Extra Support in School

Most children with special educational needs (SEN) go to a mainstream school.

The law says that schools must do everything they can to make sure children with SEN get the extra support they need to achieve as well as they can. Mainstream schools do this through a system called SEN support.

The school must publish information about how they support pupils with SEN. It must also have a policy setting out how it supports disabled pupils to be included in school activities.

Every mainstream school has a special educational needs coordinator (SENCO) who is responsible for organising extra help for pupils with SEN. The SENCO works with the class teachers and subject teachers to plan the help each child needs.

The school must tell you if they are giving your child this extra help. It should work with you and your child to plan their support and regularly check how your child is progressing.

What kind of support can my child’s school provide?

Every school must publish an SEN Information Report (SEND Code of Practice section 6.79). This must include:

• Arrangements for consulting parents of children with SEN and involving them in their child’s education.
• Arrangements for assessing and reviewing children’s progress towards outcomes.
• Arrangements for children and young people moving between phases of education and in preparing for adulthood.
• Approach to teaching, the expertise and training of school staff and how specialist expertise will be available.
• Support for improving emotional and social development, including listening to the views of children with SEN and measures to prevent bullying.
• How children with SEN are supported to access activities in the school that are available to pupils without SEN.
• How the school involves health, social care and local authorities to provide support for families.
• Arrangements for handling complaints from parents of children with SEN.

Your child’s school must tell you if your child is receiving special educational provision through SEN support.

The SEN support plan

The school should draw up an SEN support plan, involving you and your child, focusing on the outcomes your child needs and wants to achieve and detailing how the school will help them to achieve these.

The school should give you clear information about the extra help your child is getting. The school should meet with you at least three times a year to review how your child is progressing and what the next steps will be. This should be in addition to scheduled parents’ evening meetings. The school must provide a report at least once a year on your child’s progress.

The SEND Code of Practice says that schools should use a ‘graduated approach’, or four-part cycle (Assess, Plan, Do and, Review) to support your child with SEN. This means that the SENCO and teaching staff should:

• Analyse your child’s difficulties.
• Identify the extra support your child needs.
• Put the support in place.
• Regularly check how well it is working so that they can change the amount or kind of support if they need to.

The school can ask specialist support services, for example, educational psychology, behaviour support or speech and language therapy to carry out assessments and provide further advice and support if necessary.

What if my child needs more help than their school can give?

A small number of pupils may need more help than a mainstream school can normally give at the level of SEN support. Such pupils will need an Educational and Health Care needs assessment to decide what help they need. This assessment can lead to an Education Health and Care (EHC) plan.

Pupils with an EHC Plan can go to a mainstream school or a special school, depending on their needs. In a special school there are only pupils with special educational needs, and they will usually have needs that are more complex. The school may have specially trained teachers, therapists or special equipment to support them.

What if I have questions about how the school is supporting my child?

It’s a good idea to ask for a meeting with the class teacher, form tutor or SENCO to discuss extra support for your child. If they have had recent assessments or a diagnosis, it is important to share this information with the SENCO so that the school can better understand how to help your child at school.

You might want to ask someone who teaches your child and knows them well, such as the class teacher, form tutor or head of year, to attend the meeting as well.

Before the meeting

Look at the school’s policies on SEN, equality and behaviour to see how pupils with SEN and disabilities are supported in the school. Collect your own evidence to show your child’s difficulties. For example:

• Examples of schoolwork and homework, school reports, test results.
• Individual education plans, SEN support plans, behaviour support plan.
• Letters you have written to the school, home/school book entries.
• Any professional reports, or if school may already have them.
• Information about support they had in a previous school.

Write a list of your concerns. Mention:

• Progress, schoolwork, concentration, physical skills, relationships.
• Behaviour at school.
• Behaviour and mood at home.
• How your child feels about school.
• Other issues such as bullying, and any action taken so far.

At the meeting

During the meeting, you may want to ask:

• Is my child on SEN support?
• Can I see my child’s individual support plan?
• What assessments have the school done to find out about my child’s difficulties?
• Does my child get extra help from a teacher or another adult? What do they help him/her with?
• Is the help given in a group or individually? Is it every day? How long is that for?
• How do you measure my child’s progress? Is he/she making the progress you would expect?
• Have the school referred my child to specialist services – for example, educational psychology?
• What can I do at home to help my child?
• What will the next steps be if my child needs more help?
• Will the school request an EHC needs assessment or will they support me to make a parental request?

It is a good idea to make sure that at the end of the meeting, you and the school agree what will happen next. Ask for this to be put in writing. Agree a future date for another meeting to see if anything has changed. It’s helpful to end the meeting on a positive note by emphasising that you hope that you and the school can work together to support your child.