach to workforce
development is often reactive and short-term rather than long-term and strategic.
|