Toggle menu

Christmas opening hours

Our council offices will be closed from 3pm on Tuesday 24th December until 8:30am on Monday 30th December. See our full Christmas opening hours on our Christmas opening hours page.

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Local Offer User Voice Survey

Tell us about your experience.

Consultation status Results published
Start date: 2024-07-10
End date: 2024-09-01
Results 2024-12-01
Category: Caring for Children and Families, Schools, Learning and Libraries
Ward:

 Activity closed. Results published.

The SEND Local Offer Banner, with images of a child playing in a highchair, a family looking at information together, and a child in a playground on a yellow bike.

Background

Our Local Offer includes information about the services, support and activities available for children and young people aged 0-25 with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in West Berkshire. It's a guide to what you can expect to find in our area and how you can access that service.

Children, young people and carers have been involved in developing our Local Offer so that it reflects what's needed. Local schools, colleges, health services and partner organisations help us make sure that it contains clear, comprehensive, accessible, and up-to-date information.


Why we want your views

We'd like to know if you're aware of our West Berkshire SEND Local Offer website, and if so, can you easily find the information you need? We'd also like to know if you have any suggestions for information that might be included.

Whether you've used our Local Offer many times or if this is the first time you've heard of it, we'd love to know what you think.

We'll also be gathering the views of partner organisations, council staff and voluntary and community groups.

If you haven't visited them already, you can find our Local Offer webpages here


How to take part

The survey closed at midnight on Sunday, 1 September 2024. 

If you have any questions about the survey, or would like to be part of a user group to help develop our Local Offer, please email our Head of Early Years

For general enquiries about children's services, schools and education, please visit our webpage.


What happens next

All the responses we receive will help us develop and improve the Local Offer. Changes will be made to the website as quickly as possible during our Directory Development Project. This is an exciting opportunity to make suggestions to the Local Offer and possibly see your ideas added within a very short space of time!

What you told us

We received 88 responses to our survey that was sent out to parent and carers. Overall, the respondents gave positive feedback, but they felt that our services could be improved in certain ways;

  • a better variety of activities in the local area
  • a wider range of support for children and young people with SEND
  • support when filling out forms
  • the Local offer to be clearer and easier to navigate
  • transition support for children and young people of all ages 

What we did

In response to the feedback, we have:

  • completed a Short Breaks audit and will be acting on the results from this
  • we are developing Local Specialist Provisions and support to reinforce our continuum of provision, so needs are identified and addressed in a timely way
  • we are looking to improve signposting on the Local Offer to make SENDIASS (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Information Advice and Support Service) more accessible
  • we have a parent champion programme who can provide information about local services and opportunities for families
  • we have created a blog which you can sign up to for updates happening within SEND services
  • a Parent Transition document is being developed to support parents, carers and young people with transitioning into and between school stages

We are going to repeat the survey in 2025 so that we can make sure that the changes we have made in response to this survey have had the positive impact that they need to, and also to find out if there is anything further we can do to improve the Local Offer. 

You can view/download a summary of your responses here.

Click on this link if you’d like to read/download our SEND and Inclusion Strategy 2024 to 2029

You can subscribe to receive regular updates on developments and innovations in SEND services on our blog here.

Share this page

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share by email