Area SEND inspections: information for children and young people
Updated 16 April 2024
Applies to England
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This guide explains what happens when Ofsted and CQC inspect local services for children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and how you can get involved.
Introduction
Ofsted checks the quality of education services in England, like schools and nurseries. We also look at children’s social care and the support for children and young people with SEND. These checks are called inspections.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspects health and adult social care services in England, like hospitals and care homes.
Ofsted and CQC work together to look at the education, health and social care services for children with SEND in your area. This is called an area SEND inspection.
We want to make sure that local services are working together to make the lives of children and young people with SEND better.
How you can get involved
Your views are important to us. There are different ways you can tell the inspectors what it is like to be a child or young person with SEND in your local area.
Surveys
You can tell us about the help and support you get from your local area by filling in our online survey. Your local authority will send the survey link when it is open. We will ask you about:
- the help and support you get with your learning, your health, your care and your social life
- how well prepared you feel for what you are going to do next
This will tell the inspectors what is working well and what could be better in your area.
Meetings with inspectors
The inspectors might ask to meet you, so that you can tell them about the help and support you are getting. They might also visit your hospital, school or college. They may ask to speak to you while they are there.
You can say no if you don’t want to talk to an inspector. If you do speak to an inspector, you can bring someone with you to the meeting if you want to.
We want to hear about your experiences and support. We won’t write anything in our report that tells people who you are. We’re happy to give you the questions we want to ask before the meeting to help you decide whether or not you want to take part.
After the inspection
The inspectors will write a report after the inspection. The report will say what works well and what could be better for children and young people with SEND in your area. This will help your local services to improve.
If we think local services are not doing enough to help children and young people with SEND in their area, we will ask them to write a plan telling us how they will improve.
We will visit your area again to check that they are supporting children and young people with SEND and following any recommendations we have made.
More information
The inspectors will tell the local council and health services if you tell them something that makes them worried that you or another person is being harmed.
If you want to speak to someone for advice and are under 18, you can call Childline on 0800 1111. If you are 18 or older you can call the NSPCC on 0808 800 5000.