What the reform plans say

Every council in England sent the Department for Education a Local SEND Reform Plan in the summer. All 56 that are public are in our Survey, which put questions to every one and keeps citations as answers. Because the plans were written to the same template, they describe the same problems, and most of them are the problems Belong was built to fix. 6 of them come up in plan after plan.

The document is there, but nobody is sure it is being used

Nearly every council has an ordinarily available provision document. The plans are candid that having one is not the same as schools using it. York puts it plainly, Norfolk sees "disparities in 'ordinarily available' provision across schools" (page 103) and West Sussex says inclusion is "improving but not yet felt consistently across the county" (page 6). Several say they will refresh the document to line up with the National Inclusion Standards.

"Settings are all signed up to the universal offer of inclusion. There are still some inconsistencies in approach."
City of York Council, page 17

What all 56 plans say about mainstream inclusion and the support schools will get.

What Belong does

The directory is your document as web pages, one expectation per page with the recommendations and resources under it, so a teacher finds what they need in a free period. Your own teams change it the week something changes, so we get out of the cycle of a refresh every 4 years, or when a new reform happens.

Schools need a tool to check themselves against it

We asked every plan whether schools will evaluate or audit their own practice against the council's offer, and what tool they name. 34 of the 56 say yes outright, and most of the rest describe something close. They are specific about what it is for. Finding the gaps in a school's own practice, and doing it without the result being held against the school. Kingston wants "a concise, reflective tool" rather than a compliance exercise (page 40).

"Implement consistent Universal & Targeted SEN Support expectations supported by a new audit tool and QA framework to address variability and improve outcomes."
Brighton and Hove City Council, page 17

Undertake audits of schools' and settings' practice to review implementation of the UAP and identify further priorities for support and improvement."
East Sussex County Council, page 11

Every plan's answer on schools checking themselves.

What Belong does

The audit is the school rating itself against your expectations, Emerging, Developing or Secure, with the guidance a click away. A school can keep it to itself, bring in a peer, or ask your specialists in. Nothing leaves the school unless the school says so.

The council cannot see the variation between schools

We also asked how each council will see and reduce variation in inclusive practice between schools. 50 of the 56 say they will, nearly all with a dashboard and a quality assurance cycle. Reading admits "variability in inclusive practice remains across schools and phases" (page 10) and will report "aggregated audit outcomes systematically reported as a core performance metric" (page 28). Essex will measure it by "narrowing range of scores year-on-year" in its inclusion reviews (page 38).

"Map variation and establish consistent expectations across settings."
London Borough of Bromley, page 24

Every plan's answer on seeing variation between schools.

What Belong does

Where a school chooses to share its audit, your authority reads it beside every other school's, expectation by expectation. That is the picture of variation the plans are asking for, and it comes from the schools' own words rather than a data return.

Experts at Hand, a team around the school rather than a referral

Every plan describes an Experts at Hand model. The phrase that comes up again and again is a team around the school. Educational psychologists, speech and language therapists and specialist teachers working with a school's staff, not waiting for a child's name to arrive on a form.

"The central pillar of the plan will be the continued growth and extension of our existing Communities of Practice to fully develop a robust Experts at Hand (EAH) 'team around the school' model."
Bury Metropolitan Borough Council

"In three years, BCP will have a mature, integrated Experts at Hand model that is a normal, trusted part of everyday practice."
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council

What each council's Experts at Hand offer includes.

What Belong does

Your specialist teams write the recommendations under each expectation and choose the resources. This can be used in cluster or whole school training. And when a SENCO rings, they send the link to the page and talk through a shared strategy. The whole cluster gets the same answer.

Plans that point at real strategies, not a blank box

The reform plans want a school's audit to name what the school will actually do, in the words of the offer. Harrow's advisers will run "light-touch audits" of SEN Support plans and check for "specific, measurable, OAIP-aligned adaptive teaching strategies" (page 50). Barnsley will count the "% of schools consistently using agreed inclusion framework and ISPs" (page 39). Bath and North East Somerset wants annual audits and action plans in every setting by year 3 (page 18).

"Individual Support Plans will be high quality, child focused, co-designed with families and consistently used across all education settings."
Oxfordshire County Council, page 5

What Belong does 

The action plan comes straight out of the audit and is written against the directory, so each priority points at named strategies from your own provision. Print one priority for the people doing it, or the whole plan for governors.

Everyone using the same words

Hackney calls its toolkit a "common language" toolkit (page 4). Norfolk says its tools give schools "common expectations, self-evaluation and planning support" (page 24). Nottingham wants its charter to create "a shared understanding of inclusive practice in Nottingham City" (page 41). It sounds soft next to capital programmes, but it is the one that makes the others work. If the offer, the audit, and the specialists' advice use different vocabularies, nobody can tell whether a school is doing what was asked.

What Belong does

One set of words runs through the directory, the audit and the action plan, because they are the same pages. A SENCO rating an expectation is looking at the guidance for it. That is the bit I think makes the difference.

Where this comes from

I did not design Belong against these plans. It came out of the DfE Change Programme in Leeds and Calderdale, and the plans were written 2 years later to a template that drew on the same work. So the match is not a coincidence. Every page number above opens the council's own PDF from the Survey. If your plan says these things, send me your document and I will build you a small demo of Belong within a week.