Notes about the term ‘waking day curriculum’

Why might it be of interest?

It’s not easy to gain agreement from the local authority for a residential placement for your young person.   There may be many arguments for the placement but one which will be relevant to many of our young people will be the need for a high level of consistency and cohesion between the ‘school’ part of their day and the ‘home’ part of their day.

If you are going to use this as a reason for a residential placement it is important that you understand the meaning of the terms and what, if any, legal standing they have.

Reading this document alongside the parent written 24 hour curriculum will give you a good understanding of the term and how you might use it in making your case.

The following information has been taken from the above guide which has extensive information about SEN and EHCPs.  These notes are relevant to the term waking day curriculum and how a young person’s educational needs may extend beyond the school day.  None of the text has been changed although legal references have been removed.  The relevant part begins on page 25 of the Noddy guide.

The notes are not specifically about securing a residential college placement but the content may be helpful when considering whether a residential college is, in fact, the right placement and what to think about when building the case for the placement.

Does the term waking day curriculum have any legal meaning?
No. The Upper Tribunal (UT) has acknowledged the imprecision of the term waking day curriculum. It generally means that “the person’s special educational needs are such that they call for special educational provision to be delivered beyond normal hours”. It may be linked with residential placement, but not necessarily so.

The following questions need to be asked:

(1) does the child/young person have a learning difficulty or disability and does that call for Special Educational Provision (SEP), if so the child/young person has SEN (Section B)

(2) what SEP is called for (Section F);

(3) what name or type of institution that the child/young person should attend

A waking day curriculum straddles Sections F and I.

Is there a particular rule about when a child requires out of hours SEP?
It has been said that a “waking day curriculum” (which in practice is likely to lead to a
requirement for a residential school placement) may be justified if the CYP needs to translate into his home and social and indeed all areas of his life and functioning, the skill which he learns within the school and school room.

On the other hand, simply because a CYP needs consistency of approach (i.e. to be dealt with out of school hours in the same way as within school hours) is not necessarily an educational need which should be met beyond the school day in a residential setting.

The question to be asked is whether the need for a consistent program was such that the CYP’s education could not reasonably be provided unless accommodated on the site where the CYP was educated.

When finding an educational need for a residential placement, the First Tier Tribunal (FTT) needed clearly to explain its finding that out of school hours SEP was required

Accordingly, the term ‘waking day curriculum’ does not, or should not at least provide a short-cut way of avoiding the need properly to evaluate what out of school-hours provision the child or young person requires, and why

The focus should be on what SEP the child requires, and when. If the educational provision in question can only be made out of school hours (which means that it is necessarily SEP), then that should be clearly set out in Section F (as being SEP)  and the question then arises as to whether that necessitates a residential placement in Section I or whether that our of school hours provision can be arranged by the LA in some other way.

Is there a particular rule about when a child requires out of hours SEP?
Examples of that situation might include:

• the position where more of the provision in question is needed than can be delivered within the hours of the school day
• where the child/young person specifically needs that provision throughout their waking hours (or at least beyond the school day)

• because the educational provision in question relates to something which does not happen at school, such as teaching the child/young person basic life skills or independent living skills such to dress or wash themselves when they wake up or at bedtime

Can learning life skills be SEP?
The key in each case is that the provision in question (whether initially seen as educational provision or as social care provision) involves education and/or training and the need for it goes beyond or outside the ordinary school day.

It is not sufficient to say that Special Care Provision (SCP) to help a CYP to generalise skills learnt at college in out of college time is automatically SEP.  The question is whether the SCP falls on the education and training side of the line or the support side of the line, which is a question of fact and degree for the FTT to determine in light of its own expertise:.

It follows that, where a need for educational provision outside the school day has been identified (and specified in section F) the LA cannot avoid the need to arrange that provision by saying that the parents should make that provision at home.

Can learning life skills be special educational provision?

Where a CYP does not just need help with basic life skills, such as dressing or washing, (sometimes referred to as independent living skills), which would be social care, but also needs to learn those things (such that the provision in question needs to educate/train the CYP to help develop/enhance their independent living skills or basic life skills) which could make it also educational provision; and so the CYP has an educational need arising from their difficulties in those areas.