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Education Banding Tool

Where a child or young person with an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) has been assessed as having special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) that cannot be fully met by funding already available within an education setting, their council is responsible for determining an individual amount of money (‘top-up funding’) to meet their needs and outcomes.

As a council, we use Estimated Funding amounts to help plan additional funding for each school or college to meet the needs of any pupils with SEND. The Estimated Funding amounts also serve as the basis for agreeing the provisions in each pupil’s EHCP.

The introduction of the SEND reforms highlighted the need for a fair, consistent, and needs-based tool to support the allocation of top-up funding for children and young people in education. As a council, we have now chosen to use a tool called the Formulate Education Banding Tool (EBT) that is already used by some other councils in England. The EBT (education banding tool) has been designed by Imosphere in consultation with local authorities, schools, and parent/carer forums around the country. Throughout the development cycle and subsequent implementation of the tool, the council undertook consultation with schools, parents, and other professionals across the county, ensuring that their voices were heard and incorporated into the development. It will be used to allocate top up funding fairly and accurately for pupils with Special Educational needs and disabilities who have an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP).

 

Part of the process involves completing a document, The Needs Profile. This form captures the child’s or young person’s needs and outcomes that are answered based on information contained within the pupil’s EHCP. The council has adopted the Needs Profile and configured it to support them in gaining a holistic overview of SEND needs while calculating an Education Need Band.

 

The Formulate Education Banding Tool has been specifically designed as a fair and consistent method to estimate the level of additional funding a child or young person needs to meet their SEND and support their outcomes.

 

To find out more about Formulate Education Banding Tool click here

 

 

Last updated: 07 Aug 2023