This article briefly explains what support a school should provide for children with SEND.
What does the law say about what a school should provide?
There are 3 key duties that a school must fulfil to meet the needs of the pupils with SEND that it has on roll.
SEN Support as set out in Chapter 6 of the Disability Code of Practice 2015
Best Endeavours Duty as set out in Section 66 of the Children and Families Act 2014
Equality Duty as set out in the Equality Act 2010
SEN Support
Chapter six of the SEN and Disability Code of Practice 2015 (the Code) sets out what mainstream schools (including mainstream academies) should do to meet their duties to identify and support all children with SEN.
Schools should assess each pupil’s current skills and levels of attainment on entry and regular further assessments should take place. These should seek to identify pupils making less than expected progress.
Areas of SEN are identified under 4 categories:
communication and interaction
cognition and learning
social, emotional and mental health, and
sensory and/or physical needs.
Schools must then plan how they will meet each of these areas of need, and make sure that their staff have relevant training and are equipped to respond. Support at this stage is called SEN Support.
The school should use a graduated approach following the cycle of Assess, Plan, Do and Review:
Assess: The teacher, working with the SENCO, is responsible for assessing a pupil’s needs, using their teacher assessments and experience of the pupil.
Plan: A plan must then be drawn up which details how the child’s needs will be met. Parents must be notified and all teachers and support staff who work with a pupil should be made aware of their needs, the outcomes sought, the support provided and any teaching strategies that are required.
Do: The planned interventions should then be put into place. The teacher should work closely with any teaching assistants or specialist staff involved, and the SENCO to do this.
Review: Reviews should take place and inform feedback provided. The Code does not state how often reviews should take place, but given the Code suggests schools should meet with parents three times a year, good practice would be for reviews to take place at least termly. The decision to involve specialists can be taken at any time and should always involve parents.
If your child’s school has taken the action above but your child is still not making expected progress, the school should consider requesting an Education, Health and Care needs assessment. You could also make this request yourself. For more detail on how to do this see our blog here and Webinar here
Best Endeavours Duty
This duty applies to:
mainstream schools (including mainstream academies)
maintained (state-funded) nursery schools
16-19 academies
alternative provision providers
Further Education institutions
Pupil referral units
It does not apply to special schools or independent schools.
Section 66 of the Children and Families Act 2014 states that the school must use their ‘best endeavours’ to secure special educational provision for all children or young people for whom they are responsible. This means doing everything that could reasonably be expected of it to meet the SEN of its pupils.
This applies to all children with SEN, whether they have an EHC plan or not.
The governing body, proprietor or management committee must do everything that could reasonably be expected of it to meet the child, or young person’s SEN.
Using best endeavours means doing everything they can to meet the child or young person’s SEN.
This template letter from IPSEA will help you to challenge a school if you do not feel that it is meeting its best endeavours duty.
Equality Duty
Reasonable adjustments are changes that organisations and people providing services must make if someone’s physical or mental disability puts them at a disadvantage compared with others who aren’t disabled.
This is separate to requirements related to physical changes that make a building accessible, such as disabled toilets.
It means schools have a legal obligation under the Equality Act 2010 to support pupils who are disabled with reasonable adjustments, making sure they can benefit from what the school offers in the same way as a pupil who isn’t disabled.
A school must not discriminate against a disabled pupil because of something that is a consequence of their disability.
Schools should think about how all aspects of the school day could be adjusted to meet the needs of the disabled child, including attendance and behaviour, so that everyone is set high expectations and feels they belong in the school community.
Failure to provide reasonable adjustments could be disability discrimination. For more information on this, see further details from IPSEA here.
Where do I go from here, and how can Empowering Families of Children with SEND Ltd help me?
In addition to their free support and extensive webinar library, Empowering Families of Children with SEND Ltd also provide fully bespoke 1:1 SEND support with Anna & Sarah as part of their professional service. For details click here: Bespoke 1:1 support from Anna & Sarah
You can find testimonials to our bespoke services on our website and Facebook business page - here
We are, and always will be, Stronger Together.
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