What is SEND?
A child or young person may have special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) if they have learning difficulties or disabilities which:
Therefore, they may require additional support to be put in place in order for them to make good progress.
The SEND Code of Practice (2015)
The SEND Code of Practice outlines statutory duties which early years providers, schools, colleges and local authorities must comply with in regard to children with SEND. The full document can be found here:
Local authorities must outline their SEN support in their local offer. They must also consult with children and young people with SEN or disabilities and their parents when reviewing the local offer and when reviewing educational, training and social care provisions. Early years providers, schools and colleges must ensure high quality provision to meet the needs of children and young people with SEN. High quality teaching that is differentiated or adapted and personalised to the child will meet the majority of children’s needs. The SEND Code of Practice (2015) states, ‘Some children and young people need educational provision that is additional to or different from this. This is special educational provision under Section 21 of the Children and Families Act 2014. Schools and colleges must use their best endeavours to ensure that such provision is made for those who need it. Special educational provision is underpinned by high quality teaching and is compromised by anything less.’What is SEN support?
The SEND Code of Practice states that a child’s education setting should know precisely where children and young people are with their learning and development. Your child may be part of a monitoring and support process which the school may refer to as SEN support. This may occur when your child’s school believes that after short term intervention, the rate of progress is still limited and the gap between your child and their age-related peers continues to increase. In order to make this assessment, schools must but in place robust APDR (assess, plan, do, review) cycles. This requires schools to assess where your child currently is, plan well-researched interventions, carry out these interventions for a period of time and then review the outcomes of such interventions. If this period of APDR shows limited progress and all other external factors have been accounted for, your school should place your child on the SEN register for closer monitoring and targeted intervention.
External factors which can affect a child’s progress
A child’s progress is very rarely linear and many external factors can influence the rate of such progress. These include- but are not limited to – attendance, familial environments, bereavements, English as an additional language (EAL) and even a child’s birthday (summer babies are typically slightly behind their older peers with their development.
The SEN register
When a child or young person is identified as having SEN and therefore requires targeted SEN support, they are placed on the school’s SEN register. This is a list of children identified as having SEN and identifies the primary and/or secondary area of need (see below). If your child is placed on the school’s SEN register, the school should notify parents and carers of this, as well as include them in decision-making and reviews of progress. This list is confidential and fluid. A child can transition on and off the SEN register if the targeted support enables the attainment gap between a child and their peers to decrease.
The four broad areas of need
Children with SEN can fall into one, two, three or all four broad areas of need. The area of need in which a child is identified as having depends upon the needs they present with. The four broad areas of need are:
- Cognition and learning
- Communication and interaction
- Social, emotional and mental health
- Physical and sensory
Examples of which SEN fall into which category can be seen below:
| Broad area of need | Possible SEN presentations | |
|---|---|---|
| Cognition and learning | Dyslexia and dyscalculia (often referred to as specific learning difficulties), moderate learning difficulties, severe learning difficulties and profound and multiple learning difficulties. | |
| Communication and interaction | Autistic spectrum condition (ASC), Asperger’s, speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) | |
| Social, emotional mental health | Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), attachment and trauma, anxiety, depression, eating disorders. | |
| Physical and sensory | Hearing and visual impairments, physical disabilities and multi-sensory impairment, sensory processing difficulties and dyspraxia. |
Please note that educational settings cannot make diagnoses. In order for diagnoses to be made, schools must consult with qualified professionals. A diagnosis of dyslexia and dyscalculia can only be made by qualified specialist teachers certified by the AMBDA. Similarly, only qualified medical professionals can award diagnoses such as ADHD and ASC, for example.
SEN Support Plans
If your child is placed on the SEN register as they receive support that is additional to and different from the support required by their peers, schools should write an SEN support plan which outlines such provisions and their associated targets. These support plans may also be referred to as individual education plans (IEPs) or pupil passports. Irrespective of their name, these plans should all include the following:
- Views of the child and their parents/carer (the SEND Code of Practice promotes the inclusion of children and their parents/carers in their educational support)
- SMART. These are targets which are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound.
- An overview of the provision/strategies in place to support the achievement of these targets.
- A review of these targets which is conducted at least on a termly basis, the outcomes of which should be shared with the child and their parents/carers.
School funding for SEND
Schools receive funding from their local authority – often referred to as notional funding- to enable them to put some additional provisions in place for children with SEN in their setting. Note the word ‘some’. This funding is by no means exhaustive enough to provide each child with specialist support, such as that provided outside of the school setting. Where schools and/or parents feel that the levels of support currently being offered by the notional budget is not enough to meet the needs of a child with SEN, applications can be made to the local authority for an Education, Health and Care Plan needs assessment for additional funding. Please see EHCPs Explained for more information.