​From October 2020 until early Spring 2021, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) will be making a limited number of visits to local areas to find out about their arrangements for children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). ​

Not all local areas will be visited, instead, a representative selection of local areas will be invited to participate. Local areas have the right to decline this invitation as participation is voluntary.

As these visits are not inspections, they will not replace the current area SEND inspection cycle.  Instead, they will aim to:

• Enable the local area to understand the impact of the pandemic on CYP with SEND and their families.
• Identify what has worked well, what were the challenges and any lessons learnt.
• Identify opportunities for improvement that address the remaining challenges identified.
• Produce anonymised national reports after the programme of visits to share learning and best practice.

What will the visits involve?

• They will last two days on-site, with flexibility for virtual meetings
• One Ofsted Education HMI, one Ofsted Social Care HMI and one CQC children's service inspector
• 4-6 case studies of CYP and practitioners working with them
• Online surveys provided by Ofsted
• Discussions with leaders
• A feedback meeting
• A summary note agreed with local area leaders and shared with DfE and NHS England which will not be published

Specific guidance on these visits can be found here.