Calderdale's SEND school places 'at crisis point' with fears Halifax's Outstanding Ravenscliffe in danger of being overwhelmed by expected demand

That is what Calderdale councillors have been told by parents and the headteacher at Ravenscliffe School, who warned the school will not be able to cope with expected demand in coming years and is already oversubscribed with every possible space converted into extra classrooms.

In coming weeks councillors will be presented with options over what to do next.

Parent Sarah Campbell, speaking on behalf of a number of other worried parents of children with Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs), criticised “a lack of strategic planning” over at least the past five years.

“This can’t be put off for another day,” she said.

“This is a crisis and requires urgent attention and immediate action by all involved.”

Ms Campbell said there were “huge gaps” in available places for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) children and by September 2028 , if predicted numbers of children were allocated to Ravenscliffe, it would need at least 12 more classrooms to house them.

Currently four have been approved, and are yet to come before planners, she said.

She added a 2022 report found Ravenscliffe “to be under constant pressure to take additional pupils and severely overcrowded, using unsuitable places to provide the facilities necessary to educate and support pupils”.

She said students not admitted were clearly vulnerable as mainstream schools struggled to differentiate three to five years behind age-related expectations.

Specialist schools provide the very high levels of supervision, small class groups, high level care, and experienced staff delivering education in creative and imaginative ways, she added.

The number of such pupils in Calderdale in mainstream schools was not a positive but there were no plans for another specialist secondary school in the borough after local authority plans for one were turned down by Government early in 2023, said Ms Campbell, who said the situation was unsustainable.

“How many tribunals and out-of-area placements have to be made and at what cost – what could be accommodated within the authority if there were more special school places?” she said.

Ravenscliffe headteacher Chris Lingard told the council’s Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Board the school might need an additional 92 places this year and an extra 110 the year after.

“The local authority is telling us its a worse situation than even I anticipated – this is a very, very serious situation and we’re already way over capacity,” she said.

It put huge pressure on staff and space such as storage and dining areas, and there was not enough room as a result to, for example, give children who had extreme behaviour the space they needed.

“Everything is stretched beyond capacity,” said Ms Lingard.

“Our ‘outstanding’ status will not be able to remain much longer if we were inspected again because we are so overcrowded.”

She urged the council to consider further developing one of the two Ravenscliffe sites – at Spring Hall - as the most cost effective solution.

Council officers said the picture was reflected nationally with placements being a major pressure on many local authorities.

The council’s new interim head of special educational needs and disabilities, Victoria Coyle, said Calderdale had many positives including a higher attendance rate than nationally.

Educating children where possible in mainstream schools was seen as a positive by the council .

“When they have to leave special school, they have to come back into the community and we want them to, where possible, be local to that,” she said.

Ms Coyle said she understood the frustration and although some work had been done on making new provision it probably felt reactive.

Options would soon be presented to councillors to decide next steps and it all had to be done within available budget.

“In terms of the specific issue around special school places, we are providing an options paper to set out Ravenscliffe’s options alongside other suggestions about developing new provision,” she said.

These would include developing strategy around support in mainstream, such as enhanced provision within mainstream schools, developing additional specialist places if that was agreed, and consideration of potentially another special school.

“In terms of timing some of those things happen more quickly than others – it takes time to build new schools,” she said.

“But there’s a lot of momentum and we’re pulling this together,” she said.