SEN Support

If your child is identified as having a special educational need they will be put on the SEN (Special Educational Needs) register. You should be told if your child has special educational needs and given details of any extra help they are being given.

Schools will use an ‘Assess, Plan, Do, Review’ model to monitor progress of pupils with SEN and to measure the effectiveness of the support they put in place. Schools should involve you in developing and reviewing the support plan. Different schools use different names for these plans. Some of the common ones are:

• SEN support plan
• Provision plan
• Individual Education Plan
• Individual Learning Plan

How often should support be reviewed? 

Schools must provide annual reports for parents on their child’s progress. 

In addition, if a child is receiving SEN Support the school should talk to parents regularly to set outcomes and review progress and discuss what support will be available to help them. School and parents should meet at least 3 times each year. 

Do I need an Education Health and Care Plan to get support? 

No. All schools have an amount of money within their overall budget called the notional SEN budget which they can use to support pupils with SEN. They will be expected to use up to £6,000 before they seek additional funding. Find out more about school funding by reading our leaflet:

School can provide many different types of support

• A special learning programme for your child
• Extra help from a teacher or teaching assistant (TA) within the class
• Working with your child in a small group
• Working individually with your child
• Using different equipment or materials
• Providing movement breaks, fidget tools
• Supporting your child to develop social skills
• Helping with physical or personal care
• Advice or extra help from specialists

Involving specialists 

Schools should consider involving specialists if a pupil continues to make little or no progress despite support, but they can also contact them for advice on identifying SEN and effective support.

They should always discuss the involvement of specialists with parents and should share what has been discussed. 

They have access to a range of specialists e.g:  

• Emotional literacy support assistants (ELSAs)
• Specialist teachers 
• Educational psychologist 
• Behaviour support (provided by Foundry College in Wokingham) 
• Speech and Language Therapists
• Physiotherapists
• Occupational Therapists

You can find details of how each school meets the needs of SEN pupils on the:

SEND Local Offer directory

The local authority provide a document titled Ordinarily Available Provision - A Graduated Response, giving details of the support which a child or young person can expect to receive from education settings from the funding available to them. You can find the document on the help with learning page of the SEND Local Offer.

When to request and Education, Health and Care Needs Assessment 

If the school has put extra support in place and have tried everything available to them, and your child is still not making progress, or the gap between them and their peers is increasing then you may need to request an EHC needs assessment.