Decision

That the Hearing Impairment Units at St Margarets Academy and Spires College close from September 2025.

Reasons for the decision

By delivering support for those with a hearing impairment in a different way we will be able to repurpose the 16 special school places to children and young people who are on the waiting list to receive support.

Torbay’s Safety Valve agreement caps special school spaces. By taking this decision, the five children affected by the change can still have their needs met but an additional 16 young people can now have a special school place who could not previously. This will also save on the empty spaces (which have been left unfilled for the previous five years) and which we still need to resource financially with base funding. 

In July 2024 both schools were consulted on this decision. One school had already approached the Local Authority as they were unable to sustain the financial costs of the unit (which were being supplemented by schools funds). Three parents have approached the Local Authority for more clarity and meetings with two parents have been held to offer guidance and reassurance that the support will still be available.

For Devon children the Head of SEND at Devon County Council was also consulted during the summer term and again in September 2024. Colleagues from Devon SEND have collaborated with Torbay to co-create communications for the Devon families affected. The Devon SEND team are formulating plans to ensure the Devon children’s needs can be met in a similar way.  They have allocated an officer from the SEND team to make contact with Devon parents and provide guidance about how support can be delivered in the future.

Alternative options considered

An alternative option would be to offer a hearing impairment outreach service, however this provision was already available and therefore discounted.

A further alternative option would have been to do nothing.  The Hearing Impairment Units have been running at less than 50% capacity for more than five years.  The repurposing of the support would enable resources to be targeted more effectively.